Financial resolutions for 30 and 40 somethings

Posted on January 18, 2018January 18, 2018 by Danielle

I’ll control the amount of money I spend on a house. What lenders will loan you is not necessarily what you should spend. Your housing decision drives the costs of many other things in your budget: upkeep, insurance, repair costs, and maybe status decisions such as where you send your kids to school and what car(s) you drive. Once you commit, it’s a fixed cost that isn’t easy to reduce. Keep your housing cost (mortgage+interest+taxes+homeowner’s insurance) to 28% or less of your gross and you’ll reduce stress and free up money for savings.

I’ll increase my retirement savings with every raise. Try to add at least half of every raise to your retirement savings. Aim for the maximum allowable contribution of $18,500 to your 401k/403b and fund a Roth if you can. In which order depends on your income, employer match, and investment options in the workplace plan.

I’ll start saving something for my children’s education as soon as they’re born. Just as with retirement savings, the earlier you start, the less you have to save later. No, they won’t earn their own way. No, they’re not so smart they’ll get a full-ride scholarship. Just. No. Save something—anything is better than nothing.

I’ll hold on to my bonuses and any inheritance. Too many people get used to depending on a bonus for their regular lifestyle, but a company can go south and the first thing eliminated is the bonus. Try to regard the bonus as bonus savings—for investment, emergencies, etc. What to do with an inheritance depends on the size, but consider no more than half of it available for spending, and make that spending a worthwhile purchase (such as real estate) that has some potential to grow. Windfalls don’t come that often in life, so don’t blow it.

I’ll do everything I can to become debt free. I don’t think I need to belabor the point about credit cards, but by your 40s it’s time to chip away school debt as well, before you have to start paying for your kids’ college.

I won’t cosign any loans. If the bank doesn’t think the person is creditworthy, why should you? And if were talking about guaranteeing a college loan, understand that if your child drops out, or becomes permanently disabled, or dies, you’ll probably still owe the money. You can always help the kid pay off the loan in the future if you can afford it—just don’t cosign it!

I’ll carefully consider the financial costs before deciding to stay at home with the kids. Deciding to quit employment to be with your children is, of course, not exclusively based on finances. I did it, and I’m glad I did. But there are costs—depending on how long, you can significantly impact your Social Security benefit, as well as your future employability, advancement, and re-entry salary. Most likely, you will have no disability insurance, and if you or the wage earner become ill or disabled, or you get divorced, it can be catastrophic. I urge most clients contemplating this to keep their professional networks alive, keep abreast of their field, and, if possible, get extra training or continue working at least part time.

I’ll expect my kids to contribute to household upkeep and earn money as soon as they’re able. Not only does this build life skills, but it conveys to the children that you respect them as being able to produce value and have worth. Any kind of outside job shows kids a world, life choices, and consequences beyond what they can learn in their family, and gives them the experience of being evaluated without the protection of a family or age cohort. Even the difficulty of finding one, and the perhaps soul-less experience of a really boring or difficult job can teach the kid a lot of motivation.

And, do take a look at my post for millenials–it’s still applicable to you.

Some resolutions for millennials

Posted on January 3, 2018January 3, 2018 by Danielle

I thought I might start off January with some financial resolutions for people at different stages of life, based upon what seems to be difficult but achievable. I’m not going to suggest lose weight and get more exercise because I’m going to try to come up with things you and I might actually do. I’ll disclose a secret and say I’m not actually a millennial. But one lives here, and I meet with millennials fairly frequently. Even if you’re not a millenial, some of these will still apply. So here goes:

I will calm down about my student loans. Just about everyone has them, and everyone hates them. It’s probably too late to do anything about what you borrowed, now, so you have to think through how to manage them. They’re not shameful—they were an investment you made in getting a better job. If they’re fairly low, say under $30,000, it’s really the equivalent of paying off a car over 10 years (rather than 3 or 5 for an actual car). If they’re higher, hopefully you have selected a career that made it worthwhile—if not, you should definitely look into the various programs to bring down the monthly payment.
I will assess whether I should pay off my loans early. If your loans are the subsidized kind (under 4%) you’ll probably be better off investing and saving rather than rushing to pay them off—in the long run, the same money judiciously invested will earn more than the loan is costing you.
I’ll make sensibly frugal choices. Don’t buy an expensive car (or even a new one) until you’ve worked out a budget. Watch the rent you commit to paying. Try to downshift spending without denying yourself the fun—go out, but maybe drink beer instead of a craft cocktail. Meet for drinks instead of dinner. Choose a medium priced restaurant and do your gourmet eating and drinking at home—you can buy a pretty darn good bottle of wine for the cost of a glass or two at a restaurant. You get the idea.
I’ll contribute to my retirement plan the day I’m eligible. There will never be a better time in the future when it will be easier. It’s always hard. If you never get used to that 10%, you won’t miss it as much.
I’ll think of that retirement account as gone and locked up. Don’t borrow from it and don’t even think of cashing it in when you change jobs.
I’ll build up an emergency fund before I take a vacation. Or buy a house. Or have kids.
I’ll commit to paying off my credit cards every month, and pay attention to how to maximize rewards. Play that right and you’ll be able to take more vacations.
I’ll manage my career. Think of your career as an investment asset—get all the training you can to continuously upgrade skills. Everyone gets a terrible boss someday, and everyone has co-workers they can’t stand. Get interpersonal skills training, read up on coping skills, and always have a plan B for moving on. Go to conferences and networking events in your field, and learn as much as you can about marketing. If you’re dreaming about a creative or independent job, realize that at least 60% of that job will be selling the product, not creating the product.
Insofar as possible, I won’t quit without lining up another job. If I get fired, I’ll find career services or a job hunting group to get me back on my feet as soon as possible. Losing a job is debilitating and depressing, even if you hate it. Finding a new one is a part time job. Plan for it.
I’ll pay attention to my employee benefits. Employee benefits can be worth 1/3 of your salary. Does the job offer a Flexible Spending Account? Disability coverage? Free life insurance? How much vacation time? What’s the deductible on the health insurance? Decent or crappy investment options in the 401k? Good employer match, bad, or none? Will they pay for more education (which I will definitely avail myself of)? These are things that you should know before you accept a job, because they’re potentially worth thousands to you. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve seen who have paid for a lawyer to produce a will (or not made one at all) when their employer offers low cost legal service. Just go light your cigar with a $500 bill.
I’ll set savings and required payments on autopilot by setting up auto withdrawals. Making a decision once, by setting them up, is more likely to continue (on time) than if you have to make a decision every month. You can always cancel the auto-pay if you absolutely must.
I’ll learn about investing. Even if you’re a good saver, you need to educate yourself about investing. I can almost guarantee you didn’t learn about it in school, and unless your parents were exceptional, you didn’t learn it at home either. The only way is self-study—and don’t believe anything you hear at one of those free “investing” lunches—nothing in the investment world is EVER free.

Happy new year and best wishes for 2018.

How to plan when you don’t know the future

Posted on May 17, 2017May 17, 2017 by Danielle

Source: Yahoo finance

We live in uncertain times. I can’t think of any time in my life that that statement wasn’t true—we can never know the future. When it comes to investing and the stock market, predictions are pretty much worthless—since I bought my first stock at 28 years old, I’ve heard just about everything: don’t buy stocks now (whenever!), bonds are not really safe, Dow will hit 30,000, Dow will go down the tubes.

Most recently there was the expectation that the market would crash if the current incumbent was elected. Now there’s the worry that it will crash if he’s impeached. That might have some basis in fact. The S&P 500 declined about 50% from 1973 to Nixon’s resignation in August, 1974, according to this article. (While I remember Watergate, I wasn’t all that interested in the market at that time.) But as the article makes clear, a lot of other economic factors impacted that recession.

Analysis is perfect in retrospect. The best time to invest is usually some time before you did. Those of us who have faced challenging life circumstances—divorce, unemployment, illness—also know what it’s like to try to plan the future when that future seems radically altered. During those times, people often believe they have no future. But we always have a future (unless we’re dead); it’s just a different future than what we planned.

As I wrote in my client newsletter the day after the election (email me if you want a copy) we can take some protective steps no matter how uncertain our personal or political future seems.

Build an emergency fund

There’s just no substitute for this. In the middle of a crisis, it’s hard to increase it, so do your best to build it pro-actively. And if you’re in a situation where you need to draw it down, do so in the most frugal manner possible.

Improve your earning power

Get more education, build skills, get quality career counseling, and get out of the office and network. Think through ways to build a side income—gig economy, small business startup with LOW or no investment, whatever you can do.

Think through whether it really makes sense to quit your job to start a business: could you test the idea part time? Have you written a business plan and had someone else vet it?

Most important, guard against lifestyle creep. When you get a raise or earn extra, hold on to it! Use the improved earnings to build up your personal safety net.

Diversify your investments

For at least the past 10 years, I’ve been hearing how bonds are a terrible investment. During that same period of time, the Vanguard Total Bond Index mutual fund has had an annualized return of 4.17%–not great, but better than leaving it in your mattress, and beating inflation handily. People who had 40-50% of their portfolio in bonds during the 2007-2009 crash lost far less than those who were 100% in stocks. But in the doubling of the market after the crash, people who had abandoned stocks lost a ton of potential increases. Neither you nor I nor any of those genius active fund managers are going to make the right single bet on the market roulette wheel at any given time, so the safety move is to spread bets (investments) widely.

Take care of yourself

Making yourself sick is not going to cause one bit of change in an ex-spouse or corrupt politician. Eat well, see the doctor and dentist, exercise, and get a hobby—build yourself up and distract yourself with pleasurable activities to control how much you allow yourself to get worked up. People make very poor financial decisions under stress, so delay major decisions until you can think straight and get some expert input. On the other hand, don’t become paralyzed—not to decide is to decide (Harvey Cox)—and avoiding decisions for very long periods mean you’ve lost control over your own life.

Join something bigger than yourself

Times of turmoil are great times to join a group, take a class, do volunteer or advocacy work. You’ll feel less alone, find ways to get input on personal decisions, and learn how to exert influence on issues that concern you. Studying history, learning to draw, joining a book or investment club, or becoming active in a political group can all impact your personal success, life satisfaction, and ability to envision a future you can plan for.

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