setting goals

Lining Up the Dominoes of Financial Planning
photo shows a line of snaking dominoes falling on a light blue surface

Clients, it’s normal to feel this way: suddenly a change is upon us, and we feel like there’s more to do than we bargained for. For some, it can feel like waking up to a never-ending list.

I’ve heard it from young folks, just starting out. Once they become aware of the state of their finances, it can be both empowering and overwhelming. It starts to seem impossible to accomplish everything that stretches out ahead of them: big purchases like houses or degrees, big goals like travel or retirement, and all the unexpected stuff in between? Daunting.

Other parts of life can prompt a sense of being overwhelmed, too, like the passing of a partner, a big move for a parent. It can feel like there’s no way to do it all.

Things are not as they seem, though. No one can do it all… at once. That’s the key: nobody can do it all at once.

We’ve talked about this idea before in terms of the many hats we wear in life. Perhaps a better way to think of financial goals, in particular, is dominoes: only one domino needs to fall at once, but the momentum means that each one affects the next. Starting the chain reaction takes the most energy. The rest of it builds on itself.

Think about the prelude to most people’s spending and investing goals: the emergency fund. Once you’ve got this resource in place, you move onto the next goal. But you’re not starting all over from scratch for the next goal. It’s the opposite, because now you have a firmer, better foundation to build on. You’re already on your way with more freedom than before!

Meaningful goals compound. They become a resource in themselves.

Clients, what’s next for you? Where does it fit in the big scheme? Reach out, anytime.

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Lining Up the Dominoes of Financial Planning – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Big Trust
photo shows a red pin in a map

Many of you know I prefer my exercise in the form of a long morning walk. These constitutionals have become routine as I’ve settled into this chapter of my life here in beautiful Louisville. I have my favorite paths, and the steps have become familiar.

Familiarity is a comfort, in many arenas. People sometimes feel uneasiness in their financial planning, bringing big fears and big feelings to money. And it’s not just those 20-somethings starting out in their careers or with young families or during big moves.

Each new chapter of life can bring unique financial challenges, so even the most familiar paths can seem to shift on us as we go.

I’ve thought about this in terms of my physical wellbeing, too. I have family members who prefer to hop on a bicycle for hours on end, some who hike in the mountains at every opportunity. Those paths seem foreign to me, an avid small-town walking enthusiast.

But then again, I haven’t tried them.

Clients, many of our conversations revolve around imagining new paths forward. It can be thrilling or frightening, joyful or bittersweet. But new paths aren’t about knowing exactly how to get where you’re going. A clear sense of where you’re headed will suffice. The rest is an adventure of details, one step at a time.

None of this is to say we must “conquer” our fear or anything like that. It’s nearly the opposite of that: it’s seeing the fear and choosing to let it ride along—because the trust is bigger than the fear.

Trust that Future You will be able to ride with the feelings as they pop up. You don’t have to know exactly what’s coming: if you believe in your goals and trust your ability to handle the journey, that’s enough to get it started.

Clients, where to next? Write or call, anytime.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Big Trust – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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

Taking Stock

© Can Stock Photo / gajdamak

One of the things we do periodically with you is take stock. Having a periodic review helps us stay in touch with what is going on in your life. It’s also a good time to review your holdings, the economy and the markets as well. The items to discuss fall into these two basic categories.

  1. Planning – connecting your money to your life.
    1. Cash flow needs, saving, spending and lifestyle.
    2. Thinking on retirement.
    3. Plans for residence, if any, moving or major remodeling.
    4. Estate and trust considerations.
    5. Other objectives, special considerations, taxes.
  2. Investing – your portfolio and the markets.
    1. The role of volatility in long term investing.
    2. Risk tolerance discussion.
    3. Time horizon review.
    4. Our assessment of opportunities and risks.

Of course, we spend a lot of time working with you when a money question comes up. You can ask us anything, any time. If we don’t know the answer, we’ll do our best to find it.

Clients, if things are happening we should know about, please email us or call. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch by and by.

Navigating Life

© Can Stock Photo / nicolasmenijes

I have never been what they call “an early adopter.” Even at the dawn of the personal computing age, my strategy was to figure out where the leading edge of technology was, and take two steps back. So it may not surprise you to know I am fairly new to the world of smart phone navigation.

The way those systems work reminds me of the way we approach life here at 228 Main:

1. Start where you are.
2. Proceed by way of your plans.
3. Arrive at your dreams.

When the phone maps a route for you, it never says “Gosh! There are a lot of problems where you are. It’s too far to go! Maybe you should wait for a better day to go.” It simply takes your location and starts to make plans.

Once underway, if you get off course, the phone figures out whether it is better to go back the way you came, or take a new route to the same goal. One way or the other, it wants you back on track. It won’t let you go mile after mile the wrong direction.

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do. So one of the basic requirements is knowing your destination.

When we think about our work for you, there are many similarities. We begin by understanding where you are, your starting point. We invest time in learning your goals (or dreams), helping you clarify them if necessary. Where you are, where you want to go: it is about the same as using your phone to navigate.

Then we do the work. Sort out the best path to get you to your dreams. Check in and monitor it to make sure you are still on course. Provide midcourse corrections if needed. And communicate continuously with you.

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.

The Problem with Goals

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Scott Adams, creator of the wildly successful comic strip Dilbert, is a man of big ideas. Some of them are fantastic, some of them are questionable, a few of them may be literally insane. However, for all his eccentricity it’s hard to argue with results: over the past three decades Adams has managed to parlay his workplace doodles into a multi-million dollar franchise.

Among his many ideas, there’s one in particular that he credits his success to: he doesn’t believe in setting goals for himself. Instead, he believes in building systems to work towards what he wants. The idea is simple. Most peoples’ goals depend on factors outside their direct control, which leads to frustration. By focusing on what you’re doing to manage those goals, though, you can build a system or framework for trying to achieve what you want. This way, you’re only concerned about the things that you control yourself, rather than worrying about goals that are outside your immediate reach.

For example, suppose a freshly minted high school graduate wants to be a doctor. That goal will take an enormous amount of dedication and training, and no amount of passion or talent is going to replace that. At any given moment, they’re an entire decade away from reaching their goal—it will take them five years of school before they even reach a point with any kind of real hands-on training. When faced with such a distant goal it’s easy to despair of ever reaching it. But while they can’t just up and be a doctor, they can always work on their system for trying to become a doctor. By focusing on their immediate day to day studies instead of their long-term goal, every day is a success. They simply use their system.

We think this makes great life advice in general, but it’s particularly important when it comes to investing. Our goal is to grow our portfolio over time, but what the market does day to day is entirely beyond our control: we can’t force our portfolio to go up. What we can always do, though, is work our system. In our case, this means practicing our three core principles: avoid stampedes in the market, look for the biggest bargains we can find, and own the orchard for the fruit crop. We can’t push a button and make your portfolio grow. But we can practice our investing discipline every day, even when the markets don’t cooperate.