mark leibman

To Be or Not To Be—and Everything in Between

“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”

In his famous line, Shakespeare’s Hamlet was talking about life and, well, its end. The play has many timeless themes, but we never want to mistake drama for wisdom. (Hamlet was a desperate man pushed to the edge, remember!)

Perhaps we could focus on how things happen between now and then. The idea of longevity can have a lot of layers. Consider these three:

  • Lifespan: how long you live.
  • Healthspan: how long you live independently.
  • Wealthspan: how long you live independently, where and how you want.

While we don’t get to dictate how life unfolds, our attitudes and habits can influence all of these things. Our access to health information and data is increasing every day. Many of us already know the decisions that will help us prevent heart disease, and diabetes, and cancer, and Alzheimer’s. That’s power.

For my part, I’m having a good time on this earth. I try to pay attention to ways I might stretch out my healthspan: I am a health hobbyist, you could say. Health is not a formal part of our business, however.

Instead, in our professional capacity, we work with you on your wealthspan—striving to grow your bucket and to connect your money to your life, in order to invest wisely and spend well.

It all goes together: the healthier we are, the longer we might live. The longer we live, the greater the opportunity to compound our wealth—and decide how to deploy it fruitfully.

We can’t know exactly what’s in store for each of us. But here in the present, we can make it more likely for the best things to happen. For many of us, that means living independently, where and how we want, for a long time: our wealthspan.

It’s a grand adventure we’re on, isn’t it?

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, 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:

To Be or Not to Be – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Coming Back To My First Love

There’s a lot of relationship advice out there, but here’s the thing… You are in charge of your relationship—with yourself. Nurture, treat, and care for yourself like you would any beloved. This may be the best investment you’ll ever make.

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

Spicing Things Up: Catsup, Ketchup, or Catch-Up?
graphic shows a piggy bank looking on curiously at a bottle of ketchup

One of these is not about tomato-based condiments.

In the world of IRAs—Individual Retirement Accounts—we consider the beginning of January through tax filing day “catch-up season.” Whether Roth or traditional, if we are eligible to make contributions, then we can catch up on our 2024 contributions even though 2024 is over.

Those just learning about the power of Roth IRAs can use this season to make two years’ worth of contributions at once. The limit on contributions is $7,000 for 2024 plus $7,000 for 2025. Another note to know: for people who turn 50 by year-end, there is an extra $1,000 per year that can go in—a “catch-up” contribution.

Consider even just the standard contribution limits. Imagine if you had $14,000 in a regular account (in which you pay tax on earnings) and were eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA for 2024 and 2025. If you won’t be spending that money in the next few years, the question comes down to whether you would like to never pay tax on earnings on that money, ever again, for the rest of your life.

If that value were to double over the years and double again, as sometimes happens with long-term investments, there might be $56,000 available later with zero tax. And if you didn’t spend it, your beneficiaries would receive it, free of income tax.

No guarantees, of course: the markets go up and down.

The way Roth IRAs work, after five years your contributions can be withdrawn without tax. At the later of five years or age 59½, the earnings may be withdrawn without tax. There is a maximum earnings limit on Roth contribution eligibility; we’d be happy to visit with you about your eligibility. Simply email us or call if you have an interest in learning more.

There is a whole world of other lifetime tax reduction strategies related to Roth conversions; we’ll talk about those another time.

For now, happy catch-up season, one and all!

Traditional IRA account owners have considerations to make before performing a Roth IRA conversion. These primarily include income tax consequences on the converted amount in the year of conversion, withdrawal limitations from a Roth IRA, and income limitations for future contributions to a Roth IRA.

A Roth IRA offers tax deferral on any earnings in the account. Qualified withdrawals of earnings from the account are tax-free. Withdrawals of earnings prior to age 59½ or prior to the account being opened for 5 years, whichever is later, may result in a 10% IRS penalty tax. Limitations and restrictions may apply.

Investing involves risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss.

This information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax or legal advice. Neither LPL Financial, nor its registered representatives, offer tax or legal advice. We recommend you discuss your specific situation with a qualified tax or legal advisor.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

Spicing Things Up: Catsup, Ketchup, or Catch-Up? – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

It’s Not about “Should”

Who are we to get in the way of your peace and calm? Your choices are yours. Don’t let anybody “should” all over you!

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

The Hats We Wear

How do we get from where we are to where we’d like to be? Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how we’ll close the gaps. The good thing about the big stuff is that we can only get them done one step at a time. We might wear many hats in life, but along the way… we can only wear one hat at a time. 🙏

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

Focusing on What Went Right

We can put a lot of energy into studying the tape, rolling back through our missteps and mistakes. But what about what went right? What do we have going for us?

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

The Best of Both Worlds: Learning from the Past, Building for the Future 
By Greg Leibman, Billy Garver, and Caitie Leibman

This time of year often invites some reflection. We’ve said goodbye to 2024 and are welcoming 2025. We’re thinking about beginnings, endings, and transitions.

In Roman mythology, Janus is the god of these things. He had two faces, one looking forward and another looking back. His purview included doors, archways, and gates.

It feels natural at this time to take stock of where we’ve been—and think about the best way forward. That’s what we’re doing at 228 Main.

When Mark founded this enterprise decades ago, it was just him at a kitchen table. In 2000, he moved the business to the digs at 228 Main Street in beautiful downtown Louisville. He knew that he was on to something, that he could keep building something special on a simple but powerful foundation: if he took care of his clients, their business would take care of him.

And the work kept growing. In those intermediate years, he hired staff to help him manage. Among their ranks were family and friends who provided administrative and service support.

Since 2020, the staff has continued to transform. Today, the team is both more specialized and more interwoven. The three of us “next-gen” advisors are co-owners with Mark, with three portions of 24.9% of the shares to his 25.3% portion.

Now we’re in transition, preparing for the decades ahead. There are six of us total on the LFS team, each one still growing and learning. But it takes all of us to make sure our three key activities can happen: 1) We talk with you to sort out what you are trying to do in life. 2) We research investment opportunities. 3) We manage your portfolios.

As we do these things, we’re planning a structure for the enterprise that is collaborative and collegial, where every generation and every teammate puts their gifts on the table for the benefit of all: the wisdom of experience, the energy of youth, and all the diversity of talents and interests we bring.

Many of you know from company lore—and your friendships with Mark—that he intends to work to age 92. (It’s a whole thing for him, a vision that he gleaned from some important mentors early in life. Ask him sometime.) We can’t know the future. And some of us may actually have more years ahead of us in this line of work than there are behind us.

But it’s fair to say that we are all indeed in this for the long haul. So how do we make this thing more sustainable?

We’re all committed to some important things: continuing to build on our strengths and what’s working and staying open to the future and all the opportunities ahead. We learn and grow from both perspectives.

Like the Roman god Janus, we’re looking back and we’re looking forward. Working with the foundation of our history and the road ahead—that’s the superpower of this team.

Want to talk about this or anything else? Call or write, anytime.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

Best of Both Worlds – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Actions Speak Louder?
By Mark Leibman, President

In business, it is popular to claim that one is “client-centered,” that the focus is on the clients. Well, we should hope that any service would be client-centered!

So what exactly does that mean to us?

I’ve often said that our only business objective is to grow your buckets. When you do well, we do well. We talk about that a lot, along with the importance of the long view.

So a few years back, when your individual successes began to add up to success for our firm, our costs began to go down. With the savings, we reduced the fees for our loyal clients.

We put in a discount for those with five years’ tenure, and another for fifteen years.

We reviewed these discounts recently, and they spread across the more than 50% of portfolios that have been with us more than fifteen years and the 25% more that have notched at least five years.

It is gratifying to enjoy such loyalty! And it’s also a celebration of the long time horizon that effective investing requires. The effects of compounding have a much greater impact over the long term, too—maybe you’ve noticed?

Many of you have heard me say I plan to work to age 92. But is it work, to talk all day with people I like about stuff I am interested in? It does not seem that way to me. It is an honor to have worked with so many of you for so many years. And it gets easier for me, the bigger and more capable our team here at 228 Main.

Some companies spend their time and money and energy chasing prospective customers. We’re doing very well by striving to grow the ones we already have—and we think that makes things more pleasant for you, too.

Those dollars in fee savings could not be going to nicer folks, in my view. Thank you all, for everything.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

Actions Speak Louder? – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Thirty Years—and Counting
By Mark Leibman, President

50 years ago, I was finishing my first semester of college at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

40 years ago, I became registered to work with investment products.

30 years ago, I affiliated with LPL Financial—December 1994.

That connection was the seed that sprouted into the business you see today, Leibman Financial Services at 228Main.com, online and on Main. We are an SEC-registered Investment Advisor, LPL still custodies client assets and provides services, and I remain a registered representative of LPL.

We might not be here today if not for two features of our relationship with LPL. The first is the spirit of independence, the freedom to build our business to fit our vision—not theirs.

The second is the unwavering support through the years for the voice of the advisor in digital media.

For a while in the middle, the health of my high school sweetheart became an existential crisis. I needed the business for the health insurance and resources to keep her alive. But her care required so much of my time that I could not communicate one-on-one with our clients, as I had before, in the volumes needed to maintain relationships.

That LPL Financial supported our voice in 21st century communications made all the difference. Email newsletters, blog posts, videos, social media—with these, we could talk with all of our clients at once.

Cathy Livingston Leibman fought for years after diagnosis, saw children marry and grandbabies born, before she passed. And I learned, in the daily triage of life, how to focus on the essentials like never before.

The business thrived in the face of adversity, becoming too large for me to operate by myself. So we transformed the investment advisory work into an enterprise, collaboratively owned and managed by three next-gen family members and me. We are now better built for the decades ahead.

And I have more time than ever to talk with you.

We have choices in our affiliations. The choice I made thirty years ago has stood up, and I hope it always will. In a time when allegiances are bought and sold, and short-term profit drives a lot of business decision-making, playing the long game is a competitive advantage.

Clients, that’s how we work with you, that is how we conduct our own affairs, that is why we are marking this 30th anniversary.

Thank you all, for everything.

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

Play the audio version of this post below:

30 Years—and Counting – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Sorting Out Probabilities

Many domains in life require us to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. It’s possible to act even when the outlook requires a hearty dose of hope about better times ahead. Sometimes we can only see as far as the headlights reach—but you can make the whole trip that way. 🙏

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