Fearing Regret Is My Motivator

Is the picture in your mind of how you’d like to be living different from how you’re actually going through life?  If so, stop what you’re doing and change things.  A lot is at stake.

Nobody wants to say years from now that their life didn’t turn out as they’d wanted or expected.  I absolutely cringe when I hear people say things like, “retirement isn’t what I’d thought it would be”, or “I did all of that for this?”.  Regret is the worst feeling in the world because there’s nothing you can do about it.

But what you can do is take specific actions to avoid and thwart having future regrets.  Action taken today is the preventative medication against a future outbreak of regret.  Skeptical?  Try this:

1.       Pick something that you want to see yourself doing (travelling, writing a song, skydiving)

2.       Do it

3.       Pick something else (learning a foreign language, building a table, sitting on a beach)

4.       Do it

5.       Repeat steps 1-4

I’m not being cheeky, it’s serious and it’s actually very hard.  We have a tendency in this country to believe that our life is supposed to follow a path of thinking that today is supposed to suck so that tomorrow will be better, especially when it comes to our careers and financial planning.  I don’t buy it.

I have the benefit of being able to observe many people in different stages of career success, financial health, and happiness.  Those who seem to be at the highest levels in all of those areas are those that deny the “traditional” path of slogging through work and then praying for a good retirement and instead seek a balance between responsibility and life experience.  I see it so I believe it, and I wonder why it’s not a more popular way to live.

GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out

Garbage In, Garbage Out.  I feel that way about 95% of the financial plans I see people bring to me for review.  I don’t mean that 95% of the plans are garbage, I mean that 95% of what is contained in the financial plan is garbage.  I say this because when I ask clients about the plan someone wrote for them and as we review it together it is clear that either

a)      They don’t understand the substance of what is written

b)      They don’t know why all those charts and graphs are there

c)       Most critically, they never use any of it to help make financial decisions

Sometimes I think that financial plans are written and printed to try and make the advisor look good.  If the plan is 100 pages long and looks very complicated and is full of numbers and charts then that helps reinforce the message that the advisor is smarter than you and that you should listen to whatever they tell you. 

Barf.  Look again at your financial plan.  Go through it and mark every page that helps you make a financial decision.  If you found more than 5% of the pages helpful to you, then you’re better than most.  If not, demand that your plan be written simply and succinctly enough so that you can actually use it.  If you feel you need your advisor to show you all of their homework and research before you trust their recommendations, maybe you need a new advisor.

KIVA Loan Update: Sharing Blessings Thru Finance

We have made three microloans through www.kiva.org and here’s evidence of how credit-worthy even the poorest of the poor are.  Read the prior blog posts http://wallfinancial.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-september-i-posted-on-powerful.html and http://wallfinancial.blogspot.com/2010/09/sharing-our-blessings-thru-finance.html .

·         Magdalena Agsunod's Group in Philippines (Activity: General Store) Total Repaid So Far: 58.40% of your loan

·         Rose Wanjiru Njuguna in Kenya (Activity: General Store) Total Repaid So Far: 8.32% of your loan

·         Sol Y Estrellas Group in Mexico (Activity: Grocery Store) Total Repaid So Far: 21.32% of your loan

Sometimes a hand up is more helpful than a hand out. You too can give someone a job where opportunities are virtually non-existent for as little as $25 at www.kiva.org.

Plan To Be A Nevertiree

According to a Wells Fargo study:

The average savings of 50-somethings is only $29,000, which comes out to an income of $190 a month over 20 years assuming a 5% rate of return.  According to the survey, only 33% of Americans have a detailed written retirement plan and 37% don't know how much they will need in retirement or how long they will be able to live on what they have saved.  The survey found that 72% of Americans now expect to work through retirement, with 39% saying they will work because they have to and 33% saying they will do it because they want to.

Do you think that the same survey taken 20 years ago would show 72% of Americans expecting to work through retirement?  I don’t.  So whether it’s empirical or intuitive, people are smart enough to realize that the retirement game has changed.  So if that’s true, do you want to be one of the 39% who think they’ll be forced to work, or one of the 33% who think they’ll want to work?  I know which group I want to be in and we can help you design a plan that incorporates an I’m-looking-forward-to-it retirement component.

Be more than just prepared, be in control.  Establish a plan that looks forward to retirement with realistic expectations and then you can live happy today knowing that you believe in the direction that you’re going.

Non-Profit of the Month: World Vision thru Sammamish Pres Church

Tackling the causes and effects of poverty and injustice is kind of a big job.  It ain’t going away overnight.  But sometimes small steps, when taken together with other people, can make a mind-blowing difference in the lives of people who otherwise might not have hope.

Mahlalini is a village in one of Africa’s smallest countries, Swaziland, where 60% of the population live on the equivalent of $1.25 per day, over 40% of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS, 1 out of every 5 children is an orphan, a 15-year old has only a 20% chance of reaching age 35, and 15,000 households are headed by orphaned children.

Enter World Vision

Swaziland is not unique in its need, as about 2/3 of the entire planet’s population eek out meager and difficult livings.  World Vision (www.worldvision.org) supports children from all over the world by matching donors and needy kids for monthly support of $35. 

Enter Sammamish Presbyterian Church (SPC)

Anyone can go to www.worldvision.org and begin a relationship with a child in need, which I encourage you to at least think about.  But SPC (www.spconline.org) decided to make an even more dramatic impact by collectively focusing on a specific community, Mahlalini.  In a partnership with World Vision over 140 families in Sammamish, WA have adopted children from the same community, have maintained written communication, have traveled to their village, and have continued to spread the word about how small change from us can make a huge change in the life of a child and their supportive neighbors.  It is a coordinated all-out blitz attack on poverty.

Our non-profit of the month for December is actually a monthly sponsorship of a child in Mahalini. We are excited to share with you whom we get to sponsor in Swaziland and will keep you updated just like we have with our microloans thru www.kiva.org .    Check out the video of the trip to Mahalini http://www.spconline.org/pages/Mission/ChildIsWaiting.html