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If I'd Only Listened to Myself in High School

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on November 16th, 2018

When I was a freshman in High School I wanted to invest in the stock market. I, of course, had no idea what that really meant or how to do it, but it seemed interesting to me. My parents, who at the time equated the stock market to something akin to three-card monte in Times Square, told me I could invest when I had saved $1,000 from my paper route. If I had invested my hard-earned $1k into the “stock market” as measured by the S&P 500 then (1979), it would have grown to $77,217 as of the end of this October. And, get this, if I had added just $500 each year to that initial $1,000 investment, the total would now be $400,446. Holy compound earnings, Batman!

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What Events Inspire People to Get a Financial Plan

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on November 9th, 2018

Last week I wrote about the excuses people sometimes have for not preparing for their financial futures. This week, let’s talk about the opposite – what inspires people to overcome the excuses and engage a professional to guide them toward their financial goals? No matter the trigger, people are looking to simplify their lives and for peace of mind. So, it is important to find a financial planning professional who has worked with people in circumstances similar to yours. Below are some of the issues our clients have faced that prompted them to seek our help:

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Top 9 Excuses Why People Don't Get a Financial Plan

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on November 1st, 2018

Despite the fact David Letterman now looks like Santa Claus and sounds like Oprah, his Top 10 lists live on. Here are my Top 9 reasons – I don’t believe in extra if it’s not needed - why people procrastinate about planning for their financial futures. I’m sometimes asked who our strongest competition is and I always answer, “People’s own inertia.” Meaning, it can take energy to start anything new. But, it can be more nuanced than that. Here’s what I’ve seen:

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How to Prepare for a Stock Market Decline

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on October 26th, 2018

It’s been said that investing in the stock market is like riding up an escalator while playing with a yo-yo: just because the yo-yo goes up and down doesn’t prevent it from eventually reaching the next level. But, what if we could get to that next level a little faster by shortening the yo-yo’s string?

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The rich…they are different from you and me.” Recent research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) proves he was right, albeit not in the way he believed. Their study found that investors with larger holdings earned relatively lower peak returns, but they earned them consistently, with less up and down. In other words, they take less risk and know that winning in down markets is more important than winning in up markets. Let’s take a look at why this is the case and some guidance on how to accomplish it:

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FOMO or LA – What Type of Investor Are You?

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on October 20th, 2018

Last week the economist Richard Thaler won the Nobel Price in Economics for his work that explains that people behave irrationally. Well, duh, right? Anyone who has ever been to a frat party can tell you all about irrational behavior.

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The Financial Issues of Divorce

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on October 13th, 2018

“Divorce is like death, but without life insurance!” As usual, our clients express their feelings more articulately than we ever could.

Here are our stories of Ethel and Desi – fictional composites of people who have faced divorce.

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The Marshmallow Test and Walking Tall

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on October 12th, 2018

Back in the late 1960’s the Stanford psychologist, Walter Mischel, studied delayed gratification by placing a marshmallow before a child and offering them a choice: eat the marshmallow now or, if they wait a few minutes, get 2 marshmallows later. The original study found that children who were able to wait longer for their reward tended to have better life outcomes – educational attainment, better health statistics, etc. Suffer now, enjoy later. As a side note, although I am definitely a saver by nature, I wouldn’t wait 2 seconds to eat something chocolate placed before me.  

There is a common narrative that savers will eventually reap great rewards by delaying gratification, but only after suffering first. In financial terms, one can eat their marshmallow only when they retire or reach financial freedom, but must drool until then.

There is, of course, a different way to view saving and accumulating wealth. I recently came across an advertisement from 1969 by the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of St. Petersburg. Florida, not Russia. I think it captures quite well the satisfaction and peace of mind one can enjoy NOW by saving and accumulating wealth. (I haven’t edited it, so replace their use of “man” with “person” in your mind while reading)

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4 Tips How to Generate Income in Retirement

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on October 5th, 2018

The transition from working and saving to retirement and withdrawing can be stressful if you’re not ready for it. Consider this: If you are fortunate enough to live to age 65, your life expectancy is about age 85. If you’re married, there’s a 45% chance one of you lives to 90. So, how do you generate income over the next 20-30 years while ensuring you don’t outlive your assets? Here are four tips:

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UK Faculty: Get a Late Start on Retirement Saving?

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on September 28th, 2018

It is far from uncommon for faculty to get a late start on their retirement saving. A Master’s program followed by a Doctoral program followed by a long and daunting dissertation process and then, maybe, even a post-doc somewhere. Finally, when you get that first teaching gig then the real work starts, right? The long and challenging process to earn tenure when the hours are long and the pay is not. As a result, when other 35-40 year-olds already have 10-15 years of saving for retirement under their belts, a university professor may only have a handful.

So, fast forward to 50 or 60, ages when we naturally start to think about retirement. Are you on track for retirement? Have you saved enough to sustain your current lifestyle through retirement? If not, what can be done now?

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A Thief Stole My Social Security Number

Submitted by Moneywatch Advisors on September 21st, 2018

A woman stole my Social Security number but got bupkes for her trouble because I had frozen my credit. When I received a phone call from a Lexington Police detective a couple weeks ago telling me they were questioning someone who had obtained my Social Security number, along with several others, I told him I had frozen my credit and he immediately said, “You have nothing to worry about.” While it was disturbing to hear that someone could somehow steal my number, I have to say it was also quite satisfying to know I had shut her down faster than a church picnic with no potato salad.

A new federal law that goes into effect today, September 21, makes freezing your credit, thawing your credit and protecting the credit of your underage children easier and less expensive. Here are some steps to take to protect you and your family from identity theft:

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STEVE BYARS, VP MONEYWATCH ADVISORS


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ABOUT THIS BLOG

In 1996 Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. wrote a seminal book entitled, The Millionaire Next Door. These two researchers went in search of the rich in the country: Who are they? What do they do? What do they drive? How do they invest? They discovered, much to their surprise, that many of the wealthy in this country don’t live in the most expensive neighborhood or drive the fanciest cars but are ordinary people living right among us regular people. Because, remember, wealth is not the same as income. If one earns a high income and spends it all each year, one isn’t getting wealthier, just living high. Wealth is what you accumulate, not what you spend.

This blog is about and for those who live beneath their means, save their money, invest and, yes, get wealthy the old-fashioned way: steadily, over many years.

And I’ll occasionally share interesting stories that are completely unrelated to the main topic of financial planning.

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