Pinning All Hopes

In the swing-state hotbed of Southwestern Ohio, election season has already reached fever pitch.  Depending on your view of the coverage, it’s either an exciting or terrifying proposition that there’s still more than four months to go until Election Day. 

Much of the talk surrounds Mssrs. Obama & Romney and how who ends up in the Oval Office will impact fiscal cliffs, tax rates, and future as a nation.  It seems like as worried as we are about the many questions that face us, we are equally certain that they will be handled precisely one way if candidate A wins and precisely another if candidate B prevails. 

In no way do I take lightly the times we live in, the important decisions we face and the impact those decisions will have on generations of Americans.  I do, however, want to put some perspective around the weight we place on the impact one person elected to one office truly has.

When I was in 7^th grade, I ran for student council and it was a two man race (I was in an all-boys school).  The other candidate had his supporters, I had mine.  As with most elections, it came down to the handful of students that neither of us had swayed.  I needed a platform.  I needed something that would cause them to vote for me.  So, I asked my fellow students what they wanted.  Almost to a man, easy access to a pop (soda) machine was an overwhelming favorite.  “It’s the soda, stupid”, could’ve been our campaign mantra.

So, that was it.  In our debate, I announced my plan to put a pop machine on both floors of the building and was victorious in the election.  The student body could taste the cold Coca-Cola waiting for them just down the hall. 

In my first student council meeting, I asked the principal about putting together a fundraiser so that we could install the machines in our building.  The swift and resounding “No” almost knocked me over.  Apparently, over the summer, the school board put a no-soda policy in place.  I had to deliver the bad news to some disappointed constituents.

I tell that story realizing that our current political and economic issues are many degrees of magnitude more critical than an 11 year-olds’ ability to conveniently purchase a soda, but there are some similarities.  Despite what they may say in their campaigns, there are no set tax rates, fiscal solutions or other economic certainties that instantly spring into action based on November’s outcome.  These decisions will face a tough fight, both in Congress and the White House, likely for years to come.  Many a President has made pop machine promises, only to find the bureaucratic process tougher to manage than a Junior High School principal.

This isn’t to say to walk away from the coverage or to stop caring about who wins.  In fact, it’s partially the apathy of the average American voter that helps create political gridlock as both sides only have to deal with the noisy extremes.  Instead, I’m suggesting we don’t pin all our hopes for the market, jobs, and future decisions of Congress, courts and corporations on one vote, on one election.  That will almost always lead to disappointment. 

I propose that we spend that energy better focused on the issues that really matters to us and then remain active in the process even after Election Day has passed.  It’s the only way to shift the incentives of our elected officials away from gridlock and towards making real steps towards solving these difficult issues.

Rant complete.  Have a great week!

Chip Workman, CFP®

cworkman@taaginc.com
www.taaginc.com

The Stuff Weighing You Down

Over Father’s Day weekend, when my dad and I were alone for a few minutes, he brought up a subject that had obviously been weighing on his mind.  He said he realized he and mom live 2 ½ hours away from my brother, sister and I, and if anything were to happen to either of them, it wouldn’t be easy for us to be there to help.  He would like to downsize, and move closer to us.

Dad will turn 78 this August, and he’s a very healthy, active person that looks at least 10 years younger. But the reality of the situation is he has cardio pulmonary obstructive disease, caused by a near-death experience with pneumonia when he was a baby and the ‘bad lungs’ he and his siblings inherited from his father, who also struggled with it.  My grandfather died when he was 87, and my father has taken much better care of himself; but the disease has reduced his ability to breathe freely, saps his energy, and causes more frequent sick days.   As a result, birthdays are causing him to think more and more about his mortality. 

As we talked, he said he didn’t want to wait until problems with his health forced them to move.  Due to her vision, my mother doesn’t drive more than a few miles from home, and that will become more of an issue as Dad’s health deteriorates.  He wants to move to the Cincinnati area so he can be closer to his grandkids and great grandsons.  He wants to be able to attend soccer games, birthday parties and just be more a part of their day-to-day lives.  The problem is their stuff.

My parents are very frugal savers.  Mom still has clothing she wore in college, and my dad still wears a tux he bought to sing in a concert the year I was born.  They were born in the 1930’s, shaped by the Great Depression, and spent their childhood ‘making do’ with whatever they had.  Mom was particularly shaped by her experiences.  She holds onto everything they acquire because “one of you kids might need it someday.”  This need to save things has gotten so bad she recently pulled glassware and furniture out of a bulldozed, burned down house and salvaged them.  I cannot make this up.

In order to move, they will have to let go of things.  Dad knows how difficult it will be, and how long it will take them to do it.  He said if they start now, they might be ready in 2-3 years.  Then he said something else I think is closer to the truth.  “When you’re accumulating stuff, it allows you to focus on the future because you have all these things you might eventually use.  When you downsize, it forces you to acknowledge the reality that you are going to die someday, and you don’t need it all.”

Maybe if we ask ourselves if we really need something before we accumulate it, we’ll have less to weigh us down when we get older, and the transition will be a little less painful. 

Heavy stuff.      

 

Jeannette A. Jones, CPA, CFP®

jjones@taaginc.com

www.taaginc.com

Who is Going to Pull Your Plug?

(from Carolyn McClanahan's Forbes' column, 5/22/2012 - click here for the original post. Carolyn is a physician, financial planner, educator and storyteller.  For more on Carolyn, visit her Forbes' profile.)

We have all heard the stories – accidents, sudden illness, or slow decline taking away a person’s capacity to make their health care decisions. Unfortunately, few people have taken the time to appoint someone as health care surrogate to act on their behalf in these situations and only a handful of people have discussed their wishes with their surrogate. Today I discuss how to pick your health care surrogate – it definitely requires some thought.

What does a “health care surrogate” do? Basically, they make your health care decisions if you are incapacitated and can’t make decisions for yourself. Note – you have to be both incapacitated and unable to make decisions. For those who have a hard time making decisions, you can’t punt your healthcare decisions to someone else just because multiple choices paralyze you.

Move up http://i.forbesimg.com tMany people think a health care surrogate acts only at the end of life, but there are many situations that are not necessarily life threatening where your wishes may need to be shared by someone else. If an accident takes away your ability to communicate, your health care surrogate will need to step up to speak for you and they must be willing and able to do this at a moment’s notice.

What are the qualities of a good health care surrogate?

The health care surrogate must be a level-headed individual:

If you sustain a severe head and neck injury, and the doctor tells your spouse that despite best efforts, you will never be able to feed yourself or engage in a conversation ever again, what will your spouse do? Will he freak out and want to keep you alive forever in the hope of a miracle when you’ve explicitly stated that you do not believe in miracles? A spouse does not always make the best health care surrogate. Be certain to choose someone who can follow your wishes and make good decisions in light of heart wrenching emotions. For this reason, the role of health care surrogate may be best delegated to a health care professional within the family.

The health care surrogate cannot be shy about asking questions and must be intelligent enough to understand the implications of the answers:

To fulfill this responsibility, your surrogate must understand your goals. Every treatment the health care providers want to perform must reach the eventual outcome of the goals you’ve shared with your surrogate. For me, it is so important to always have the use of my brain and my hands. If I am in a situation where we know I have a good chance of those two functions being restored, do everything toward achieving that outcome. If it is obvious that my brain will no longer allow me to write this blog or have my fabulously self deprecating sense of humor, the only things I want done are comfort measures to let me die quickly. Your surrogate must constantly ask, “Will this help my loved one reach the goals of _________.”

The health care surrogate must be willing to stand up to the health care system:

The health care system is wired to “DO EVERYTHING!” Our malpractice and payer systems greatly affect how medicine is practiced. High pressure situations lead to high pressure heroics, especially if doctors do not have a previous relationship with you. It is in the provider’s best interest to do everything possible until your health care surrogate has screamed, “ENOUGH!” If you have been clear in your wishes to limit care in certain situations, your health care surrogate will have to be vocal and not easily intimidated by overbearing health care professionals. For example, if the doctor says you will die if they do not place a feeding tube into your abdomen, and it has already been determined that your desired ability to recognize your loved ones is not in the cards ever again, will your health care surrogate have the fortitude to say no to their request?

The health care surrogate should live in close proximity if possible and have the time to address your urgent situation:

Ideally, the likelihood of needing your health care surrogate is small. However, someone who lives across the country may not be in the position to uproot their life to address your health care needs.

Other considerations:

In addition to your primary health care surrogate, it is good to have one or two backups. Ask their permission in advance, and share a written copy of your health care goals with them. Share your decision on who is serving as surrogate with other family members, and let the entire family know you have written clear wishes that are not to be messed with. The biggest impediment to a successful outcome is to have other family members not on board with your desires. When multiple family members question decisions of your health care surrogate, angst results. Your surrogate has a difficult enough job without the added burden.

I wish us all a quick, painless, and planned for death at about age 100, but unless you plan on riding your Vespa off a cliff, planned death is unlikely. Therefore, choose your health surrogate wisely just in case you need to visit that topic sooner than you desire.

Detour Ahead

My husband, Tom, and I just returned from Asheville, North Carolina.  We drove to Asheville so Tom could participate in a century ride to raise money for cancer research with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program.

Being the diligent planner, I mapped out our course and researched the construction delays along our route.  Fortunately, we were able to avoid a major back up on I-75 southbound just over the Tennessee border where the road is being repaired due to a rock slide.  Although our alternate route was miles longer, we were still able to make it to Asheville ahead of some of the other participants who did not take a detour.

Many of the financial detours that we encounter in our lives can lead to frustration because, more often than not, they are beyond our control.  In Cincinnati, Procter & Gamble employees are facing a potential detour in their careers with the company’s latest downsizing announcement.  It’s not only the people leaving whose lives will be changed, but also the remaining employees as well.  Their jobs may look drastically different a year from now. 

When a client discovers they are facing an unexpected career change, major health issue, loss of a loved one or are going through a divorce, the original path they were on is suddenly changed.   All of these circumstances can feel overwhelming because you feel like you are suddenly being veered off course.   

This is why it is so important to create a financial plan and to continually monitor it.  This can help to put the obstacles you face in perspective.  Will the change in careers mean you will have to work longer – or will your new job offer a faster road to retirement?  A health crisis could change your priorities causing the second home you always dreamed of to seem less important than it once did.  If you become suddenly single you may realize you are much more financially savvy and emotionally stronger than you originally thought. 

No matter what financial detours you encounter, we are here to guide you through them.  What may initially seem like a disaster may not have the impact you fear.  The most important thing is to start mapping out an alternative route as soon as possible so that you can lessen the impact.  Just make sure you let us know when we can help.

Christine Carleton, CFP®

ccarleton@taaginc.com
www.taaginc.com

Social Security - An Update

According to the Social Security Administration, nearly 62 million Americans are receiving some type of benefit from the program as of April 2012.  There is much speculation as to where the program is headed in the future.  Unfortunately, there’s little more to report on long term changes than mentioned in my July 2011 blog on just that topic.  The broken record remains the same.  If you’re over 55, you’re likely to see your full benefit.  How that benefit is taxed, whether or not it is means-tested in some fashion and what’s to come of the program for the rest of us remains to be seen.
 

That said, there are sufficient changes surrounding Social Security in the here and now that justified an update. 

Analytical Tools Multiplying

With 10,000 baby boomers reaching age 65 every day, it’s no surprise that a large number of tools have started to sprout up promising to help analyze how to maximize your benefit.  These tools vary in their level of sophistication, but most ultimately come down, as all financial planning does, to making educated guesses about a number of variables.  Despite much of what’s written out there, the decision as to when to draw social security is often much more than just picking age 62, 66 or 70.

The basic rule of thumb is simple.  If you expect to live past age 80 or so, depending on some other factors, it’s best to wait as long as you can to draw your benefit.  But, that comes with a number of caveats.  It’s impossible to touch on them all, but the biggest gap we see in these tools is the ability to translate what’s best purely from a Social Security standpoint to how the timing of your benefit impacts the overall portfolio.  

Does drawing later for a higher benefit cause too much strain on your portfolio in the early years of retirement?  Is giving in to the emotional pull of starting benefits sooner costing you potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits down the road?  We have the ability to look at these tools as they relate to your overall plan and help make that decision about when to turn on benefits as educated a choice as possible.

No More Statements

As you may have heard, an effort to reduce spending on postage, paper and impact to the environment has led the Administration to cease mailing out annual statements.  In response, they’ve added a new online offering called “My Social Security”.  The program allows you to create your own login and retrieve the same information reported on your annual statement at any time.  The website can be found here, or we’d be happy to walk you through the process in our next meeting.

No More Paybacks

Another slightly older bit of news that wasn’t very widely covered is the closing of the “payback” loophole.  In the past, you could elect to start your benefit early and then, at any time before age 70, “cancel” your election, payback what Social Security had paid you to that point and then restart your benefit at the new, higher rate.  This was essentially an uncollateralized, non-interest bearing loan from the government.  That option has since been removed and is no longer a tool to use in determining the best outcome for you and your benefit. 

Unintended Benefits 

Stories continue to emerge about various other Social Security “loopholes” that are likely to be closed as Congress continues to find every way they can of extending the program without upsetting the electorate.  One story that’s arguable an illustration of what’s wrong with the system was one I recently came across in Investment News.  Dependent children under a certain age are eligible for benefits of up to ½ the amount of the recipient.  This rule was largely intended for parents receiving Social Security for disability or widow/widowers’ benefits or for those having to care for dependent grandchildren.  The unintended consequence is that, in this day and age, more and more fathers in their sixties have young children.  Until the loophole is addressed, Mary Beth Franklin of Investment News recommends anyone eligible take the benefit and use it to fund the child’s 529 plan.  She coins the strategy “The Viagra College Fund.” 

We’ll continue to monitor this and all the topics we cover here that can have a meaningful impact on your life and financial goals.  If you have any questions or wish to discuss further, don’t hesitate to contact us via the links below.

Thanks and have a great week!

Chip Workman, CFP®

cworkman@taaginc.com

www.taaginc.com

Facebook Fever

As I write this blog, Facebook is set to begin trading any minute, with the estimated 11:15am start time approaching.  The fact that web sites are breathlessly reporting the status of the stock’s IPO on a minute-by-minute basis speaks volumes about the public’s interest in the company.

Facebook is a great example of the emotional side of investing.  It’s fun to own a company that everyone’s talking about, that you use personally, or you see jumping up in value the way Apple Computer did over the past 2 years.   We all want to be associated with a winner because it makes us feel like winners too - nothing wrong with that.  But IPOs can be tricky investments based on their history of spiking in the short term, then dropping significantly in price when insiders are permitted to cash out later.  One of the best overviews of the pros/cons of investing in the company actually came from a tongue-in-cheek letter from the Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, posted on the Borowitz Report.   

The better lesson to take from Facebook, Apple and others is how technology is driving innovation in the US; and we probably won’t know where the next big thing will come from until it’s already here.  In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published May 17th, The Future is More Than Facebook, the publisher of Forbes pointed out the time to make big returns in social media has passed, but there are newer, more exciting technology breakthroughs in the works: Google’s robotic driven car, robotic manufacturing, and high-tech horizontal oil drilling. These technologies will drive down the cost of providing goods and services, improve our quality of life, and create wealth.  But the path to get there will be messy.  How many companies begin with a great idea, but can’t find a way to make money with it?  Or make lots of money at first, then get run out of business by the next competitor who figures out a way to do the same thing, only better (remember Compaq computers?)  It’s impossible to consistently predict the winners in advance. 

But if you own a diverse portfolio of companies, odds are you will participate in the next big thing.  If a few of them collapse on their path to greatness, your retirement dreams will not be crushed in the process, but you’ll still participate in the overall growth of the economy.   It’s not as exciting as buying Facebook on the day of its IPO, but it’s a better plan to get rich. 

If you really, really want to own shares of Facebook just to be a part of it, wait until all the hoopla dies down, because the price will probably be lower then.  On the other hand, you could simply print out the stock certificate published by MAD magazine, and keep yourself broadly diversified in a wide range of companies, knowing the ‘next big thing’ is probably already on its way to your portfolio.

Jeannette A. Jones, CPA, CFP®

jjones@taaginc.com

www.taaginc.com

The Real Reasons Why You Buy

(from Carl Richard's New York Times' Bucks blog, 4/16/2012 - click here for the original post. Carl is a Certified Financial Planner in Park City, Utah. His sketches are archived on the Bucks blog and on his personal Web site, www.BehaviorGap.com.) His new book The Behavior Gap is on shelves now.

Before we buy something we tell ourselves stories.

We are particularly fond of the story that goes like this: We have researched all the options, and the decision we have made represents that best one we could make given the facts. Just the cold, hard facts.

Of course, that story isn’t really true.

And we make up other stories as well, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with the actual facts. We create these stories to help ourselves feel good about a decision we have already made.

For instance, many times we actually reverse the process. We decide what we want, often for emotional reasons, and then we go looking for evidence to support the decision. As we are gather the evidence, we carefully omit anything that doesn’t fit into the story we’re writing.

This is so easy to do you could say that it’s natural to us. We don’t really have the time to consider every single option. If you did, you would never get past your closet in the morning. So we take shortcuts. We decide what we want and then gather a few facts to prove to ourselves, our spouse and our family or friends that we did the right thing.

When it comes to spending money, one of the stories we like to tell ourselves is that we aren’t just spending. This item is actually an investment. It’s an investment in ourselves and our quality of life, or an investment that will actually save us money over the long run.

So we run the numbers, or more likely we read about someone who ran the numbers. Then if the narrative matches, we use that as evidence that we’re doing the right thing.

It seems easy. A simple case of addition or subtraction.

Things get complicated pretty quickly, however, when we start using the argument of saving money as a Trojan horse to hide the real reasons we’re doing something. Let’s take the case of whether to buy a hybrid or electric car.

If you decided that you want a hybrid, it’s pretty easy to find evidence to support that decision, but be careful if you’re telling yourself that it will save you money.

Except for two hybrids, the Prius and Lincoln MKZ, and the diesel-powered Volkswagen Jetta TDI, the added cost of the fuel-efficient technologies is so high that it would take the average driver many years — in some cases more than a decade — to save money over comparable new models with conventional internal-combustion engines … Gas would have to approach $8 a gallon before many of the cars could be expected to pay off in the six years an average person owns a car.

To be clear, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to buy a more fuel-efficient car. Unfortunately for the buyers relying on the numbers argument, one of them isn’t saving money in the short term unless you buy specific models.

So why do we hide behind saving money?

It’s easy to point to the price of gas. It’s harder to explain why the environment benefits from one more person driving an electric car. And it’s harder still to explain why driving a hybrid just makes you feel good.

And few people want to admit to adult peer pressure. How could you live with the story that you actually bought that Prius because you wanted a cool spot to put your Apple sticker?

Obviously cars aren’t the only thing we try to make the saving-money logic stick to. How about the recent argument at Slate that you should run out and “buy, buy, buy” a house if you are currently renting? This is a classic case of using tons of “evidence” to tell a nice little story while ignoring the data that might not fit nicely in the narrative.

Based on the facts presented in this particular story, it looks like it might actually be cheaper to buy than rent, but it states that any consideration of where prices might be headed is “irrelevant.” It’s just one more example of how far we can go in our storytelling exercises.

And it’s not that simple, as you’ve probably guessed. What if prices fall 10 percent and you have to relocate for another job? What if you know you’re moving in three years and prices stay the same?

You may be very hard pressed to break even after you consider the costs associated with buying and selling the house (e.g., real estate commissions, closing costs, moving costs and taxes). With a little honesty, there goes that nice, clean “time to buy” story.

While cars and houses might require the most complex stories, we often tell ourselves little ones about things like vacation “deals,” using a rewards credit card and buying in bulk. Often they get brushed with the halo of saving money. In each instance, saving money may be one of the reasons you’re doing something, but you can rarely say that it’s the only reason.

And that’s the point.

We tell ourselves stories about why we’re buying something, and saving money is a good story.

But I think one of the best conversations you can have with yourself, your spouse or your family is about the real reasons behind why you spend money. Be honest, even if it means having to admit that you’re buying something only because you simply want it. Blurring our reasons for our decisions around spending money is a slippery slope that can lead to a lot of financial headaches.