plans and goals

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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Play the audio version of this post below:

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/.

The Doing Gets Things Done: We Are Planning for the Plan!
photo shows a person in silhouette jogging up a hill toward a flag

Many things are made by combining some of this, some of that. In our work with you, for example, we combine some information about your life now with a vision to get us ready for the future. Here as another new year begins, our thoughts have turned to plans and planning—and the nuances therein.

A typical New Year’s resolution is a sweeping, major goal: write a book, finish a 5k race, lose this many pounds. They tend to skip a few steps. It’s about the accomplishment, not the accomplishing.

But it could be more effective to plan a tiny step, something to execute now.

Write a page.

Walk around the block.

Eat a nutritious meal.

And if we focus on accomplishing a tiny step, then another, then another, those steps may compound into major accomplishments.

You might recognize the idea at the heart of this formula: habits are the practical foundation in shaping the person we want to become. Writing one page, then another, then another. If it becomes a daily habit, you may end up authoring a book.

Likewise, it’s easier to save something every payday than it is to worry for years about the fortune you will require for retirement. We can invest by automatic monthly deposits, for example, instead of having to think about it every time.

When we can make our habits automatic, they become a lot easier to maintain. (We don’t stop and question whether and how and when to brush our teeth each day, right?)

The planning moves you closer to the plan; the doing gets things done. Wisdom? Nonsense? You decide.

When you are ready to work on your plans and planning, we’ll be happy to talk with you about the steps that may help you get there. Email us or call.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

What Do We Mean by "Plans" and "Planning"? – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Lessons from the Open Road: Just Change the Tire
photo shows a car with a flat tire on the side of the road

As spring fades and summer draws near, some of us are gearing up for road trips. (Although we know gas prices might affect our plans!) We’re thinking lately about life on the open road—and what lessons it might offer investors. 

Imagine you’re going along a winding road, and the car gets a flat tire. There are some choices available here. Some might hop out and swap the flat for the spare. Some might get a hold of a car service or a trusted friend in the area and have them change the tire. These approaches at least get you back on the road. Reasonable enough, right? 

But there are other choices available. We could, for instance, slash the other three tires. We could dump a can of gasoline on the whole darn thing and light it up! We could declare it a lost cause and walk away. We could take the flat as the confirmation we were looking for that this journey was a mistake after all.  

We can abandon the endeavor. 

It sounds outrageous, given the facts of the matter. The trip was your plan: you got in the car, loaded the supplies, and set out. Sure, this moment could be a fabulous excuse to turn back, but if that’s the case, it seems to be more about the driver’s relationship to the journey—and not their relationship to the setback. 

It’s not black and white, of course. There are approaches that we might employ along the way that we choose before we make the bigger, more crucial decisions. We might kick the flat tire. We might shake our fists at the sky. We might call someone to say that we are frustrated or scared or sad. Yes, you bet! Sometimes we need to vent stress out of our bodies before we make decisions. 

But how many endeavors do we deny a fighting chance when we refuse to just change the tire and get back on the road? 

You can go the whole journey this way. It will get you where you’re going. 

Clients, maybe you can already hear the lessons for managing a portfolio and working with downs as well as the ups. We let our resources carry us, for the long haul. 

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

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Lessons from the Open Road: Just Change the Tire – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

There’s the Planning and the Plan

Folks love a good before-and-after story, but big transformative goals tend to obscure the steps in between. We highlight the accomplishment, not the accomplishing. So how does the doing get things done? Making sense of your plans and planning with Mark.

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What’s a Win?

photo shows a person with a hat and ponytail sitting on a cliff's edge

Maybe you’ve seen this type of picture on social media lately: the family perched on big rocks in the hillside or an orange sunset over the shoulder from the peak of a mountain. Plenty of our friends and relations have been enjoying more of the great outdoors in the past few weeks. Some have even been inspired to hike for the first time!

Those majestic views are such a treat, even experienced vicariously through my screen. But they had me thinking about those hikes and the challenges they pose.

Say you were planning a hike on a new trail. Maybe a two-mile trek would be a reasonable goal: challenging given the terrain, but totally possible. Yeah, it could actually be exciting to push yourself and make that happen! Two miles of work, the corresponding exercise endorphins, and gorgeous views?

That hike would be a win.

So you set off. After feeling the initial burn, you settle into a rhythm and are enjoying yourself. Maybe there’s more to gain here than you expected.

At the end of your planned route, you still feel like you have gas in the tank: on a whim, you travel on for two more miles.

You can’t believe it! This is farther than you’ve ever hiked in your life, more steps than you could ever have imagined! It is totally thrilling.

You check your watch. Time to head back, you suppose, but what a ride! It’s only once you look up that you realize what you’ve done. The gas in the tank was supposed to be for coasting back to comfort and safety.

Your reasonable win has become a burden. Your resources are low; it’s hard to enjoy what you did accomplish because of how little you’re left with now.

Mistakes like these aren’t always deadly or catastrophic—but they can certainly harm your goals and your wellbeing. For investors, the instinct to throw everything in on the way up (and up and up and up!) can mean that much harder of a fall when the reality sets in.

What’s a win? If you set your terms going in, you may be less tempted to risk your goal for some moonshot you didn’t need in the first place.

Clients, remember: we are all about your goals. If you feel them shifting or want to talk, call or email any time.

20/20 Foresight

© Can Stock Photo / leolintang

The New Year is upon us. Like Opening Day of baseball season, the first day of school, or any other beginning, it is a good time for plans and planning.

We’ve been able to focus on strategic issues in recent weeks, ones that will shape our work for you in the years to come. The general theme? Build an enterprise that will serve you well, and be durable enough to outlive me.

While we work ON the business, of course, we also need to work IN the business, taking care of things for you. Fortunately, we know exactly what the stock market and the economy are going to do: go up and down, same as always. Time tested principles and strategies will always be the foundation of our work with you. They do not eliminate the ups and downs, but they improve the odds we will survive them and come out on the other side.

The items on our list are wide ranging. The more significant ones: finding and developing more good people to join the team, figuring out office space, determining whether we need to form our own Registered Investment Advisor, guiding the evolution of our offerings, and building a more robust financial planning process.

But enough about us. What about your strategic issues? If you want to talk about retirement, changing where you live, sorting out who should get what after you are gone, or simply where to invest for the long run, email us or call.