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?
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orchard season
You Just Never Know
We’d like to think that with age comes wisdom. But it’s not just racking up the years. We try to learn from our experiences—and integrate those lessons into our thinking.
I can’t speak for anyone else on our 228 Main team, but I can say that I am still a little surprised I’m here.
And I mean that in every way. I didn’t know the turns my career would take, and yet the path I took here is still the one that made the most sense. It’s led to the best possible outcomes. I didn’t know my current neighborhood even existed until we found a place to live in it. I didn’t know the mental health struggles I would explore in my early 30s, but I wouldn’t be who I am today without them.
What’s it all mean? The lesson I take is this: I couldn’t have called any of this ahead of time, so, therefore, maybe there are more surprises ahead.
We’ve heard from a few of you about the unexpected turns in your lives. One of them was, “I never thought I’d own a yoga mat.”
Another one was, “I never thought I’d be living in a house again.”
Big stuff, small stuff—you just never know. It’s possible to feel like you’re in the driver’s seat and that the road will keep bringing us twists and turns. Sometimes we crest a hill in the sunshine, and it’s like our whole future is laid out before us.
And sometimes we can only see as far as the headlights reach.
Having a team to support us along the way can make such a difference. I wasn’t alone through any of my own twists and turns. My team included professionals and specialists, everyone from my primary care doc to a new accountant to help my household.
It included my loved ones, friends, and the people in my life I knew I could text any time, day or night.
Who’s on your team?
Let’s assume the twists and turns will continue to surprise us—and sometimes delight us! We’re here for all of it. You just never know.
And we’re glad to share it with you.
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Play the audio version of this post below:
You Just Never Know – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.
Three People In One
There are at least three people involved in every decision you make: past you, present you, and future you! How well is the committee getting along? And who’s getting the final say?
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A Toast to William Roth
Approaching this season of holiday cheer, we are thinking about William Roth—and may even raise a glass in his honor.
Senator Roth was instrumental in creating something new. It appeared in the Tax Reform Act of 1997. And it has some wonderful features. It’s…
- A retirement account, but after five years you may withdraw your deposits for any reason without tax or penalty.
- A retirement account, but it may be used to educate your children or grandchildren without penalty or tax.
- A retirement account, but there are no income taxes due on withdrawals during retirement.
The Roth IRA, as we know it, is a useful addition to the plans and planning of many people. Contributions may be made by those with earned income (but not too much earned income: there is an upper limit.) Conversions from traditional IRAs may be made by anyone willing to pay tax on the converted amount.
You may be eligible to put up to $6,500 into a Roth IRA for 2023, anytime until tax filing time in 2024. And the limit for 2024 is $7,000. And those of us lucky enough to be 50 years old or older could contribute an extra $1,000 beyond that as a catch-up.
If you have traditional retirement accounts, you may be eligible to convert part to a Roth IRA. There are no income limits on conversions; if you believe tax rates may be higher for you in the future, it might make sense to do a conversion. These happen on a calendar year deadline, however, so 2023 conversions must actually be done in 2023, for example.
Although a Roth IRA may not be right for everyone, the concept was and is right for me. I’m getting tax-free capital gains, tax-free dividends on blue chip stocks, and tax-free interest because I have investments inside a Roth IRA.
And I can take funds out and spend them (or give them away), any day, with zero tax.
If this might be right for you, please email us or call.
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.
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A Toast to William Roth – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.
What We Mean by “Plans and Planning”
Clients, when we say “plans” and “planning,” what exactly is it that we’re talking about? From Day 1, our conversations center on you: your goals, your concerns, and how your life and your money work together. So planning, we believe, includes any and all topics that affect your financial wellbeing.
Our planning services are included as part of our process working with clients. Some investment advisory shops do bill separately for time spent selling “Financial Plans,” so it bears mentioning that we do not.
Instead, we tend to use wide-ranging planning conversations throughout our relationship. They’re handy when we’re first meeting each other, and they give us useful talking points over time, like when we’re reconnecting at or in between our annual reviews.
Not every client will bring up the same topics or concerns, but generally, people’s questions tend to focus on some similar desires. Maybe some of these statements resonate with you:
- “I want to figure out how to organize my finances.”
- “I want to feel like I’m financially secure, independent, or free.”
- “I want to be able to support the life I want to live.”
- “I want to be able to create the legacy I have in mind.’”
These desires are not universal, and they’re not necessarily linear. Not everyone moves through them like one step to the next, and sometimes we loop back around to revisit them again and again. And they take some thoughtfulness to maintain.
But you might notice these four items do capture some trends and progressions. They cover a range of chapters in our lives—from getting started, to getting a grip on things, and then to getting what we want out of the whole deal. Once we know where we are in the process, it can be easier to get down to the details.
Consider some examples.
“I want to figure out how to organize my finances.” Does my monthly cash flow comfortably cover my outlays? Where does my time and money go right now? How is my job or career outlook? What are some good first steps for me given where I am?
“I want to feel like I’m financially secure, independent, or free.” Do I have what I need in terms of an emergency fund and a support network? What demands affect my cash flow now and in the near-future? What financial challenges and financial goals can I anticipate in the coming chapters of my life?
“I want to be able to support the life I want to live.” Am I living where I’d like to live? Working how I’d like to work? Enjoying what I’d like to enjoy? How do my saving, spending, and investing align with what I want now and what I want later?
“I want to be able to create the legacy I have in mind.” What’s on my heart? What estate or charitable considerations are on the horizon? What opportunities have presented themselves? What impact would I like to have?
Clients, our operation is continuing to grow, and we need to be able to serve you not only in the months and years ahead—but for the decades ahead! Your beneficiaries and the generations to come will be better served if we’re thinking about how this work persists beyond any one of us.
That’s why we’re taking the time here to try to define our terms.
It’s important that we’re on a common mission here. Financial planning prompts like these aren’t a script, and they aren’t something that will be “one-size-fits-all.” Instead, they give us a jumping off point. They give us somewhere to start from or begin again—together.
Are we due for a conversation? Call the shop or send us a message, anytime.
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What We Mean by "Plans and Planning" – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text is available at https://228main.com/2023/06/21/what-we-mean-by-plans-and-planning/.
Lessons from Schitt’s Creek: Building a New Future for Yourself
Friends, some of us became acquainted with each other when one (or both) of us was in a moment of crisis. Loss can come in many forms, at any period of life. Some are thrown for a loop after being laid off or taking retirement earlier than they’d imagined. Sometimes a death or illness shifts everything in a family. Maybe debt or other baggage from an earlier chapter catches up with us in this one.
A new low is not a fun place to find ourselves. It can feel sad, and overwhelming. There are lots of ways to think about this place, like being “up the creek without a paddle.”
This idea is also the premise for the Canadian hit comedy Schitt’s Creek. The show takes it to the extreme: the Roses, an ultrawealthy family, suddenly lose everything when the government discovers their business manager has run off with all the money. It’s all gone—their business, their home, everything. And they must make do with their one remaining asset: “The kids,” the self-involved mother Moira says, referring to their adult offspring.
“The children are dependents, Moira,” their lawyer corrects her. The government allows them to retain Schitt’s Creek: a small, rural town they once purchased as a joke.
Hilarity ensues as the pampered adult children and their out-of-touch parents must face the shock of their change in status, the loss of their network and friends, a crumbling reputation… and a pressing need to learn to do things for themselves!
No one we know in real life has faced anything quite like this, but being able to laugh at and with the Rose family can help us shore up our own inner assets. When it seems like things couldn’t possibly get any worse, we may have an opportunity: things can only get better!
So whether you’re starting your investment journey or starting over in some way, any day is a great day to begin. We can give ourselves a new Day 1 at any time.
The Roses eventually saw things this way. Each family member gradually took new risks and learned new things. Both children find themselves jobs and then start new businesses; the father finds partners to start a local franchise. After a few stutter-steps, even Moira manages to relaunch her acting career.
And, wouldn’t you know it, the children even learn to ride a bike for the first time.
In the end, each becomes more self-reliant. They find ways to take their experiences and talents and transform them into something they can offer others. Can you think back to a time when you had to learn to do something different for yourself? Or when you had to change or rebuild a habit?
Each of us has done it, over and over again, throughout our lives. It happens in our school days, at each new job, with each change in our families and households. If you’ve done it before, you can do it again.
And, honestly, if the Rose family can do it… anyone can. We’re ready to help you begin (or begin again), anytime.
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Lessons from Schitt's Creek: How to Begin Again – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.
Nothing Succeeds Like Success
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?
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The Right Amount Is Best
There are restless spirits all around us. The neighbor that seems to be racing everywhere they go, the friend that seems addicted to making big changes. There are people who make us wonder, “When will it be enough?”
Sometimes we are those people. Sometimes we look down only to realize we’re on a treadmill. But here’s the good news: there are plenty of ways to get our needs met, to not want for anything and to not be wrapped up in the wanting. We talk a lot about helping clients put words to their dreams, but dreams need not be lofty. Here are a few guidelines that have proven helpful.
“The right amount is best.” In her book Lagom, writer Niki Brantmark describes this Swedish principle of the same name. Not enough is not enough. Too much of a good thing can be a good thing, but often is not. The right amount is best.
Social comparison, or “keeping up with the Joneses” can corrode happiness or financial health, if we aren’t conscious of our emotions and purposeful about our responses and reactions. It helps to focus on our own needs, rather than what others have. (And I doubt the Joneses care what you have anyway.)
When working on goals, it sometimes helps to define three outcomes: minimum acceptable levels, reasonable targets that feel within reach, and “stretch” goals that require creative thinking and approaches to get to. This may help you be more aware of options and possibilities.
Life is not a cage, and we are not doomed to the hamster wheel. We are each the star of our own personal drama, and we get to decide what works.
Get your ticket, one life only!
Clients, if you would like to talk about your goals or anything else, please email us or call.
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For One Life Only! – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text can be found at https://www.228Main.com/.
Your Real-Life Money
Numbers on a screen are never the whole story: how does your money move, and how does that align with what you’re trying to do in your life?
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Do We Reap What We Sow? Some Notes on Trust
I’m reflecting on an experience a friend had recently, one of those unexpected and painful situations that leave you reeling. This may sound “personal” and not “business,” but you already know there is only one integrated Mark. And this bears on our work with you.
There is an element of trust in all of our doings. Whether I’m working with you or with another business owner in beautiful downtown Louisville, we have to trust that each of us is going to work to get on the same page and stay on the same page. We’re all in this together, after all.
Our historic building here at 228 Main—once headquarters to The Louisville Courier—is in its second century. When repairs are needed, I have to trust the person I hire to do what they say they will do. They have to trust that I will pay as agreed.
It gets a little stickier when it’s not clear what is being bought and sold. A service you’ve never sought out before, a sales professional you’ve never worked with… These can feel like uncharted waters. And it can feel adversarial with one party on one side, one on the other.
When we feel like we have to defend our own interests, it is harder to remember that both sides usually want the same thing—an agreement.
That agreement may be richer if we can rely upon each other for perspective and guidance. But to do so, we have to accept that we’re working together, each seeking to understand the other. We can formulate a better agreement if we’re not on two warring teams.
In high-trust situations, we end up not only with a good deal that’s mutually beneficial. We can sometimes also end up with a warm relationship with another human being, in all their interesting particularities.
“Business at the speed of trust” is a thing. The price of not trusting is a cynical, legalistic approach to everything. It’s defensive and less collaborative in spirit.
And sometimes, when we come across a hurting human, we pay the price for trust. It’s getting sucker-punched! It’s finding that the topping on the coffee is shaving cream, not whipping cream.
I’m sorry that my friend had to pay that price recently. The hurt is real. Real and worth it, in my opinion, as the price of trusting in general. A lot like the price of loving, or the price of friendship, or any other human interaction where we are vulnerable.
If there are two ways of being, we try to practice the one that opens us to more trust, more love, more connections—a better happier life and once in a long while, a punch in the nose. It’s not okay to lash out of course, but we don’t control the emotions and actions of others. We put ourselves out there and see what happens. We help ourselves recover and get whole, then we try again.
Clients, I will strive to be conscious of the blessings of our mutual trust, and I strive to be worthy of yours. Thank you for engaging with us—and reach out when there is anything you need to acquaint us with.
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Play the audio version of this post below:
Do We Reap What We Sow? Some Notes on Trust – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services
This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.
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