Pink Slip Lemonade
October 5, 2009 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · Leave a Comment
As the economy begins its recovery but the job losses keep coming, many are finding the need to be creative with their careers and their financial situation. Last week, I had the pleasure of spending some time chatting with fellow Garrett Planning Network member Sherrill St. Germain, CFP®. Sherrill’s built a financial planning practice in New Hampshire around helping people make career transitions without wreaking havoc on their finances.
Because so much financial information is needed right now for career changers and those between jobs, I want to highlight a fantastic series of blog posts that Sherrill did in June. In this series aptly titled Pink Slip Lemonade, Sherrill – along with some guest bloggers — cover a range of financial planning topics relevant to the laid-off and the employed-but-worried, highlighting strategies that enable families to survive — and even thrive — in these difficult times, as well as better weather future financial storms. Click here to read Pink Slip Lemonade.
How to Choose a Financial Planner
August 31, 2009 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · Leave a Comment
You may be considering seeking some professional financial advice. Or, if you already have a financial advisor, you may be wondering if they’re doing a good job for you.
You’re likely juggling 2 sets of questions as you consider this decision:
The first set is personal:
- Do I like the advisor enough to spend significant amounts of time in their office?
- Do I feel comfortable sharing all of my personal financial information, dreams, and goals?
- Do I feel like the advisor understands and respects my lifestyle and goals and can help me achieve them?
With this first set, the answers are truly personal, and you should feel comfortable trusting your gut instinct after meeting the advisor and doing an initial interview.
Unfortunately, this is sometimes as far as selection process goes and the advisor choice is based exclusively on these personal connections. This can lead to a lot of regret later on.
The second set of questions is fundamental and every bit as important as the first set.
- Can I trust this person?
- Are they competent?
- Do I understand their fees and feel confident they’re a good value?
Answering these 3 fundamental questions requires some digging.
To determine the trust factor, I suggest interviewing the advisor using this Comprehensive Advisor Checklist. In addition, you should receive a copy of their privacy policy and form ADV part II for Registered Investment Advisors. You should also check their regulatory history to ensure it’s clean. For Registered Investment Advisory firms, go to http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/. For broker-dealer representatives, go to FINRA’s Broker Check. It also doesn’t hurt to do a google search of the advisor.
To determine competence, you want to understand what education and experience they have in the financial areas important to your situation. Be aware that many training programs provided by broker-dealer firms are essentially sales training programs, not financial planning programs. You want to identify their specific financial planning education. The Comprehensive Advisor Checklist also provides some very good guidance in this area. In addition, you want to be sure they can explain their investing approach in clear, down-to-earth terms. If it’s too complex to understand, at best it’s more complexity than you need. At worst, you could be walking into a scam or sky-high fees that will seriously damage your returns.
Fees are the last area. The Comprehensive Advisor Checklist also provides some solid guidance here. The financial services industry is not known for transparency of fees, so you may have to be persistent to get the answers you need. If the advisor is not forthcoming, you need to walk away. Once you get the information, you will want to weigh any potential conflicts of interest in compensation model, the quality and customization of the advice to be received, and the scope of the advice (is it just investing or does it also cover other financial areas?).
Only after you’ve looked at both the personal and fundamental questions should you make a decision about who to work with.
I provide fee-only advice to individuals at all financial levels, and would be honored to be included in your consideration of financial advisors. I invite you to conduct a thorough review of Keener Financial Planning using the resources suggested above. You may wish to start with the Interview Jean, About Us, and Schedule of Service pages, and then call 817-993-0401 to schedule a complimentary initial consultation.
Couples, Investing, and Risk
July 21, 2009 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · Leave a Comment
It’s pretty common for spouses to be at different points on the risk tolerance spectrum. If you’re one of these couples, you know that these differences can have varying effects on the relationship and your investing behavior.
Sometimes, the more conservative spouse just completely delegates investing decisions to the other spouse and just shuts their eyes when the statement comes. This is not the ideal solution because it’s important for both spouses to be educated on your investments in case something happens to the decision-making spouse. Lack of information can lead to stress and poor decisions with long-term consequences in this situation.
Other times, there’s a constant state of friction and stress whenever investments are discussed. The more conservative investor may veto anything that sounds the slightest bit risky. Or the more aggressive investor may rush to make investing decisions without fully explaining or researching the risk to the more conservative spouse. This approach is also clearly not what you want in your relationship!
The bottom line is … You can have differences in this area and still work quite productively together on investing. In fact, you can use your differences to prompt each other to thoroughly research and discuss each investment option resulting in better investment decisions. So how do you get to this point?
First, define your goals
Making good investment decisions is difficult if you don’t know what you’re investing for. Making sure you’re on the same page–or at least reading from the same book–when it comes to financial goal-setting is the first step toward dealing jointly with investments.
Make sure the game plan is clear
Making sure both spouses know how and (equally important) why their savings are invested in a certain way can help minimize marital blowback if investment choices don’t work out as anticipated. Second-guessing rarely improves any relationship; making sure both partners understand from the beginning why an investment was chosen, as well as its risks and potential rewards, may help moderate the impulse to say “I told you so” later.
If you’re the more aggressive investor …
Take time to understand your spouse’s concerns. You may need to provide additional information to increase his or her comfort level, but you won’t know what to supply if you automatically dismiss any objections. If you’re enthusiastic about an investment, concealing potential pitfalls could make future joint decisions more difficult if your credibility suffers because of a loss. A more cautious spouse may help you remember to assess the risks involved.
Remember that you can make changes in your portfolio gradually; you don’t have to become more aggressive all at once. And if you’re an impulsive investor, try not to act until you can consult your partner.
If you’re the more conservative investor …
If you’re unfamiliar with a specific investment, research it. Though past performance is no guarantee of future returns, understanding how an investment typically has behaved in the past or how it compares to other investment possibilities could give you a better perspective on why your spouse is interested in it.
Consider whether there are investments that are less aggressive than what your spouse is proposing but that still push you out of your comfort zone and might represent a compromise position. For example, if you don’t want to invest a large amount in a single stock, a mutual fund that invests in that sector might be a way to compromise. (Before investing in a mutual fund, carefully consider its investment objective, risks, charges, and expenses, which can be found in the prospectus available from the fund. Read it carefully before investing.)
What if you still can’t agree?
You could consider investing a certain percentage of your combined resources aggressively, an equal percentage conservatively, and a third percentage in a middle-ground choice. This would give each partner equal input and control of the decision-making process, even if one has a larger balance in his or her individual account.
Another approach is to use separate asset allocations to balance competing interests. If both spouses have workplace retirement plans, the risk-taker could invest the largest portion of his or her plan in an aggressive choice and put a smaller portion in an option with which a spouse is comfortable. The conservative partner would invest the bulk of his or her money in a relatively conservative choice and put a smaller piece in a more aggressive selection on which you both agree.
Or you could divide responsibility for specific goals. The more conservative half could be responsible for the money that’s being saved for a house down payment in five years. The other partner could take charge of longer-term goals that may benefit from taking greater risk in pursuit of potentially higher returns. You also could consider setting a predetermined limit on how much the risk-taker can put into riskier investments.
Finally, a neutral third party with some expertise and a dispassionate view of the situation may be able to help work through differences.
If you and your partner have worked through investing differences, I’d love to hear what’s worked for you. Please feel free to post a comment!
Forgiveness and Money
June 15, 2009 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · 1 Comment
I invited Kristin Robertson, president of Brio Leadership, to do a guest post on the Keener Financial Planning blog this morning about forgiveness.
As we seek to manage our money in smarter ways, many times our experiences with money in our past play a key role in the decisions we’re making today. We inherit attitudes about spending and saving from our parents and early childhood experiences. Sometimes we’ve personally made mistakes with money. Or we’ve seen people that we’re close to make mistakes, oftentimes in ways that significantly affected us.
These experiences all affect our ability to be fully effective for ourselves and our loved ones in our financial lives. Sometimes, until we’ve processed these experiences, it can be difficult to understand why we continue to overspend, or why we can’t enjoy spending the money we’ve saved for a vacation, or why we feel deprived even when we have plenty. As we process our attitudes toward money, we may discover that forgiving ourselves or someone else for past mistakes is important to letting go and moving forward to happier and more productive ways of managing money.
I hope you enjoy Kristin’s article. And don’t miss the links to her site and more information on her new book.
Forgiveness: 5 Reasons It’s Good for You
June 15, 2009 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · 1 Comment
By Guest Blogger Kristin Robertson, President, Brio Leadership
Remember how a nice warm bowl of chicken soup helps you feel better when you have the flu? Well forgiveness and have the same effect when what ails you is a grievance from the past.
Did you know that you really forgive others to help yourself — not to help the other person? Surprised? In my definition of forgiveness, the goal is to neutralize the emotional charge that you carry toward a person who has harmed you. Forgiveness is like letting yourself out of jail – you release the hateful, vengeful thoughts that imprison you and make you feel bad every time you remember the hurtful incident.
So if forgiveness is like chicken soup, what are the results of enjoying a steaming, savory bowl of the stuff? Here are five personal benefits to forgiving:
1. You are healthier.
You do your body a favor when you forgive. Recent research has shown that the act of forgiveness pays dividends in the form of less illness and physical maladies. Some schools of thought state that the lack of forgiveness is the root cause of all physical illness, and that the first thought you should have when you discover a physical ailment is, “Who or what do I need to forgive?”
2. You are happier and more peaceful.
A human being is an energy-producing and energy-consuming organism. The state of non-forgiveness, along with feelings of vengeance, hate and self-recrimination, drain you of energy – they divert large amounts of your daily energy allotment, leaving less power for positive emotions and for enjoying life. Once you learn to forgive, you free up the energy that was invested in maintaining your negative emotions. Now you have energy to invest in positive experiences and enjoyment of your many blessings.
3. You enjoy improved mental health.
Recent research shows that people who learn to forgive suffer from fewer incidents of depression than before. In addition, people who forgive experience less anxiety. Before learning forgiveness, your spirit is stuck in negative emotions such as anger, resentment, and vengeance. When you forgive, you make room for more positive emotions such as love and compassion.
4. Your stress level decreases.
Stress is your response to a perceived threat. What one person perceives as a threat is not a threat to another. If you remain in a state of non-forgiveness, you have less energy to devote to seeking other perceptions of a stressor and seeing it in a different light. A large cause of stress is a lack of control over a situation or your life. When you forgive, you are choosing a different response from the past, which gives you more control over your life and reduces your stress level.
5. It is easier to stay in the present moment.
The process of forgiveness frees you from the tyranny of remembering past hurts. Your spirit no longer is bound to the past, your mind stops reviewing and re-living grievances, and you stop clinging to a victim’s role. You are able to live in the present moment, which is the most spiritually mature way to live. When you live in the present moment, you live with a heart and a mind that are wide open to perceiving the wonders and blessings of life.
It is hard to contemplate an employee in today’s workplace who doesn’t have someone or something to forgive. Forgiveness opportunities range from relatively minor annoyances to major grievances. A minor annoyance at the office, especially in cubicle-land, is the allergic co-worker who sits in the next cube and loudly clears his throat all day in the most annoying way. Can you forgive him? Or what about the customer from hell who yells at you for something you have no control over? Is that forgivable? Consider the boss who repeatedly overlooks you for promotions that you clearly deserve or who gives you a bad performance review? That is not easy to forgive. An even bigger grievance is the boss or business partner who swindles you out of a large sum of money, or who sexually harasses you. Now, that’s a big deal.
Everyone constantly faces forgiveness opportunities – at work, at home, towards you and toward others.
In my new book, A Forgiveness Journal, I present a seven step process of forgiving, that includes identifying your feelings, talking it out, changing viewpoints, gaining perspective, writing to the other person, acting and blessing the other. By following these steps, you too can reap the benefits of forgiveness. It’s like eating chicken soup when you feel bad – you will feel better all over
If you like what you’ve read so far, you might check out my book, A Forgiveness Journal, put in on your bedside table, look at it every night before going to bed. Also, you’ll want to sign up for my free monthly newsletter at http://www.brioleadership.com
Kristin is President and Head Coach of Brio Leadership, a coaching, consulting and training firm that helps builds spiritually intelligent individuals and teams so they can live lives of integrity, meaning and fulfillment. She believes that incorporating spiritual intelligence in the workplace is a way to positively transform lives and create highly productive work environments.
Values and Living Well
November 18, 2008 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · Leave a Comment
Most of my posts are pure financial planning. Looking at the dollars and cents of how to use your financial resources most efficiently. However, I find from time to time it’s helpful to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of how money inter-relates with so many other aspects of our lives. If you’re looking for hard-core financial knowledge, you’ll want to skip this category of posts. Or, if you like to occasionally walk on the philosophical side of life, I hope my musings provoke your own thinking. Feel free to comment.
An important part of living well to me is having my values in sync with my lifestyle. In addition to all the other reasons, that’s one of the main elements that attracted me financial planning because being financially responsible and helping people are two of my top values. I also really wanted to believe in the work I was doing and feel that it served a higher purpose. Providing the tools, motivation, and knowledge for people to make sense of their relationship with money fits right into this.
I had the opportunity on Saturday morning to participate in a wonderful session that brought me back to re-examine my values. Life Coach and Business Consultant Kristin Robertson of Brio Leadership led a wonderful 3-hour session called “Building the Temple of Well Being.” She walked us through activities that looked at how we spend our time and our money and how that reveals our true values. She talked about the difference between the values these two exercises revealed and our aspirational values — the ones we’d really like to have. We also did several activities to reconnect with our spirituality in our daily lives. I found the focus on gratitude and forgiveness as definitive actions that promote personal happiness, optimism, and satisfaction a wonderful reminder that we determine much of our level of happiness in daily life through our actions. If you’d like to read more about Kristin’s workshops or life coaching practice, I encourage you to check out her blog at www.brioleadership.com.