Protecting Your Investment In Today’s Uncertain Market
The up and down of the economy is as normal as the change of weather. Today’s market may sound like it’s in trouble, but a similar thing has happened before, and all we have to do is have faith. In this episode, Debbie Bloyd talks about the investment that you’ve made, whether it’s your 401k or your IRA, and what’s going on with the market. She brings ideas on how to save money in the middle of this crisis and discusses the right time to talk to someone in terms of financial planning, literacy, and clarity. In these highly vulnerable times, she also notes the importance of helping seniors protect their investments from being scammed by swindlers. Moreover, Debbie shares some ways to simplify your life, starting with decluttering.
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Protecting Your Investment In Today’s Uncertain Market
In this episode, we’re talking about the investment that you’ve made, whether it’s your 401(k), IRA and what’s going on with the market. I could have talked to this talk anytime when it comes to the stock market because it’s in a series of going up and going down, but for the first time, people have believed that it could go down. It’s been going up for about the last years. Investors are worried but it’s nothing new. We had a huge drop but there’s nothing new about that. Staying focus, despite the day-to-day distractions on the market, is never easy. Half of my job is keeping people invested in the market despite its ups and downs, so when the market drops 30%, that’s like Macy’s having a 30% off sale. We run to the store to buy stuff on sale yet you don’t run to the stock market. You bail from the stock market. That locks in your losses when you shouldn’t be staying in the market to ride it back up.
Financial planners across America are finding ways to have this discussion with people. One of the things that I always talk about is don’t let your emotions drive your decisions. That happens all the time with people with their finances, kids and their homes. Emotions can lead to irrational decision making and impulsive decisions that compromise the realization of your goals. That’s a big sentence. How many of us have got our feelings hurt by someone, thrown a fit in a job and walked out without having any idea where we’re going to go next? A lot of people let their emotions drive everything. That’s not found when it comes to your finances. Making impulsive decisions that compromise your goals. That’s assuming that at some point you had some goals. Everybody has a goal to retire but do you do it with so much money?
I am having trouble with some of my clients making hard and fast rules. They say, “I want to retire with more.” More than what? How much? The good thing about money that I like is that it cannot be emotional and it’s a way to keep score. I keep score by what I make every year. It doesn’t add to my self-worth, but it’s a way to keep score. It’s a number. I want you to think of a number that you want to have by retirement and know that’s enough. If it’s not enough, it’s a good stepping stone towards that.
The younger you are, the more apt you are to be able to make that number but you have to write that number down. Before we get out there with this, I do believe that if you set down your goals like a Zig Ziglar girl, but there’s a lot of new-age thinking that you attract what you think about most of the time and you become what you think about most of the time. You add that to the financial world. If you think, “I need to make $200,000 this year,” and that is your mantra, your subconscious is going to find ways in going to bring you ideas to make you money if you would go with it.
Don't let your emotions drive your financial decisions. Click To TweetMany people have a decision made and they never veer from that, whether it’s taking them down the right road or not, they never leave that decision. I see it mess up people’s retirement every day. You can react impulsively and make a list of your concerns. You can look at your goals, strategy and see how this is going to fit. A lot of my clients didn’t throw a fit the last time the market dropped because they know that the money that’s invested in the market is for long-term growth. That’s not to say that they’re not worried about the drop but they’re not using that money immediately anyway. If you’re in the retirement stage where you’re using money out every month as a salary, you need to have that separately from the money that’s invested for growth. Those aren’t the two same things.
When there are fear and uncertainty in the air, when there is a scary news that makes you question what you should do, that’s when it’s most important to talk to someone other than yourself and someone in your immediate family. Husbands and wives can never agree usually on what to do. It takes a third party outside person that is not emotional about the money to make some of those decisions with you. You need to understand your tolerance for risk. I have some clients that are like, “Whatever. It’s fine. It will all work out,” and there are some clients that are scared of everything going wrong and drive themselves and everyone around them nuts. You need to limit and you can defend against risk but you can’t eliminate it entirely.
I watch a lot of people do this. They don’t want the risk of another bad relationship, so they get out of the relationship game altogether and leads to a lonely life. It’s the same thing can happen to your money. Not because you had a bad year and didn’t make something, you need to regroup and start again. There’s a lot on the line and only you can control that. You need to understand your tolerance for risk. Your tolerance for risk as a female or a married partner is different than the male’s or a man’s.
When we have money combined in joint accounts, everybody has to agree. Sometimes that’s why women and men keep their money to themselves, even when they’re married because they have different risk tolerances. Men are riskier than women usually. Be diversified. Despite the best efforts of investment professionals, it’s truly and virtually impossible to guess in advance, which asset class will have the best-given return in a year.
Protecting Your Investment: Emotions can lead to irrational and impulsive decision decisions that compromise the realization of your goals.
Spread your investment dollars among all the classes, that’s going to be small stocks, medium-sized stocks, large, international, gas, oil, commodities and emerging markets. These are all different classifications. They all have their own tolerance for risk. You need to match up what you are with where they are. You also need to listen to a financial planner and talk to one that you can have a relationship with. It’s someone that truly understands where you’re at. They’re not putting all of their clients in the same thing. It’s good for everybody. It’s not good for everybody. What is good for a single man is not good for a family of four. What’s good for a single woman and her children is not good for a family. Everyone has different goals, so we need to have different plans.
Lessons Of Time
You say times like this have never happened before and I’ve got a great big handout. I wish I could see it. It’s a four-fold magazine type spread from Time magazine. The beginning of it was Learning Lessons from the Lessons of Time. That’s a play on words, Time magazine in time on a time chart. Back in 1972, the headline was, Is the US Going Broke? I don’t even know if you remember all these headlines, but there’s a ton of them and you can google them. It always looked like we were in a bad situation. It always looked like the US was having problems.
We have had problems over the years but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be you and that it’s going to affect you. The stock market continues to rise despite all of these following headlines. I’m going to read it to you. Back in 1974, there’s a picture of the guy with an ice pack on his head and a thermometer and said, “The stock market has scarcely been so shaky since 1929. Everybody who buys, sells, borrows and invests has that feeling of ease.” You have that now, don’t you?
Unemployment, the biggest worry, that was back in 1982. It’s undoubtedly troublesome that the ranks of the growing jobless are growing at a time when many of the cushions softening the pain of unemployment have been deflated. The Squeeze of ‘79. The Revolt of the Old in ‘77. Back in 1986, the cover of Time magazine was a half-bear half-bowl and it says, “Is this good for America?” It’s the stock market, of course it’s good for America.
Everyone has different goals, so we need to have different financial plans. Click To TweetA Wash in Troubles, it shows the White House and the Department of Commerce in an ocean with money all around it, “A Wash in Troubles, bankers face their most strenuous survival test since the Great Depression.” That was in ‘84. It could have that same cover for 2008 when we all lost money. In 2008, the cover of Time magazine in January was a little piggy bank. Piggy banks are usually fat so you can put the money in them with a little cut at the top. This is a super skinny pig and it said, “Surviving The Lean Economy. Americans have a new menu of economic woes. Among them are real-estate crashes, a credit crisis and a broken healthcare system and nagging job insecurity.” We could say that, couldn’t we?
High anxiety was the cover of 1990 Time Magazine. Bankers and insurance firms are teetering and tottering beneath huge portfolios of bad real estate mortgages. That was in 1990. The bad mortgages didn’t show up in the market until 2008. The cover of 1994’s Time Magazine was a briefcase with a guy jumping over the headline, “Whatever Happened to the Great American Job? All sorts of people who never thought they would be in jobless lanes are looking for jobs and not finding them.” This is when the stock market was still going up. Even the stock market went up when it looked like a cover of Time magazine was it said the majority rule crossed out with red ink and it’s got a stormy cloudy sky behind the White House.
This nation has been carved up into echo chambers. Increasingly, we only hear the sound of our own passions and fears reverberating. The funny thing is the market still kept going up. If you’re working with a financial planner that’s not taking your thoughts, fears and all of your concerns into consideration when planning your portfolio, give me a call. Let me help you. I can direct you to great firms and companies that I represent. I listen. I’ve been through all that with other clients and I can go through that with you. Get in touch with me if you have any questions. I work with people all over the country. My email address is [email protected]. My phone number is (979) 220-3018.
Protecting Seniors And Their Investments
A lot of our banks are going to change the way they do business. After this scare, a lot of us are going to change the way we do business. Let me give you some banks that are best for seniors. This was an article published not too long ago in one of the banking magazines that I get. The US population is going to continue to grow, so does our older adults. One financial firm puts the cost of elderly financial abuse at nearly $37 billion a year. That’s a lot of money. We talk about elder abuse and it’s usually the people closest to family members that take their money or swindled him out of money.
Protecting Your Investment: You can defend against risk, but you can’t eliminate it entirely.
Financial exploitation later in life is devastating for seniors and their families. While family members play a crucial role in protecting their seniors, they’re also the first ones that are at risk when people are investigating fraud and defrauding seniors from their money. It’s usually someone that the senior knows. We talked about banks. Let me give you some banks that specialize with special accounts for seniors. TD Bank, for the second year in a row, we picked TD Bank because of its robust elder abuse protections.
For instance, the bank lets customers give read-only access to a trusted family member or friend who has a power of attorney allowing a second pair of eyes to monitor the account. One of the most crucial safeguards against elder abuse according to AARP and CPBD. The TD Bank also received an above-average customer service score from JD Power. It’s a big plus for seniors who often prefer better in-person versus online. TD Bank is almost exclusively located on the East Coast. If you’re outside of that, you may have to do it online. PNC has a presence in nineteen states and has twice as many branches as TD Bank. If you live in the Northwest, this might be a great bank for you. Chase with more than 5,000 branches has a larger footprint. It’s scored high on its range for senior protection. There’s also a specialist checking accounts for seniors.
Ways To Simplify Your Life
We’re going to end this with twelve ways to simplify your life. People make things a lot harder than they have to be. I’m trying to simplify and you should too. They say a cluttered desk, home, refrigerator cluttered whatever, makes you not able to concentrate and get right down to the business at hand because your mind can’t organize the clutter. Let’s talk about a few ways to simplify your life. Life can be pretty complicated, and they always seem there’s going to be a trade-off with keeping up with the work and rest time. To find out which areas of your life begin with answering these questions to reorganize, which part first. When it comes to family and friends, I wish I saw them more. I feel close but wary of them. I am happy with my relationships. If you’re happy with your relationships, that’s great. Maybe you want to see them more, but you can’t because you never feel you can catch up.
You need to write a list of the pros and cons of negative relationships and set boundaries if you’re not happy with relationships. Sometimes, we’re the ones to blame for simplifying our life. We won’t cut out the stuff that’s bad in our life. We keep tolerating it. Write a list of supportive people in your life and reach out to them more often. Schedule time in your calendar to call family and friends. If we have family and friends around us, we’re able to deal with a lot more of life’s let-down problems. If the people that are closest to us are frustrating us, maybe it’s limiting time with them. That’s a great way to simplify your life.
After this scare, a lot of people are going to change how they do business. Click To TweetMy daughter keeps saying that in college, she’s struggling to stay organized with her work, social life, friends, with life, doctor’s appointments and things in general. I talked to her about putting things down on the list. List everything you need to do and pick the three most important things and do them first. You’re going to write everything down. You need to get done and you’re going to prioritize them. I do that every day. When I come into work. I have a list made the night before and the clients that I need to talk to, the things that I need to get done, why I need to get them done. I’ve already known in my mind that I prioritize them. That’s easy to do for me because I’ve been doing this list thing for a long time.
If not for you, write it down the night before and strategy comes into play. What is the most important? What makes the most money? What’s the most urgent? Urgent for you and urgent for someone else are two different things. Saying no to extra work when you don’t have the time, or you can go to see people because it’s too far to drive too much time. I find a lot of people put themselves out for other people that have nothing left for themselves. Ways to simplify your home, keep the items that you want to keep and discard the rest.
There’s a girl on the internet, she’s got shows and YouTube, she’s all over the place. She tells you to hold the object in your hands and if it brings you joy, keep it. If it doesn’t, discard it. You can do that with appliances, plates, clothes, used things in your home, whatever it is. She said for clothes, and it was a cute quote, “For clothes if you’re wearing that outfit and you run into your ex, is that something you want to show him or her that you look good in. If it’s not, discard it. If it’s not worthy of that, discard it.” That’s a pretty tough line right there.
Organize your home by category, not rooms. Organizing by rooms simply shuffles items from one location to another. It starts with your clothes, followed by books, papers and small sentimental items. Wait four days to buy something after you see it. I know this is terrible with everything shopping online right. You can point, click and it gets delivered tomorrow. We don’t like to wait. That is a great way to save money and decide if you need it or you just want it. You have your need money and your want money. Those two can’t get confused.
You also need to simplify your mind. Take a short walk in the mornings or the evenings. When we get outside, it does something to the chemicals in our minds. It lowers our shoulders and makes us relaxed, we get back to nature and we get re-center. Write down three things every evening that went well and explain why. You could call it a gratitude journal, “This is what went well today.” “This is what I’m thankful for.” You can’t be stressed and thankful at the same time. It doesn’t work. Be thankful all the time, and you’ll find yourself under less stress. This is Debbie, thank you for being with us. We’ll be back with more of my show soon.
