Patrick and I have been married 28 years. In that time, I have started four businesses and my husband started two. Each time we tried to keep one predictable paycheck while allowing the other to grow a business. If you’re an entrepreneur, thank your wage-earning spouse today for providing a steady baseline income.
Last Friday my husband, Patrick, asked where I wanted to go for date night. After 27 dismally gray days through December and January, my answer was Florida! Anywhere warm and sunny that’s not Pennsylvania in Winter! During vacation, we sit down, enjoy the sunshine, spend time with our family, and see sites we want to experience.
Perhaps in our grandparents generation, retirement looked like quitting your job or selling your business, then having a retirement party before proceeding to a new phase. That phase consisted of watching TV, yardwork, travelling to visit friends and generally being helpful to the extended family. In the generation of clients that I’m working with now, there are as many individuals approaching retirement as I have clients. I’ll share a few of their stories to spur your imagination about your own possible vision for retiring.
By now, the kids are back in school, Summer vacations are over, and you have four months to make your business shine to the end of the year. We here at Goodlife just moved our offices, which vastly disrupted business for most of the Summer.
On the other hand, our move provided some great catalysts for building business through the end of the year. Using the new positive energy and progress people perceive through our beautiful remodeled building, we have opportunities to remind and reinforce what great partners we are in helping with your financial life.
Every business has ebbs and flows. Some are seasonal, like landscapers, busy all summer with little income in winter. Other businesses are more tied to the economy, like dentists whose clients think teeth work is optional in a recession. There will be times when income is growing and your company is profitable and times when conditions for growth are not so good. The astute business owner tries to get ready for the next downturn. While some of these ideas may be quite simple in concept, the real trick is developing the discipline to put them into practice.
Recessions are normal, and when they occur your business might incur a downturn along with many others. Thankfully, most pundits are not expecting one anytime soon. Let’s hope they’re right. That makes now a great time to orchestrate your emergency reserve buckets so that you can strive to be prepared when the next recession or potentially other unexpected business downturn occurs.
The new tax law that went into effect December last year has many changes. What an understatement. Some changes are simple to understand while some have tax preparers still scratching their heads working to puzzle through. Now that we’ve had a few months to digest, let’s see how it might be possible to use some changes to your advantage.
In February, we’ve just seen big intraday price swings in the stock market that we have not seen for a number of years. On Groundhog Day, (February 2nd) the Dow dropped 670 points. Then on Monday, February 5th, dropped 1175 points. Then Tuesday, up more than 560 points from the beginning of the market that day. As I write this article, swings continue.
While remarkable, those large swings barely made it to a ‘market correction’. Investopedia defines ‘market correction’ as:
Since age 17, I’ve read every Money Magazine, Wall Street Journal and every other sensible financial publication and book I could handle. My parents were so poor they had to sell a cow to pay each car insurance or college bill. By the time I had my first child at age 32, I was no longer struggling. I had saved 10 percent of every paycheck since my first year after college. I raised my two boys with every bit of wisdom I could muster with intentions of imparting the awesomeness of savings and compound interest to my children.
Having not yet been kicked out of any Young Professionals’ clubs, there’s a couple more decades of experience under my belt than the next generation of young professionals. As a personal investor and financial planner with over 30 years of experience, here’s some ageless wisdom for young professionals in your 20’s and 30’s.
If you are in your early 50s and just buying a home, you may be paying that mortgage in your 80s. Most financial planners believe this could lead to disaster down the road because seniors don’t usually have the income to support debt repayment in addition to monthly expenses, so they may run out of money way too soon. Yikes! You need a better plan other than being a Wal-mart greeter to pay for it. Here’s a few ways this may not destroy your retirement:
We deserve it. Everyone else gets one, why not us? My husband, who works a ‘straight’ job gets three weeks of vacation a year. My boss (me!) told myself for several years, “no vacation.” We’re too busy. We can’t afford it. Who will help our clients?
So I sat down with my boss (me!) and set her straight. I want four weeks of vacation a year. My company name is Good Life Financial and I should practice what I preach. So there!
My husband and I have started, owned, and grown four businesses in our 24 years of marriage and are starting a fifth. In that time, we have owned four homes. Although the majority of our business has been conducted outside the home, most were started at home or involved the use of our home in numerous ways. If you are a business owner or ever think you’ll be one, below are questions to think about when buying a home.
If we want next year to be better than this year (and who doesn’t), we need to develop a plan to make that happen. As business owner, business coach and financial planner I use the following wrap up/ramp up process to build my own progress and recommend these steps to my business-owner clients as well.
