Many people underestimate the importance of personal financial planning. In 2024, a survey from Northwest Mutual found that while U.S. adults believe they will need $1.46 million on average to retire comfortably, those adults only have an average of $88,400 in savings. This holds true for the aging and rapidly retiring Baby Boomer generation — the generation one would think is close to achieving their wealth goals. While this generation believes they need an average of $990,000 to retire, their average savings amounts to only $120,300.

Clearly, there is a gap between what people think they should save and the amount of money they actually put away and invest for their later years. This gap is what personal financial planning seeks to address and remedy.

If you want to expand your knowledge of this crucial area of finance, coursework in the online Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a Concentration in Finance program from Texas A&M University Corpus-Christi (TAMU-CC) offers the in-depth study of personal financial planning. As a student, you gain expertise in the professional practice and learn how to create your own personal financial plan, ensuring financial growth and security for you and your future clients.

The Importance of Personal Financial Planning

Creating a personal financial plan is beneficial for MBA students of any age. Having a plan in place as early as possible can get you on the right track and help you avoid potential mistakes. The earlier you start saving for stages like retirement, the more time your investments have to grow.

A personal financial plan can help with the following:

  • Organizing your finances
  • Defining realistic financial goals
  • Clarifying cash flow and spending trends
  • Revealing current mistakes you might be making
  • Demonstrating actionable steps towards meeting your goals within a certain time frame
  • Identifying potential risks to your financial security
  • Aligning your assets and investments with your financial goals
  • Estate planning
  • Growing your overall wealth

Businesses Also Use Financial Planning

The majority of an online MBA program focuses on business, but some of these lessons also apply to personal finances. Individuals and businesses both must sustain earnings, pay taxes and monitor spending. Businesses make and use financial plans with the same basic goal as personal plans: to define financial goals and allocate assets properly to meet those goals.

To create a financial plan, businesses rely on financial forecasts. Similar forecasts are useful in personal finances. For a business, a financial forecast gives an estimate of the revenue the business is likely to receive in the future, as well as expected expenses. For individuals, this translates to projected income and expenses. Knowing how much money you are likely to earn over a given period of time is essential for accurate financial planning.

How the Online MBA Program Helps Students With Personal Financial Planning

In addition to business finance courses in a finance MBA program, there are also courses that benefit personal finances. One course in TAMU-CC’s Finance MBA program, for example, concentrates exclusively on personal financial planning. Topics covered include savings, taxes, insurance, investing, planning for retirement and estate planning. Other courses go more in-depth with the study of financial institutions, markets, investment strategies and international finance. All these topics can play a role in optimizing personal finances.

Experts recommend individuals hire professional personal finance planners for their knowledge and expertise. If you complete TAMU-CC’s MBA in Finance, you gain the understanding and confidence in financial topics needed for a career in finance and have the opportunity to create your own personal financial plan.

Having a financial plan means having a guide for financial stability and comfortable living. An MBA with a concentration in finance goes beyond business finance to teach you about personal financial planning for your own future — knowledge you can rely on long after graduation.

Learn more about the TAMU-CC online MBA in Finance program.