June, 2022 | Live a Life By Design

Defining Retirement Success

Posted on June 24, 2022June 24, 2022 by Jimmy J. Williams, CPA/PFS, CFP®

The word “success” scares a lot of people, confuses some and eludes most. This word is such a phenomenon that many of us can’t define it in terms that are relatable to others. Why is this so? I believe the word “success” has been given a bad reputation because many people associate the word with wealth or money.

Success is simply the level of happiness you attain in life. If this means you must possess great wealth to be happy, be careful for what you wish. Many of the wealthiest families I know have experienced significant familial hardships throughout the decades. Too many opportunities for negative aspects of life to become entrenched in your family are realized. Simply put, to seek a goal of having an abundance of wealth for wealth’s sake is not a proper goal. It is the person you become while attaining wealth that should be the goal – more charitable, more caring, more family supportive.

As retirement planning specialists, we are often asked, “How much money do I need to retire?” This question is valid and the answer is, “Enough to meet your family’s needs and acquire some of your wants.” When we state this response to our client the wheels start turning in their mind and their eyes become bigger. The follow-up response is, “How do I know what my needs and wants are for this purpose?”

Now we are at the point of the matter. Too often retirees compare their personal situation to generic plans or the specific plans of others with dissimilar facts. The most significant and impactful approach to retirement success is cash flow planning. By understanding your cash inflows and managing your cash expenditures on a monthly basis, you will gain confidence that your time in retirement will be enjoyed.

Let’s explore some critical errors to avoid in retirement. The first four to five years of retirement should be funded in a manner that you are not required to take significant distributions from your long-term funding sources such as Traditional IRAs or Roth IRAs. To leave these pools of money intact is critical in the later years of retirement when additional cash outflows are required for health maintenance and other lifestyle needs.

Another error in retirement is improper use of resources in elimination of debt. Ideally, we prefer our clients to be debt-free before initiating retirement. However, in some cases this is simply not feasible. To effectively create a means where your assets are creating sufficient income streams to address the monthly outlay for housing or automobiles, your asset allocation should consist of more income-generating assets such as bonds, real estate and value stocks. Project the return your portfolio may generate and compare the need for the payments you must tender each month. If your portfolio is generating a greater return than the interest charged on your indebtedness, you are on the right track. In this instance, your earnings on the investments will, over time, completely liquidate the indebtedness.

If retiring in the current market cycle, additional challenges will need to be overcome in your investment strategy. Further, if possible, it would advisable to delay retirement if you’re concerned about the sufficiency of income from your existing sources to fund your lifestyle in retirement.

Deciding to retire is a huge life event. One shouldn’t make this decision without consideration for all aspects of life that require use of resources. If you are considering retirement within the next five years, it would benefit you to create a plan of action that will give you confidence and comfort that your life will continue on your terms. Contact a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM professional to obtain a second opinion or construct a plan that meets your goals and desires. Remember, you retire for the first time only once. It is better to be confident than to be forced to correct course at a time in life you should be enjoying your time. Make it a great weekend!

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Opportunity or Tragedy?

Posted on June 16, 2022June 16, 2022 by Jimmy J. Williams, CPA/PFS, CFP®

The world has become a tenuous planet over the past couple of years. Many people have been impacted, some positively and many negatively. How do you think a person can become positively affected by such trauma and chaos in the world? First, the maintenance of attitude.

Negative people only seek ratification of their advice by recruiting others to the depths they find themselves. The positive people will be a much smaller, yet growing, group of people. No matter the opportunity, someone will always find the negative or “how can I lose” option in the venture. This mindset has not created happy people but rather a group of cynical, and often, maligned population that is skeptical of all positive attributes of life.

A person’s attitude is influenced in many ways. It is better to feed your mind with positive stories of successful people than to focus on excessive newsfeeds of the tragedies of the world. I recommend a good book be the focus of your time rather than negative news on a daily basis.

Another attitude influence is the friend circle you maintain. Personally, I spend ninety-nine percent of time around people that are successful, optimistic and charitable. There is always a success story shared among the group that inspires the rest of us to keep growing and making the world a better place for mankind. The most important asset we hold is our attitude. Assets and net worth are merely tools to accomplishing and maintaining a positive outlook in life by contributing the improvement of less fortunate people. When I see the reaction of families that are recipients of positive support, it motivates me to work harder in creating greater change in our community.

The stock market has recently reached bear market territory. That simply means the S&P 500 Index has fallen by 20% since January 1, 2022. Many of us look at our investment statements on the day after such market changes are posted and frown. Some of us look at this lower price in stocks as an opportunity to buy undervalued stocks that will pay dividends for decades to support our livelihood. Remember, the United States stock exchanges are auction markets. For every one that wishes to sell a stock, someone else must be willing to buy it.

For example, if I were to sell XYZ stock and posted my intentions on the exchange at “market”, a buyer could purchase the stock at whatever its price at the moment of purchase was posted in the marketplace. However, if I were a potential purchaser, I may wish to calculate a target price for which I wish to purchase XYZ and order a stock buy at the price. This means if I want to purchase for $25 and the stock is currently at $26 in the market, my buy order will go unfilled until the stock hits the order price called a buy limit order.

Why I am telling you all of this about attitude and your finances? The real reason is that you have worked for more than 30 years accumulating sufficient assets for your lifetime needs. Don’t allow your fears to cause you to make an immediate decision on a lifetime investment because of short-term market activities. We, as a country, have been here before in the markets and we will improve, and most likely, set new market highs in the future. The bigger question is when.

The manner you have invested your lifetime savings is critical to your long-term success. If you have concerns about your portfolio’s allocation and capabilities to withstand significant market headwinds, consider contacting a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM professional. The goal is lifetime income for a better night’s rest. Stay positive!

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The Millennial Perspective: The Sustainable Lifestyle

Posted on June 3, 2022June 5, 2022 by Ashley Stieb

In recent years the idea of being eco-friendly and sustainable has grown more popular in many areas of life. A lot of Millennials and Gen Z, who have spearheaded this movement, strive to live a more sustainable lifestyle to create a better world for the future generations. When many people think of eco-friendly, recycling is often the first thing to come to mind. Recycling has been around for centuries, but it only became popular in the U.S. in the mid-1900s. However, as science advances we have found that recycling isn’t as great as we once thought. You may have heard of the three Rs and the Waste Hierarchy Pyramid. These two concepts come together to layout the best practices for living more sustainably.

When looking at the Waste Hierarchy Pyramid, recycling falls in the middle. Not the worst option, but not the best. Recycling is the process of converting waste into new products. For example, sending plastics to recycling plants to be processed and turned into new products. However, even though this is a good practice, it is not considered the best for a number of reasons. For starters, not every product is recyclable and there is not a lot of education around recycling which leads to items being dumped instead. Recycling is also not accessible to everyone. The 2021 census showed that only 32% of people in the U.S. recycle. Many larger cities and states require residents to recycle and provide the necessary tools to do so, but most of our nation does not require it and a lot of places do not have sites available to drop off recycling for those that choose to do so. As a result, the majority of people do not recycle and those recyclable items end up in landfills where they can take decades, or even centuries, to decompose.

Just above recycling on the pyramid you will find the option to reuse. Reusing, in my opinion, is the most popular, easiest, and most accessible of the three Rs. The name is self-explanatory, reuse various products. For example, reusing your shopping bags, plastic and paper alike, rather than throwing them away when you get home from the store. Reusable products have become widely available to the point where you can find a reusable option for most household items. Reusable zip lock bags, water bottles, coffee pods, dryer balls, “paper” towels, diapers, and even personal hygiene products are some examples of reusable products that you can purchase. However, even though reusing is better than recycling it is still not the best. Many reusable products won’t last forever and will eventually need to be disposed of or, ideally, recycled.

Next up on the pyramid we have “reduce.” Reduce is not the top of the pyramid, that would be “prevent,” but I think that the two options go hand in hand. Reducing waste is the practice of limiting the amount of waste you create. Reusing products is a great way to prevent and reduce waste in the long run, but reducing waste goes so much deeper than that. Using more sustainable products can help prevent and reduce the amount of pollutants and other forms of waste, such as chemical waste, which can have grave effects on the environment. Another great way to reduce waste at home is to practice upcycling.

Upcycling is the practice of taking an item that would otherwise be disposed of and turning it into something useful that can be reused overtime. A great example of upcycling is taking a plastic container, such as a ground coffee container, and using it for composting. This prevents the container from ending up in a landfill and reduces the waste created by food, like banana peels or scraps from chopping vegetables, and turns it into something useful. Upcycling is also very popular when it comes to clothing and furniture, especially in the form of thrifting.

As you can see, the three Rs have a lot of benefits, but one of the big ones that we haven’t discussed yet would be cost savings over time. I will be honest, some reusable products can be on the pricier side, but you don’t have to dive in headfirst. Buy a couple things when you can manage it and think of it as an investment, like a house without a monthly payment. Let’s say you spend $30 on a couple of reusable water bottles and use them everyday in lieu of buying a case of 24 disposable water bottles, which are usually around $4. If you drink the recommended amount of water every day (64 oz) that would be about four bottles a day, meaning one case wouldn’t even last one week for one person. If that were the case, then you would be spending roughly $20 per month on bottles of water, so in less than two months with the two reusable water bottles you will break even and save a little over $200 a year. While saving money is a great benefit, the biggest and most important benefit of living sustainably boils down to creating a better environment that will remain habitable for many generations to come in both the near and far future.