Most people think of financial planning or investments as a numbers business. At Financial Concepts, we know financial planning is much more than numbers. We know that money represents love and family. Your plan is for all the reasons you say, “Life is Good.”
No one invests to beat the market. Or to reduce their tax bill. Instead, they invest to educate children or grandchildren, to travel, or to stay home. They invest to fund the things they choose when they don’t have to go to work anymore.
Will the market go up and down? Yes. Do we know when? Nope. Do we know how much it will go down or when it will go back up? No way. Will things cost more as time goes on? Yes. In chaotic times like these, you are only human to wonder if this headline or that politician is correct? It’s natural to think my plan cannot work in these times. These times are different. We are here to remind you that while circumstances may differ, in all history of investing or planning...this time is never different!
This message is our mission in life. This mission is our great getting up in the morning. We are here to give you a dose of Vitamin C or a dose of Vitamin See. Vitamin See is what’s really important to you. Are you planning to give your family, immediate or extended, the best life you can? Are you planning to take a vacation every year? Are you planning never to have to travel again? Are you planning to make sure that you can buy your favorite brand of bacon or cute shoes?
You will never use a headline or an account statement to do those things! You will, though, use what the investments on those statements can provide you year-end and year-out to pay for those things. Or another way to say that is, you don’t take your investment statement to the grocery store; you take the income that investment provides. So, sometimes the report will show you a higher value. Sometimes the statement will show you a lower value. Sometimes it may be higher or lower several times in a row...but for you, what’s important is that the income is more year in and year out. We invest in companies that increase their dividends, your income consistently. 1
As we write monthly, we write to address the questions we’ve gotten most often, and sometimes it is hard to put words to paper. While some things are so much better…the virus numbers are declining, and the market is going up; some things are worse; prices are higher. So, we want you to make decisions on what’s most important to you, not those temporary things. What is your Vitamin See?
And here’s where it hit me…I knew what I wanted to write...
These few months have been a season of loss for me: some close and some very close. And I know it has been for a lot of you. We hurt when you do.
The other night I was helping my grandson with a paper. He was writing about a tough loss for him and how it had changed his life. Soon after that, my mom lost her aunt, an extraordinary lady who was my bonus grandmother. We both grieved and hurt. And most recently, I lost a client I have worked with for 20 plus years. These losses hit hard. I needed a Vitamin See.
I invest and plan for our families, individually and professionally. I want to have the money to help my family if they need it. I want to be the best grandmother I can be. I want to spend time at the beach.
Professionally, I want to help you to help your families when they need it. I want you to fish, golf, antique and travel or garden and play with grands. Our goal is for your family to never worry about money or headlines. To retire when you want. To enjoy retirement. To provide and protect your loved ones.
Vitamin See is not a number. It’s your family. It’s your life.
Don’t make plans based on numbers. Instead, we make sure your plan aligns with your Vitamin See.
1 https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/spearn.htm
