Personal Financial Planning - Overview and Q&A

Instructor: Derek Jones
Most of you know me as a Woodshop Steward, but outside of Hackerspace I am a finance professional, specializing in financial planning for individuals and businesses. I work with Northwestern Mutual, you may have seen the office at the end of Laurel Ave on Westshore, just a few blocks from Hackerspace.

In my experience, a lot of people could benefit from some financial planning overview information, but most people don't seek it out due to the "salesy/pushy" nature of the industry. So I wanted to put this out and see if it would be useful to members of the space.

My intention is to provide a brief overview and context on what everyone should know about financial planning, and then have the rest of it be Q&A driven by attendees. Since this is a group session, we'll only be able to talk about general topics, we won't be able to get into any individual situations or recommendations.

Topics we will cover:

- What is financial planning and why do people do it?
- What strategies do people use to invest and grow their savings?
- What strategies do people use to turn their savings into income when they retire?
- How do taxes figure into a financial plan?
- What are the risks in a financial plan, and what strategies do people use to mitigate them?
Topics we won't cover:
- Which way is the stock market headed?
- What's a hot stock I should buy?
- What do you think I should do?
- Can you tell me if I'm doing the right things?
- Is crypto a legit investment?

I hope this will be useful to people. Members are very DIY by nature, so look at this as an opportunity to ask questions of someone who does this professionally and give you some things to consider in your own approach to financial planning.

Please note: this is not an official Tampa Hackerspace event.