Adulting 101: Three Money Buckets

Those first paychecks can be thrilling. It’s like a signal of being a real adult—and all the responsibilities that come with that term. You’re earning real money, but how do you make those earnings powerful? When you spend less than you earn, you develop savings—but how do you learn how to manage those funds?

We think the easiest place to start is to try and sort your financial goals into three buckets.

The first one you have is short-term. This is where you go to find money to deal with emergencies. You also use the short-term bucket to save for annual expenses like real estate taxes or insurance premiums. This bucket must be stable and liquid, to provide money when you need it. Returns are secondary.

On the other end, you have a long-term bucket. If you ever hope to retire instead of going to work every day, or accumulate wealth for other long-term goals, you need one of these—even if retirement feels like forever away. Unlike the first bucket, this one may endure more volatility in the hopes of garnering higher returns over a long-time horizon. You should plan on not tapping this bucket except for those long-term goals, short of an emergency which can be met no other way.

Naturally, the third bucket is in-between. You may have goals for things that happen in a few years, on an intermediate time horizon. It might be for a major purchase like a boat or camper, to meet educational expenses for a child, a down payment on a home you intend to buy at some point in the future.

Not surprisingly, the third bucket may balance stability and higher returns with a middle of the road approach. It might use a mix of investments from the other two buckets, or other types of investments with intermediate stability and returns.

The idea of three buckets is a helpful way to understand the functional purposes of investing. You will need to know something about the basic kinds of investments, styles of investing, some tax considerations, and the options available.

Clients, if you need help sorting the buckets to reach your financial goals, please email us or call.

Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

All investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

Play the audio version of this post below:

Adulting 101: Three Money Buckets – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

The text of this episode is available at ⁠228Main.com⁠.

Choose Your Ingredients 

by Mark Leibman, Advisor

More content from Mark

I learned how to make soup back in the last chapter. Now a variety of soups are a staple of my diet. 

Crafting a new soup recipe recently, I started with a chicken, six herbs and spices, and seven kinds of vegetables. I used some olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar. It may be served with a mix of seven kinds of beans, and rice, of course (you know how I feel about rice and beans!). 

It came out really good!—according to a biased observer that I recently married.  

Contemplating the choices made in the creation of the soup, I thought about how we build portfolios here at 228 Main.  

From many alternatives, we select what we want to own and determine the proportions of each. Another school of thought holds that portfolios should consist of some of everything—500 stocks go into the S&P 500 index, for example, so portfolios get to hold a little of each. 

That led me to wonder, What would Index Soup look like? 

  • 150 herbs and spices? 
  • 50 kinds of vegetables? 
  • Beef, pork, chicken, fish, and eight more kinds of animal protein? 

And it might even be served with 25 kinds of beans, and 10 varieties of rice! 

That would have to taste like a little bit of everything, and not much of anything, wouldn’t it? 

Just as different recipes can reflect a wide variety of tastes and textures and smells, and we humans have an appetite for different things at different times, our portfolios evolve and change as conditions unfold. 

By looking for the best bargains, by avoiding stampedes in the market, by planning to own the orchard for the fruit crop (thinking long-term), our collection of opportunities has diverged from the most popular kind of Index Soup, the S&P 500.  

Creating our own recipe helps avoid another possible pitfall of Index Soup—not that it can get too bland in its attempt to average everything, but that it can get too heavy-handed in spicy times. 

Recently, slightly more than half of our long-term portfolios are invested in small- and mid-size companies. We’re diversified around the world, although about two-thirds of value is still invested in the U.S. While AI-related stocks have captured the public imagination, we’re focused a little more on value-style stocks than the mega-size growth companies, which we believe may be over-valued at present. No guarantees, but we’re trying to be intentional with our flavors. 

Meanwhile, Index Soup focuses on large U.S. companies, with an emphasis on growth. Technology is nearly 37% of the mix in that soup, and the top seven holdings are mega-size tech companies.  

We know that the flavor can get “too strong” at times: back in the year 2000, the S&P 500 index, and technology stocks generally, left a bad taste in the mouths of many investors the last time valuations approached extreme levels.  

We can’t know the future, but we are hopeful our recipe is going to “taste” a lot better in the months and years ahead. No guarantees—past performance is not an indicator of future results. 

But we don’t have to be the best chefs in the world. We’re just trying to find a blend that works for us. 

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Investing involves risk including the loss of principal. There is no assurance that the views or strategies discussed are suitable for all investors or will yield positive outcomes. 

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. There is no guarantee that a diversified portfolio will enhance overall returns or outperform a non-diversified portfolio. Diversification does not protect against market risk. 

The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index which cannot be invested into directly. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.  

Play the audio version of this post below:

Choose Your Ingredients – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

The text of this episode is available at ⁠⁠www.228Main.com⁠⁠.

Going public: Billy’s thoughts on IPOs

Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) have been in the headlines lately. More than a dozen companies offered IPOs in June 2026. As one example, Elon Musk’s SpaceX offering received a ton of hype and high initial valuations followed shortly thereafter by a significant drop. So we’re encouraging you to take five minutes to hear Billy talk about our take on IPOs.

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It’s Your Story

Even heroes get knocked down a time or two when fighting their monsters. There may be a couple of bumps in the road, but what good plot doesn’t have some conflict? With our passions in mind, a little bit of perseverance, and a good plan, we all get to be the hero of our own story. Want to talk through what’s important in your story? Call or email to chat.

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TENDING TO THE FLOWERS: Each season makes way for the next

by Whitney Engle, Client Services Coordinator

More content from Whitney

We were talking as a team the other day when Mark brought up a vivid memory from his first summertime job. He worked at Peony Park in Omaha, Nebraska, an entertainment venue that included everything from an amusement park and a swimming pool with a third of a mile of beach, to a dance hall and picnic grounds.  

You’d think the first memory to flood back might have been a thrill ride or the Sprite Nite dances. But Mark remembered something else. 

Walking through the park each day to get to work at the pool, Mark passed an old fellow, dressed in overalls, working in the flower beds. Day in and day out, the man tended the garden. For a long time, Mark didn’t know what he was witnessing. 

Turns out, the Malec family’s early businesses capitalized on a neighboring peony farm: Joe Malec, now of the overalls, was one of three brothers who started what became Peony Park. Fifty years later, it had blossomed into a major force in the community. 

As a kid, Mark found it odd. Wouldn’t a founder have more important things to do? 

With age comes wisdom. Fast-forward another fifty years: Mark understands why Joe was in the flower beds. Between his own efforts and the help of his descendants, Joe found the freedom to focus on what he enjoyed the most. Sure, tending the flowers wasn’t the flashiest work, but that is how he wanted to spend his time. 

Mark doesn’t have overalls, but he too gets to “tend the flowers” now, doing what he loves most: talking with you and trying to find new investment opportunities. He spends half his time in Louisville, the other half working from afar—focusing more on making memories and building relationships. 

Leibman Financial Services is now a team of seven, so Mark no longer has to be a jack of all trades. You can reach out to any one of our advisors to get the same service and care as if you were talking to the founder himself. So, if you ever try to schedule a meeting with Mark and he’s not available right away, please remember that just like a farm, the firm is a team activity. 

Doing work you love, for a living, is a true blessing. Thank you for being a part of our story. 

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Tending to the Flowers – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

The text of this episode is available at ⁠www.228Main.com⁠.

Distracted by Shiny Objects?

“There’s gold in them thar hills!” Gold and the rush to grab it have fascinated Americans for so long.  

We’ve been hearing again about the allure of it and other precious metals as investments. Hear from Greg on whether the enchantment makes sense for us.

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Where are you on the ride?

Anybody else remember the drop of your stomach when your folks drove a hilly country road and you weren’t expecting the quick downhill drop? We never knew when the highs and lows or the next turn was coming—sounds a lot like the markets, doesn’t it? 

Where are you on the ride? Check out Caitie’s take on thrill rides and the rhythms of the markets this week

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The Trip of a Lifetime

If you’re looking for an excuse to give up, you’ll always find one. How to change the tire and get back on the road.

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The Choices You Make on Payday 

For our youngest clients, payday is a big deal.

If you’ve just graduated high school or college, or are early in your career, we’d point you to the importance of the choices you’re making each and every payday. Retirement may be one financial “destination” you’re working toward, but there’s something exciting about enjoying the little steps along the way.

What can you do for yourself each and every payday?

Pay Yourself First.

This is one of the fundamental tenets of financial planning: save a portion of everything you earn for later. That portion is your “savings rate,” and maybe you start it at 1% or 4% of every paycheck.

Then you increase it by 1% a year until you start to build up some nice sums across the years, and this becomes the raw material of your future retirement! Say you get a raise your second year on the job: put half that raise away for retirement. So if you get a 4% raise, add 2% to your savings rate.

You may hear figures like saving 10 or 15%, but that doesn’t always make sense to begin so high. Young adults need to start buying groceries and paying for electricity—and have decades ahead to build up their wealth.

Settle Up the Past. Another choice on payday is to take care of past debt. Watch out for carrying expensive (high-interest!) debt for too long. If you’re paying 8, 10, or even 12%, you should put some serious thought into paying off that debt before you consider saving or investing that money.

If you pay off $5,000 of credit card debt that you are paying 12% interest on, your $5,000 “investment” will save you $50 a month, $600 a year, like clockwork. You’d be hard-pressed to find any other investment that will pay you that kind of return—and if you did, it would likely have many risks associated with it.

But once you pay off your debt, those interest payments are gone forever. Consider if it would make sense to settle up anything from your past.

Invest for Future You. If you happen to be starting a job with an employer-sponsored 401(k) retirement plan, consider enrolling so that an automatic contribution is made out of your paycheck every pay cycle. Ask if your employer matches contributions, and consider maxing out that match. We don’t want to leave “free money” on the table.

When you are a long way from retirement, you can afford to take a long view with the investments you choose for the plan: various investments ask you to commit to either the chance for short-term stability or the chance for long-term returns, but you can’t really have a shot at both at once.

Investments that promise a stable value tomorrow or next year do nothing for you in your real life when you are decades away from retiring. You might aim for higher returns instead.

In Conclusion: The Joy of the Journey

This is basic financial literacy you can use any payday, especially for those just starting out.

As always, everyone’s situation is a little bit different, and we’re more than happy to discuss the particulars of your situation with you: even if you never open an account in our shop, we believe that anyone might build a stronger future when they’re able to pay themselves first, settle up the past, and invest in their future selves in whatever way they can!

It may seem hard to imagine a destination that may be decades away, a big goal like retirement. Instead, it’s much easier to get in the habit of enjoying small steps along the way—the things you can do each and every payday.

That’s the joy of the journey.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

All investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.

Play the audio version of this post below:

The Choices You Make on Payday – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

The text of this episode is available at www.228Main.com.

Being True to Yourself

Pride Month reminds us of the courage it takes to embrace our own sense of things. That same dedication to individuality matters in our professional and financial lives, too—because true progress only happens when we stay anchored to our own integrity. What does megastar Taylor Swift have to teach us about trusting your gut? We break it down in this week’s video.

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