Banknotes

Thomas Edison famously said, “The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are: hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common sense.” These essentials are present throughout the writings of financial author David Bach, best known for his Finish Rich and Automatic Millionaire book series.

We hope you are staying safe and encourage you to use this time for “spring cleaning” of your estate and financial plans! During these unprecedented times, many of us are staying home more often and finding ourselves with extra time on our hands. Now, more than ever, it is important to make sure the many aspects of our financial futures are in order.

The coronavirus has radically affected the lives of everyone in this country – and, indeed, the world – in an unprecedentedly short amount of time. News of it on the radio, TV, and internet seems all-consuming. This piece is not intended as an update on the virus, because by the time it’s published any news contained herein will be outdated. Instead, the purpose here is to discuss the investing environment, both during this crisis and beyond.

“If you don’t know exactly where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?” That’s a very good question, posed by author and behavioral science academic, Steve Maraboli.

It resonates with financial planners who work to develop sound plans that help ensure long-term financial security for clients and their families. Financial decisions nearly always involve trade-offs – proverbial forks in the road, if you will. Absent a well-crafted plan, one is behaving as if it doesn’t matter which road is taken. Nothing could be further from the truth!

You’ve done everything you were supposed to do. You’ve saved, invested, and you have a total of $1,000,000 in your employer retirement plan. You even got the memo about Roth contributions, and $200,000 of your million is in Roth contributions. You’ve decided that now is the time to ride off into the sunset and enter the wonderful world of retirement. What’s next?

Congress’s well-intentioned plan to bolster retirements for working Americans – the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act – will come with its own set of wrinkles and challenges for defined-contribution plan sponsors (e.g., 403[b], 401[k], etc, which I’ll collectively refer to as “401[k] plans,” for the purposes of this article).

I have to be brief and selective, but here are a few topics to consider carefully if you are tasked with administering the plan for your co-workers or employees.

In today’s increasingly digitized world, consumers do not lack for banking options; in fact, they’ve never had so many at their disposal. Accordingly, many choose to spread their money among several institutions, to create a “diversified portfolio” of providers for their discrete financial needs. While this approach is not without its benefits, there’s another that may deliver even more value: It’s called the “full-banking relationship,” and while it can help save time, money, and stress, perhaps its most valuable “feature” is peace of mind.

With traditional pension plans all but gone, many workers have been left to rely on a 401(k) plan as their primary source of income in retirement. There’s just one problem with that: Multiple studies indicate that approximately 40 million Americans do not have a workplace retirement plan.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that 2019 was a year that rose out of the ashes of the fourth quarter of 2018. People’s memories seem to be getting shorter, so it can be easy to forget how bad that quarter was. Technically, the economy entered a bear market in December, though many may not have realized it at the time. The reason being, most people measure such things at the close of trading each day, and while the market did hit a point where it was down 20% from its peak, it didn’t close that way. If it had, economists would be either talking about a new bull market or looking for a catalyst to set the stage for one. Given the speed of the market’s recovery, benefited by several record-setting highs, it is safe to assume that the longest-running bull market in history continues unabated, likely with more to come. The past year returned exceptional results in virtually every category, including fixed income.

Pensions are among the rarest of rarities and will never return. The future of Social Security is stressed, and the ultimate destination of our healthcare system is uncertain to say the least.

What’s a person to do? The answer is simple: Begin planning for retirement in earnest and implement your plan – the sooner the better. Here are three checklists, compiled by decade, that will help guide your planning and keep you heading in the right direction.