milestones

A Time to Reflect

© Can Stock Photo Inc. / Klementiev

These are exciting times. With a birthday approaching, I am halfway to 120 years old. It is a natural place to stop and reflect on the journey so far, and the path ahead.

Twenty years ago, I was planning the concept that turned into Leibman Financial Services. At its heart, the idea was to build a business whose success depends entirely on the success of clients. After two prior decades of working with money in most of its forms, the experience and preparation were in place. The interest and passion was there. All we needed was people who would entrust us with their hard-earned wealth and well-thought plans.

Then you showed up. Thank you. The work is gratifying beyond words. And that leads to the next topic, the path ahead.

I plan to work to age 92. Two of my oldest friends, now gone, worked to that age in their own businesses. They were vibrant and active and happy in their later years, a good model for me.

It is amazing how a cherished objective can shape your actions and choices. I often say it is almost embarrassing to be learning so much at such an advanced age. But this is just lame humor. The need to keep learning and adapting and to stay current with developments in the economy and the markets and the business, and to get the resources and people in place to serve your needs, and the constant search for investment opportunities…all of this is invigorating. I feel like I discovered the Fountain of Youth.

The future is not guaranteed to us, in any sense. We can plan a big retirement party for the year 2048 when I turn 92. But we can’t know that any one of us will be there. So we would also like to extend another invitation, for something a little sooner.

If you would like to have breakfast with me at B’s Diner in Louisville, or lunch at the Main Street Café, just call the shop. We are scheduling through mid-July, so there are plenty of slots. The coffee’s always on, too, so if another time would suit you better, we can do that. Thank you all, so much, for the decades–past and future.

Make Sense of Your Financial Planning

© Can Stock Photo Inc. / Batman2000

If you go searching for financial planning help, you will find a great many tools at your disposal, from online calculators to professional financial planners who can help you chart a course for your future.

Whether you’re using online tools or seeing a professional face-to-face, the logic they will use is often the same. First, they will sit down and total the major expenses you expect to face over your lifespan: paying off debt, marriage, childbirth, kids’ college, new houses, retirement, et cetera. Then they divide the grand total of your expenses over the number of years you expect to live through to pay them off, adjust it for compounding interest, and arrive at a target percentage of your income that you should be saving each and every year of your life in order to afford these major milestones.

Often calculations like these will give you worrying results. This arithmetic often tells you that you must put aside an enormous amount of income into savings or else you will never be able to afford to retire.

Fortunately, there are a couple of crucial flaws in this reasoning that may provide some relief. Young couples often stay up late worrying how they’re going to pay for a house, kids, college, and retirement, and the answer is simple: you’re not paying for all of those things at the same time. As we advance through our lives, new expenditures come up and old ones go away. When you buy a house, the money you were setting aside for a down payment turns into money you set aside for kids. When you send your kids off to college, the money you were setting aside for them turns into money you set aside for retirement. You don’t have to save for all your big expenses in advance: your cash flow (which will tend to increase as your earning power grows with age and experience) will help accommodate different expenses at various times.

Don’t get us wrong: saving more money is better than saving less money. But it’s important to remember what you’re saving money for in the first place, so that you can spend money on the things you want and need in life. Call us if you need any help making your plans and planning work.

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

It’s the Journey, Not the Destination

© www.canstockphoto.com / chbaum

When we think about our lives and plans, milestones are a useful concept to help organize our thoughts. In ages past, the mile markers on the roads of the Roman Empire let travelers know of the progress of their journey.

The same is true of the milestones in our lives: birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and retirements are points on the journey, not the destination. The road continues on, after we reach each milestone. They are memorable accomplishments worthy of celebrating, a natural time to reflect and take stock… but not the destination.

Thus it is with our business anniversaries. We’ve been at 228 Main in beautiful downtown Louisville for fifteen years, as of November 1st. Larry is wrapping up one year in our shop already; Greg will soon mark his sixth anniversary. Next year, our firm marks twenty years in its current form.

But we measure our progress by the people we’ve helped. The staff, systems, experience and resources we put together to do our work for you more effectively are our true milestones. Hiring a third member of the team, having a dedicated staffer to help with the technology clients use, building out our 24/7 communications in the New Media, allocating more time to research and portfolio management: these are the recent milestones we care about.

In other words, our true milestones are the ones that help us help you make sense of your journey.