The proverbial writing has been on the wall for a while, but now it's official: the Social Security withdraw-and-reapply strategy will no longer be available, except under relatively limited circumstances. On the plus side, though, it appears that the strategy has been far more hype than actual value, and the number of people directly affected should be very minimal.
Do You REALLY Have A PLAN For Dealing With A Decline In The Markets?
One of the often-professed virtues of financial planning is that while we cannot necessarily completely prevent market declines from impacting client portfolios, at least when they do happen, “we have a plan.” Yet for too many financial planners, the reality is that the “plan” is nothing more than “we’ll keep doing exactly what we have been doing, and wait and hope for things to get better.” Well, if your only plan for dealing with a market decline is waiting it out in the hopes that things will recover in a timely manner, you don’t really have a plan; you just have a hope. A real plan takes more.
Good (Career) Wellbeing Promotes Good Financial Health – And It Just Makes You Happier, Too!
In the research on Wellbeing, nothing is more important than being able to wake up every morning with something to look forward to doing that day. The impact of having high Career Wellbeing on happiness exceeds even the benefits of having good financial health.
On the other hand, part of the value of having a positive career is its ability to propel your financial wellbeing forward as well! Yet the research is also clear that while career wellbeing promotes financial health, it's not about how much money you make!
Does the Probability of Success Drive Your Retirement Plan?
As Monte Carlo analysis becomes increasingly popular in retirement plans, financial planners are talking more and more about the probabilities of a client's success or failure. Yet in the end, most planners evaluate client goals, look at the probability of success (defined usually as not running out of money), and the client makes a decision about whether they like the result or not. Oddly enough, planners rarely take the next logical step: ask the client what probabilities they would like to see, and use that risk/success metric to determine what the other answers - such as retirement spending or the retirement year - could be.
Starting A Financial Planning Career – Think It’s Been Hard In The Past? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!
Most young planners have heard the stories about how difficult it was in the past to start a financial planning firm. The business was all about products, and sales. It was an "eat what you kill" world - and if you couldn't hunt effectively for business, you didn't survive long. Yet the reality is that as the financial planning world changes and evolves, it is actually getting even harder to start a firm now than it was in the past. Because while it may have been difficult to sell products as a 20-something-year-old "kid" in order to survive a decade or two ago, that's nothing compared to the challenge of trying to be a 20-something-year-old comprehensive financial planning expert who can build a deep advisory relationship with a stranger!
Worried About Spending? Focus On What REALLY Matters! (And It’s Not The Small Stuff!)
The personal finance space has no shortage of tips to managing your spending, from bag lunches in lieu of eating out at work to home-brewed coffee instead of the morning Starbucks routine. Yet the reality seems to be that in so many situations, we dig ourselves a tremendous spending hole because of our big purchases, and then worry tremendously about the small stuff trying to make up the difference. If you really want to change your financial reality for the better, though, it's the big stuff you really need to focus on - where you live, and what you drive.
In-Plan Roth 401(k) Rollover Conversion Guidance Issued by IRS
The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, passed earlier this year on September 27th, opened up the possibility of completing an in-plan Roth conversion rollover from a 401(k) or 403(b) to a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b). However, the rules are not quite as simple and flexible as typical Roth conversions, due to the fact that the account is still first and foremost a qualified employer retirement plan. Fortunately, the IRS has issued guidance to help individuals understand the details of the new rules - which is fortunate, because there are some significant differences that could otherwise catch clients (and their planners) unaware!
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Secular Bull and Bear Market Cycles – Planning Implications
Although financial planners often rely on long-term averages when making capital market assumptions - whether to design a portfolio or create a retirement plan - there is a growing body of research that makes it clear: not all starting points are the same. Even over time horizons as long as 20-30 years or more, investing in high valuation environments tends to lead to below-average returns (and a notable dearth of results significantly above average), and the reverse is true if valuation is low when the investor begins. While many have written about the investment implications of market valuation, my interest is broader - how would it change our financial planning recommendations, beyond just the portfolio composition?
Key to Financial WellBeing: Money Helps, But It Depends How You Spend It
As sayings go, money can't buy love, and the love of money is the root of all evil. They also say that money can't buy happiness, but some interesting recent research shows that actually, financial wealth levels really do affect happiness. However, it only helps if you spend it on the "right" things, and act up front to head off your irrationality.
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What Are The Assumptions That REALLY Drive Your Client’s Plan?
Any form of long-term projection is built on the back of assumptions. In the case of a retirement plan, there are several key factors, including portfolio composition (and assumed growth rates), inflation rates, savings, retirement spending, time horizon until retirement, and the duration of retirement. Yet the reality is that not all of these assumptions have equal impact; some are far more dramatic drivers of plan results than others, and which are most important varies by the client situation. In other words, there are assumptions, and there are ASSUMPTIONS! Have you ever examined the sensitivity of your client's financial plan to the assumptions they're using, so you can determine which factors are the most important to focus upon?
