I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘musings’ Category

If the events of the last two months has not been enough, my mom went to the hospital this morning due to difficulty breathing (a complication of a virus she had plus her asthma).  I am honestly worried sick and cannot concentrate on anything.  I don’t know a status yet, my brother took her to the emergency room and will give me more information as it becomes available.

My brother is with her and I would appreciate any positive thoughts towards our family right now.  Thank you.

There are some great financial planners out there, and then, well, there are some who are not.  I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on the phone with financial planner types while I have been sorting out the details of my father’s estate and also his retirement funds, and rather than come up with a definitive list of what to look for (or not) in a financial planner, today I’m taking a humorous approach.  But, based a tiny bit in fact as I’ll mention at the end.  Enjoy!

1.  When they’re talking to you, they’re constantly being interrupted by calls they *have* to take.

2.  They play games on Facebook on their iPhone the entire time you are meeting with them.

3.  Their door is shrouded in black for the “death of the economy”.

4.  Their company was part of the big financial bailout and yet they’re scheduling a vacation with the big bonus they just got.   During your meeting.

5.  When you talk, they yawn.

6.  Then pass you a prewritten financial plan that reflects nothing that you just said.

7.  When you ask questions, they say “Everyone is losing money, just roll with it.”

8.  They look at their watch and tell you that you are making them late for their racquetball match so could we wrap it up now?

9.  None of the above applies to you because you haven’t been able to get your advisor on the phone to schedule a meeting in months.

10.  Or years.

Obviously, many of these things probably haven’t happened to you or happen very often.  But my one takeaway message from my financial planner experience so far is find one who is actually listening to you and values your time.   If it sounds like they’re giving you a predetermined script no matter what you say, they probably are.  If it sounds like they have their best interests in mind, not yours, they probably do.   If you choose to work with a financial planner, make sure you are being heard and feel like an important part of the process.  Or you might not be part of the process at all.

Every time I read another headline about the current state of the economy I immediately, in my head, sigh and think “Why didn’t we get going on the debt-free path more seriously years ago?  We could be in a much better position right now and not be so worried!”.  The idea that we could be weathering whatever economic storms are ahead with no debt, with a healthy emergency fund… those ideas really entice me.  And then I think about the fact that we still have about $10000 in non-mortgage debt, an over $100000 mortgage, and very little emergency savings, and I get irritated at myself all over again.  All around us, jobs keep disappearing, salary increases are non-existent, and in my own financial life, my sources of alternative income have steadily become fewer and farther between.  The debt-free road is shorter for us than it was, but increasingly steeper as well.

But what I forget sometimes is that there may be a “better” time for things like this to happen, but there is also most certainly a worse time.   The current economic turmoil (which, will, eventually pass) could have happened when we first seriously committed to our debt-free journey.  We’d have been $25000 more in debt and with even less of an emergency fund to show for it.  Or this could be happening when we still had over $12000 in credit card debt and zero assets to speak of.  Or during the time my spouse was out of work due to a company-wide layoff at his former employer. We personally thought times were bad then, but they weren’t what they are now on a global or country-wide scale.

There will always be a “better” time to handle setbacks and uncertainty in the world and in our own lives, but there is also a “worse” time.  And today, being my currently introspective self, I am grateful for it not being a worse time.  And resolved to continue down the path of it being a “better” time next time. One penny or snowflake at a time.

We have, or had, down the street from us a theater that ran movies that were a few months old and admission to them was $1 per person.  In years past in the summer, when my older son was off from school, sometimes when the weather outside felt unbearably hot we would go to the dollar theater in the middle of the day for a fun treat.

But no more, for last week the dollar theater here closed its doors for good, citing economic problems as the cause.

And it makes me wonder – is this a sign of our current economic state that a theater that only charges a dollar for admission went out of business?  Is it that they couldn’t afford to pay their expenses with such a small admission price, or that less people were going out to the dollar theater because of constraints on their budget?  Are movie theaters in general doing poorly?  The regular-priced theater here is still open and the parking lot seems crowded when I drive by it on my way home from work each day.  But I haven’t done any kind of statistical analysis of it, or heard anything in the local news about the regular-priced theater.  It could be doing poorly as well for all I know.

For some reason, finding out the dollar theater is closing just hit me in a new way about the state of the economy.   And, I’ll have to find other cheap or free entertainment on really hot summer days this year…

How bad are things, really, and is there any sign they will get better anytime soon other than wishful thinking?

I am, in my heart, a planner, and I am all for saving for the future.  I believe that we can never be prepared enough for what lies ahead, and knowing that, all we can do is try our best to be prepared for it.   I think a lot about what we could be doing and what we should be doing today so that tomorrow, whatever happens, we have at least a fighting chance of handling it gracefully.  I have re-evaluated our “emergency” and “retirement” plans as we become closer to being financially solvent, and have adjusted them accordingly to try and help prepare us, as best we can, for whatever it is that lies ahead for my spouse and I as a couple, and my family in total.  And that has involved, over the past few years, us increasing our savings and limiting our spending, as a general and continual trend.

But that being said, it is really all about balance. If we go through life calculating the potential future effect of every single purchase we make in terms of how much money we could have at retirement, we would all be miserable.  The key is to knowing when the supposed sacrifice is worth it.  And that “worth it” can change every day, every week, every situation.  We can’t go through life asking ourselves if that latte is worth $2000 later, because it never will be. But if we never ever spend any money unless we absolutely have to, what joy do we have in life?

Enjoy the moment, enjoy the purchase, enjoy the gadget. When you commit to doing something fun, today, and in the moment, for yourself or for others with you, commit to it without regrets.  If we spend every minute we are supposedly having fun worrying that we made the wrong move, we take the very joy we were seeking out of that experience.

Balance. Priorities. Look to that experience, that moment. Don’t rush through the occasional extravagance because it makes you feel guilty. Learn to balance between having a healthy respect for the needs of tomorrow, and have a healthy respect as well for the enjoyment of life today.

Life is only lived once, after all. Live it.