There’s no map for where we’re headed: doesn’t mean we need to fear the future! This is the business of building our own way.
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future planning
Live It Like You Mean It
You may know already: we generally advocate simplicity in most things. Once our basic needs are met, we’ve got some choices to make. So how do we keep things simple?
When it comes to budgeting, this takes the form of “paying yourself first.” You save and invest to meet your goals, and then spend the rest as you see fit. No need to track every nickel; you will get where you want to go so long as you’re getting yourself paid.
But it doesn’t hurt to also review your outlays in greater detail once in a while. Fixed expenses are those that cannot be changed in the short run: if you don’t pay the electric bill, the company will shut off your power. You have to pay the bills. Total up these kinds of items. You’ll need to know what sort of fixed expenses you can expect each month in order to figure out how much is discretionary—what’s left over for the things you want?
This exercise can be useful because it may point you to those expenses that are regular but are not fixed. For some, it might be a gym membership that doesn’t get used. It might be a streaming subscription for shows you don’t watch anymore. These services are just a few examples: there are plenty of things in life that we try out or that once made sense but no longer serve us.
And when we root these things out, it’s like giving yourself a raise!
We each have long-standing habits or hobbies whose costs we may not have considered for quite some time. Taking a fresh look at our spending gives us a chance to make intentional choices about how we live, going forward:
- What are you not doing that you wish you were doing?
- What do you wish you had that you do not have? A few more adventures, a new skill or pastime, something for the house or the yard?
- Where might your money save you some time?
And the big question: what would you have to change in order to afford that new choice?
This isn’t necessarily “just” a budgeting question, because rather than shift your spending around, you might elect to invest more each month. All else being equal, investing more means you reach financial independence sooner. Access to options: that’s what we’re buying when we pay ourselves first.
We don’t mean to make any of this prescriptive. After all, you are the one who must live your life—not us! We just suggest that taking a step back to look at where our money goes, being intentional about how we spend, these are things that come naturally when we try to live life on purpose.
Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.
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Play the audio version of this post below:
Live It Like You Mean It – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.
That Unimaginable Future
As humans, we sometimes have trouble visualizing that which is not yet in existence. Back at the dawn of personal computing, when some were predicting that most homes would eventually have a computer in them, a common question was, “Why would they?”
People just struggled to imagine all the uses that would emerge.
Later, after the wonders of cable television spread across the land, talk of a new kind of communication technology arose—sort of a two-way or interactive television. These earliest visions of the internet were also met with dismissal, as people wondered what good that would be.
The lesson in this history? It may be that we are only ever scratching the surface of the potential capabilities of emerging technologies. There are many things on the horizon: ubiquitous internet access across the globe from low Earth orbit satellites, 5G and 6G and ever-faster connectivity, cloud storage of software and data at ever-decreasing prices, the “internet of things,” virtual reality and augmented reality, electronics in more and more devices… and much more.
The possibilities thrill us.
In our research, we assume that it’s beyond our capacity to foresee all the applications on the way, but we also believe that perhaps their ramifications can be guessed at. For instance…
- More semiconductors will be needed for more devices.
- Screens will show up in many new places on many new things, we can reasonably suppose.
- We can readily imagine that mobile devices will handle increasing amounts of data and apps.
- Information storage and traffic on mobile could expand exponentially.
So instead of pretending we can predict that unimaginable future, we strive to understand the structure of related industries and how these relationships might develop. Then we determine which established companies may benefit, and we’ll try to identify emerging companies with key technologies.
Then, we sort this out into what is investable, and we manage portfolios in keeping with this background. We don’t predict the future; we imagine some probable possibilities.
Clients, if you have some insight that might help us, or want to talk about this, please email us or call.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Play the audio version of this post below:
That Unimaginable Future – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.
TRUCK STOP CHILI DOGS
Rational Optimists
Many businesses are weathering the pandemic by staying agile. Factories are retrofitting their equipment, computer-bound workers are getting more flexible working conditions, and food services are thinking outside the dining room.
We recently read about how one brand we love is coping with COVID-19. The company Life Is Good has been slapping their cheerful slogans on shirts and coffee mugs for more than 20 years, and they had some tough decisions to make this spring.
We had the pleasure of hearing from co-founder Bert Jacobs a few years ago. What struck us was that their flavor of optimism embraces life for its messy beauty.
After 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing—moments when it would’ve been easy to fall into despair—the company responded. They sent the proceeds from special themed products straight to charity. Today, they’ve transformed their production process to make space between workstations and to be able to print shirts on-demand.
Their core belief that life is good hasn’t wavered, and it’s served them well. Jacobs explains that their community is one of “rational optimists.” These are people who like to say, “Life isn’t easy, and life isn’t perfect. But life is good.”
(And for whatever it’s worth, as of early July, they report zero COVID cases among employees at Life Is Good.)
That idea has served us well, too. Life has not been easy, but here we are today. Life is good.
Clients, if you want to talk through this or anything else, call or write.
Dream or Vision?
Scott McKain has a story about a legendary motivational speaker with whom he had a chance to become acquainted. McKain, a best-selling author, consultant and friend, happened to share breakfast with him at a conference. He learned that this speaker lived his creed: ‘walked his talk’ as they say.
The integrity, confidence, and connectedness exuded by the legend led McKain to conclude this is success: to be who you claim to be, to do what you say you will do, to live the vision.
“Living the dream” is a phrase some use to describe an ideal life (sometimes ironically.) But dreams end when we wake up. A vision is something different. One of the definitions of ‘vision’ is the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom. So living the vision is a way transform the future we desire into reality by what we do each day.
Here at 228 Main, we are thinking a lot about how our work for you might be improved in the years ahead. We don’t want to be big, but we do strive to make the very best things possible for you and yours. It is too early to say our vision has evolved and grown – but we are working on it.
We may ask you for input and perspective as we shape these plans. You will hear about the pieces as we figure them out. One thing we already know: having the best clients in the world makes the whole project a worthy endeavor.
If you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.
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