Sunday, June 21, 2009

Fahers Day, Bucketizing Investments

The wonderful thing about today is it reminds us that the most important things in life are family and relationships rather than investments. The purpose of investing is to help support family and relationship by providing additional resources. Sometimes the world gets the priority backwards.

With that said some retirement planning advice for you to consider so that you have the resources for your retirement and beyond. The principle is to divide resources into 2 parts, income and growth. Ideally it is best to have 2 separate portfolios one designed to provide income to meet day to day needs and the other to grow to keep up with things that grow faster than inflation like medical costs. This is what a financial advisor is supposed to do for you.

The income part matches income to daily expenses. It is a lot easier to have to match income to expenses if expenses are in order. This means it is important to have common sense like having a home mortgage paid off and no lingering credit card debt. The income part is invested in money market funds, CDs, short term bonds, TIPs, fixed annuity, etc. It is a portfolio designed for one purpose to only keep up with inflation and have a guaranteed source of income.

Growth is aimed at riskier investments like long term bonds, US stock mutual funds, Emerging market stock mutual funds, etc. It is a portfolio aimed at providing future value. Even if a repeat of 2008 occurs in the future your ability to meet expenses are not impacted reducing stress. This is where business cycle investing applies to continue growth and maximize long term performance.

You will do well if can put together a gameplan that can bucketize investments into these 2 categories. It reduces stress and provides clarity. If you need help contact me or another financial advisor.

No comments: