Hey Dad, they’re playing your song. “What song?”, my dad shot back quizzically. “This one. Here, turn it up.” Off our rockers, actin’ crazy And with the right medications we won’t be lazy Doin’ the Old Folks Boogie, down on the farm Wheelchairs, they were locked arm-in-arm. Paired off pacemakers with matching alarms Give us one more chance to spin one more yarn. And you know that you’re over-the-hill When your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill. Old Folks Boogie, and boogie we will ‘cause to us, the thought’s as good as the thrill. “Ha! That’s a good one”, my dad says. “But I promised myself that I would jump off that bridge and I have every intention of keeping it.” We were traveling south on I-65 from Culver, Indiana to Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. In the car was my dad, two of my brothers and me, part of a caravan carrying 11 of us to our destination, and we were listening to the radio while we passed the time. It was the occasion of my dads’ 90th birthday and we were headed to Lawrenceburg because there, from an abandoned train trestle, my dad intended to jump 240 feet toward the Kentucky river with his ankles tied to a bungee cord. “He wants to do what?” was the reply of most people when they were told. But those of us who know him weren’t surprised at all. On his 80th birthday he jumped out of an airplane. Always an athlete, he played tennis well into his 80’s. Typical of stories he’s told over the years is one in which he climbed to the top of the state Capitol in Springfield, Illinois when he was a state Senator there. He and a colleague crawled out a service window in the dome and made their way up to the very top where the Illinois flag was anchored to the peak. I… | Read More »
General
We’re looking forward to 2022
We are looking forward with optimism to 2022 and we hope you are too. While each year brings with it both new challenges and residual struggles from the years before, it also offers opportunities for growth and understanding. We know now more than we ever did about so many things, and we’ll learn even more in the coming months. Our vocabularies have increased, like they do every year, as we’ve researched and discussed global events. We’ve all learned more about how things like supply chain issues and labor shortages can affect the economy; interest rates and the way the federal reserve can manipulate them; novel viruses and how they mutate; how resilient corporate profits can be. We know, because we’ve seen it before, that we should expect some level of volatility in the markets. We also know, because we’ve done so many times, how to combat that volatility with patience and diversification. We know that the U.S. stock market has been enjoying a historic run over the past three years. We also know that returns like that are not sustainable and that we should adjust our expectations moving forward. We have not seen double-digit inflation numbers since 1981 and we don’t expect to see them that high this coming year, but we do see consumer prices ticking up and anticipate factoring those inflated costs into our family budgets and investment plans. We know this now, so we can deal with it as it happens. Maya Angelou once said, “When you know better, you do better.” That’s the attitude we’re bringing into this fresh, new year. We’ll move forward armed with the knowledge we’ve acquired during these last challenging years, and with our resolve to put that knowledge to work for you. Happy New Year from all of us at Winch Financial. We wish you peace, good health, happiness and prosperity in the coming year.
A conspiracy of kindess
American writer Hamilton Wright Mabie wrote “Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love” in 1909. Five years later during the First World War, soldiers stationed along the Western Front stepped out of their trenches during a spontaneous Christmas truce. They sang carols, made makeshift Christmas trees and exchanged cigarettes and treats. That terrible war resumed but, for a few hours, the men on each side met each other in a celebration of humanity and love. That’s the kind of conspiracy we can get behind. The real gifts of the holiday season – peace, joy and love – expand exponentially each time you give them and they circle right back to you. Here’s hoping for such a tremendous exchange of those gifts that they cascade beyond Christmas Day and spillover into the New Year. We wish you every good gift this holiday season and a safe, healthy and happy New Year.
Self-care for young professionals
If she could have convinced herself of one thing during her younger days, financial advisor Tanya Winch would have told herself to save much more for her retirement and to begin saving earlier. “I regret wasting potential gains on magazines and gum” she said. “Back then, I didn’t understand the magnitude of what compound interest can do. It’s a great theory and it’s completely understandable but behaviorally, it’s not real until you get to a certain point in your life and you say, ‘There’s only so much left in my working life. I’d better get on it. I’d better stop fooling around.’” These days, she’s on a mission to help other young working professionals not only understand how compound interest can boost the money they’ve worked so hard to earn, but also how easy it is to do so. Simply directing a small portion of their paycheck into an account now will lessen their future anxiety about retirement and give them a leg up on feeling great about their money skills. Toward that end, she is teaching a class called “Take Control of Your 401(k)” that will be offered both virtually and in person through the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh – Fox Cities. The two-session series will run on Nov. 2 and 9 from 6 to 7 p.m. You can register here. She wants young professionals to take control of their 401(k) and other retirement accounts and to understand that it’s not that difficult to do so. “I think everyone thinks it has to be a giant amount of money that you put into your 401K) to make a difference, but even if you just put a small amount of your paycheck in you’re going to see a big reward,” she said. “That’s the highest form of self-care and it’s really necessary for both your current and your future self.” While the class will cover 401(k) specifics like what a market cap is and… | Read More »
SPF 15 (Sound and Practical Finance) tips for people aged 70 and over
We’re wrapping up our series of SPF 15 (Sound and Practical Finance) tips with these suggestions for people aged 70 and over. You can check out all our SPF 15 posts on our website. If you have any questions or comments about this series, please feel free to contact us. We’d love to hear your ideas. If you have not already done so, begin taking your Social Security. Up until age 70, Social Security benefits accumulate thanks to delayed retirement credits. So, there is a benefit to deferring Social Security until then. There is no benefit to delaying those payments past the age of 70, even if you don’t need the money right away. Take the payments and reinvest them. Don’t forget to take your Required Minimum Distributions. RMDs start at age 72. This means you must begin taking withdrawals from your traditional IRA, 401(k) or other tax-deferred retirement accounts so you can pay the tax you’ve deferred on them. If you don’t start taking your RMD each year once you reach age 72, you will have to pay an excise tax on the amount not distributed. An immediate annuity may be a good choice for you. The longer you live, the longer you are expected to live. If you have good genes and a healthy lifestyle, then you may want to consider guaranteed income choices that provide income for life. Not all annuities are worth their fees, though, so be sure to run through your options with a fiduciary advisor before your commit to a plan. Move toward less risky investments. Once you reach age 70, you don’t have as much time to make up a loss as you did when you were 30. Check your retirement portfolio allocations with a certified financial planner to make sure they match your risk tolerance. Reassess your risk tolerance. It changes as you age and begin to withdraw from your retirement accounts…. | Read More »