Don't neglect financial planning's missing middle

A reader without a firm sense of their own goals writes in frustrated after two fee-only planning firms turned them away, unable to work with someone who could not yet say what they actually wanted their money to do. Allan uses the story to name a gap he sees often: most planning processes jump straight from gathering someone's numbers to handing them a finished solution, skipping the step in between where a person figures out what they even want. He calls that missing step scenario planning, a chance to test a range of what-if paths, different living situations, lifestyles, family choices and career moves, and see what each one would actually look like before committing to a goal. It is less about running projections and more about giving someone room to discover what is realistic and what matters to them, so the eventual plan is built on a goal they actually chose rather than one handed to them. It is a validating read for anyone who felt unprepared or turned away by a planning process that assumed they already knew the answer.