Tim writes about real suffering – financial suffering – going on in his post (link below). Some of the topics mentioned are things we’ve heard in conversations.
Getting paralyzed by over-thinking is a real thing, it happens every day to people all around us. Including ourselves.
We rarely turn the financial lives of our clients inside-out and upside-down. Occasionally, ripping up the script HAS to happen.
But for many, it’s a shift or a change here, and a slight adjustment there…and folks might be on a better path.
We all want to simply “find the money” that will represent our down payment for a home in Monmouth County. And when wishes don’t come true, we realize saving for a down payment, saving for college, saving for retirement is going to be hard. And worse, it’s going to take some time. But is suddenly saving $5500 per month for college, for retirement, for a down payment really a plan?
Could we save $800 this month, and perhaps $1000 next month, and maybe $1200 the month after that?
Just like building budgets, getting to work on a financial plan should not make folks feel trapped. There’s a certain something within a successful plan that should signal “hey, I can do this.”
And sometimes it is those “baby steps” that build, one on top of the one before it, which can build real momentum.
But – another part of the “fear” comes when you’ve heard the market has been going down, and you are literally too afraid to look at your own results. It’s easier to avoid the suffering. Is it real true suffering if your retirement account is down, and tapping into this asset is still fifteen years away?
In 2008-09, there were many who told us they simply “stuck their account statements in their bottom drawer and didn’t look at them.” There they sat, unopened. A statement – the guts of a financial plan, sitting waiting, unopened. Delaying the (supposed) suffering. Like closing your eyes as you roll by a car wreck. Don’t want to see it. After all, if I don’t see it, it might not have happened, right?
Lately, we’ve had conversations with folks who were bracing for bad news and then discovering the wreckage wasn’t as bad as they feared. They imposed this level of suffering on themselves, for no good reason. Ignoring statements won’t make them go away, the numbers are there in black and white. Instead, we can learn a lot about ourselves. We can learn about working through problems. Additionally, we can learn our new distance from the goal, and we can learn about our tolerance for risks. A lot to learn.
Don’t ignore. Stay plugged in.