Happy week-before-Thanksgiving everyone! As most of you know, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year – in addition to July 4th, St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Christmas, Cinco de Mayo and of course Groundhog Day. But I digress.
Every quarter, our office receives about 10 phone calls from clients who are having trouble understanding their quarterly or monthly statements. The call usually goes something like this: “I got my Pershing statement in the mail, but I also received a statement from Reits/Atel/Business Development Company (BDC) (alternative investments), and I’m not sure if these extra statements are in addition to my Pershing account, or if they’re part of what’s reflected in my Pershing statement. Then, when I log into eMoney, the values don’t match up with what I’m seeing in my statements.”
Halloween is less than a week away, and if you’ve got young kids like I do, your house is probably well into the preparation of costumes, and all the excitement that comes with the prospect of free candy. Although Halloween costumes today aren’t as scary as they used to be, watching my kids get ready to dress up and scare away spooks has me thinking about some of the things that keep our clients up at night.
Here at Family Financial Partners, we are proud to be able to say that the majority – nine out of 10 – of new clients who come in to have initial conversations with us do end up choosing to work with us. To be perfectly honest however, we’d prefer to bat a thousand. We’ll always keep striving for perfection, even if we know we’ll never get there.
Any of you who know me well know that I have no qualms with the idea of asking someone to work with me and my team at Family Financial Partners. After 20 years in this industry, I know that pretty much everyone I talk to already has a financial planner or team that they work with. I also know that the majority of the people I talk to are being underserved, or they’re not happy with their current investment portfolio.
Many of you who don’t work with us probably think it’s normal to accrue somewhere between .25 percent and .75 percent on your emergency fund, and that it’s normal to have bank IRA CDs that recently rolled from 1.25 percent to .25 percent. When we ask new folks why they think this is normal, the response is usually, “That’s what the banker told us.”
With all the kids going back to school this week, we’re all thinking about everything they’re going to learn this year. Exciting stuff! But don’t forget to keep teaching and talking to your kids at home about money, budgeting, and other basic financial topics.
This time of year, we’re all noting that in Central Kentucky, we’ve got about a month until school is back in session. Some us look forward to that, and getting back into our “normal” routines, but at the same time, a lot of us are trying to maximize these last few weeks of summer with the kids by heading to the beach, the pool, or taking a nice hike while the days are still long and warm.
I recently watched an excellent Ted Talk on how gratitude leads to happiness. The gist is that being truly grateful, even for the small things, and showing that gratitude throughout each and every day, leads to a much greater feeling of happiness and satisfaction in life.
When it comes to budgeting, we see people falling into the same traps over and over again. Now, in theory, well all know what it means to budget: live within your means, spend less than you make, save for emergencies. Sounds simple, right? Then why do so many people, no matter how much money they’re bringing in, have trouble with budgets?
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