Finding Financial Independence

Financial Independence

Financial Independence has become the goal for many who struggle with the overwhelming task of funding a long term retirement strategy that is so far away. In a world where jobs are constantly changing, skills need continual updating and stability is hard to find, many are rethinking how retirement is viewed. Instead of thinking of retirement as a destination 30 or 40 years from now that must be funded with a huge cash reserve, thinking of creating financial independence through passive income streams feels more attainable.

If financial independence is a strategy that will provide ongoing income there are several things that must be accomplished to make this a reality. Here are some tips and ideas on creating passive income.

What Is Passive Income

Creating a passive income stream, looks at investment opportunities through the lens of providing ongoing income, rather than accumulating large amounts of investments that will be withdrawn at some point in the future. The traditional passive income streams were social security and pension plans which would pay a set amount of money each month until you die. With these passive income streams additional work was not required and the funds would last until you died, ensuring you would never outlive the money.

Today those traditional passive income streams like pensions cannot be relied on. This has left workers with 401ks and IRAs as the funding options for retirement. These are great options, but with jobs changing and the average worker going through a dozen or more jobs in a career, even this is not enough to provide ongoing security. This has required Millennials to be more creative when they think about savings, investing and preparing for an uncertain future.

Having an investment portfolio that can provide a monthly income stream, a business that produces ongoing income, rental property, part time work or freelancing are all options for ongoing income. In the beginning these options require work and forethought but over time they can produce a passive income stream that can provide much higher levels of security.

Keys to Building Passive Income

Start Early

As with all investments the more time a plan has to work and develop the better it will work for you. If you have a hobby you are passionate about that you can build into a viable business, starting now will give you decades to build the business into an operation that requires less of your time and attention. This income can then provide as a respite if you have employment gaps throughout your career. With both nontraditional and traditional investments alike, starting early will reap the highest level of benefits and income.

Watch Spending

Living frugally became a buzzword a few years back as it became more mainstream. Living within your means will always provide money that can be invested in your future, instead of paying for yesterday’s spending. The other advantage to frugal living is that you need less passive income to maintain your quality of life. As your income increases throughout your career, keeping your spending in tact will be rewarded with more investments that can be directed toward passive income opportunities.

Keep Your Eyes Open for Opportunities

Passive income requires creativity with investments. It means thinking in terms of multiple streams of income and investment options that will grow during your working years and then produce income when you need it. Many opportunities do not produce passive income immediately, but will over time.

When you look at adding activities to your life that are more fulfilling, investment opportunities will present themselves. This might be a chance to earn a second income doing something you love. It might mean nontraditional ways of earning money. Thinking outside the box is the key. One friend buys fireworks when they really inexpensive, before the season and then sells them during the holidays where fireworks are popular (4th of July and New Year’s being the two best holidays). This gives him a boost of several thousand dollars a few times a year. He then takes those earnings and invests them to build a portfolio of passive income that he can later use. Income and investment opportunities are everywhere when you are looking for them.

Be Patient

While we get used to instant gratification, the best things in life take both our time and energy. They do not always work out like we planned but they are worth our time and effort because in the end they pay off. Investments are the same way. When looking for passive income streams be willing to look at the long term benefits and dedicate the time necessary to grow your investments in a strategic way.

It is a lot less overwhelming to think in terms of establishing an income stream of $3,000 to $4,000 a month, than to think in terms of needing to save a million dollars for a comfortable retirement. Changing the way you look at investments might be just what you need to get started on your way to financial independence.

Learn more about our Retirement Planning services.

Related Reading:

Four Things Entrepreneurs Can do Now to Save for Retirement 

YOLO (You Only Live Once) so you Need a Retirement Goal

Your 401K Program: A Little Savings Now Goes a Long Way

How Much Money do you Need for Retirement These Days?

The Benefits of Saving Early for Retirement

Advantages of Participating in Your Workplace Retirement Plan

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7 Ways to Maximize A Bonus or a Raise

Pre Retiree

Just got a bonus or a raise? Read these tips before you start Googling airfares to Thailand…

Using a bonus or a raise to catch up in financial areas where you’ve fallen behind is a great way to jump start 2015. From paying off high interest debt to setting up a college savings plan, there are plenty of smart ways to put that chunk of change to good use.

Pay off High Interest Loans

It may feel impossible to escape the credit card damage you did in college or mounting loans. But you actually can make a dent in your debt by using your bonus for a large payment. This lowers your balance and minimizes some of those high interest charges moving forward. Get a snapshot of where you stand with the Debt Repayment Calculator from Credit Karma.

Rebalance Your Investment Portfolio

Those extra funds are a great reason to take a closer look at your assets and determine what’s working and what’s not. We can help you adjust to create the right balance between return and risk, ensuring you’re pursing both long and short-term financial goals.

Start a College Savings Plan 

Even if your kids are in diapers, it’s never too early to start saving for their college education. By starting early and using the variety of college savings programs available today, you can get a good head start on a college savings account.  There are a couple of different types of college savings savings plans and each has different features and potential tax benefits.    A financial advisor can help you determine the plan that suits your situation.  The College Savings Plan Network also offers great resources and tips for getting started.

Think About Retiring

Unless you received a really enormous bonus, we don’t mean retire now. But if you haven’t reached your company’s 401(k) contribution limits, use your bonus to max out those weekly or monthly contributions. If your employer matches… consider that bonus doubled.

Open an Investment Account

Planning for the future can be daunting, especially when you have large expenses to deal with now. But the earlier you start investing (even low monthly contributions), the longer your money has to grow.  Rather than let it sit in your checking account, create an investment account with your bonus to kick-start a financial safety net.

Prep for an Emergency

Fun? No. Smart? Yes. Unexpected issues pop up and can throw your monthly budget off track. Get prepared by setting up a fund for irregular expenses and circumstances like job loss, repairs, or costly medical bills for people and pets. A good rule of thumb is to have three to six months of expenses saved up for those worst-case scenarios.

Save for a Rainy Day

It may be tempting to book a trip somewhere warm or buy a TV that covers every square inch of your wall space. While it’s best to take care of outstanding debt and invest wisely, you deserve to have a little fun for burning the midnight oil at the office all year. Be sure to put a small portion of your bonus aside to treat yourself or your family to something special when the time is right.

 

 

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5 Big Picture Things Many Investors Don’t Do

5 Big Picture Things

These simple strategies can make a big impact on your long term portfolio.

Investing and finances can be overwhelming and confusing. Having so many options available, how is an investor to choose which direction to go. For those who seek to understand, it can become paralysis by analysis, where the more you study, the more you realize you need to know. With all of its complexity, simple investment strategies can be very effective, if the right choices are made.

Here are 5 Strategies most average investors don’t focus on, but should.

  • Have a thought out strategy with a purpose. A common mistake of investors is to put money in an account without a lot of thought as to the goals you want to achieve. Starting an investment fund without goals is like driving in a car with no destination in mind. Without a purpose for the money, it is impossible to measure the success or failure of the investment.
  • Start Early with a Time Horizon. Starting early gives your money more time to grow. The longer the money is invested, the better it can weather market fluctuations and the more likely you are to successfully reach your goals. Along these same lines, set specific goals around a time horizon. How long will each bucket of money be invested? This is a very important piece to your overall strategy because it will help evaluate the specific investments that will be most beneficial. If you are 15 years away from your goal, investment choices will be much different than if you are 5. The closer you get to the destination, the less able you are weather market fluctuations. This should be considered in your overall strategy.
  • Increase The Amount Invested Each Year. When looking over your investment strategy, separate the performance and the contributions. The performance is how much your money has grown through your investment strategies. Contributions are the dollar amount that you have added to your investment accounts. These two factors make up the total growth of your portfolio. Both of these numbers are important to your overall strategy. The account performance should be reviewed independent of contributions to help you stay on track with the right investment choices for your risk tolerance and time horizon. The amount you have added in contributions is what you have built into your budget for long term financial goals. When you increase those contributions each year, your account should grow significantly faster. Small increases are often not felt in the monthly budget.Let’s say you currently contribute 6% from your paycheck into your 401k. In addition to that you are putting $50 a month into your IRA and $50 a month into a  college fund. At the beginning of the year, increase your 401k contribution by 1%. Now you are putting away 7% in pretax dollars for retirement. Then the next quarter increase your IRA contribution to $75 a month and the quarter after that, increase your college fund contributions by $25 a month. These small increments will barely be noticed in your monthly budget. The $25 a month increase is less than $1 a day. If you are earning $50,000 a year, the 1% increase with your 401k is only around $21 a paycheck if you get paid bi-monthly, in pretax dollars. Meaning your paycheck will be reduced by less than $20 a paycheck due to the pretax allocation. If you increase the contribution at the time of your annual raise, it will only be noticed in the form of larger investment accounts.
  • Review your asset allocation as a whole picture. When you have separate investments for different financial goals, it is more of a challenge to see your portfolio in a complete picture. Having investments with different companies can increase these challenges. When you have a 401k at a current job, and maybe one or two from previous jobs, they are more difficult to keep up with. Then you might have current investments for retirement, college and savings for your first home. Taking a holistic view of all your investments will help to ensure you have the best asset allocation possible. When your allocation gets out of whack, you might end up taking on more risk than you are comfortable with, without realizing it. It is not always possible to have all your investments under one roof, especially with a current 401k. However, including these investments in all financial reviews will help you stay on track for your overall investment goals as well as ensuring your asset allocation and risk profile are appropriate.
  • Understanding what you can control. In life we like to have control over our current and future destinations. Happiness and success often come from recognizing what we can control and focusing on that. Investing is no different. We cannot control the markets and we cannot control the economy. There is a host of circumstances and events that are outside of our control. Stressing and worrying about those things is not beneficial. You can control spending and investment rate. You can control which investments you choose and the amount of risk in your portfolio. Staying focused on these elements will lead to higher comfort levels which will encourage staying the course.

Financial investing success has more to do with implementing sound strategies, rather than luck or great market timing. It is more about staying the course, than picking the “hot” stock that will make you a millionaire.

Learn more about our Investment Management services.

Related Reading:

Tips for Millennials to Understanding the Stock Market

What is Dollar Cost Averaging?

5 Things Investors Get Wrong

Why and How to Get Started Investing Today

Mitigating Your Investment Volatility

The Psychology of Investing

Rebalance Your Portfolio to Stay on Track With Investments

Behavioral Investing: Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus!

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Behavioral Investing: Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus!

Behavioral Investing

While no person falls neatly into statistical averages, as humans, we are all emotional beings and subject to all different kinds of behavioral biases when it comes to investing. There are three major ways in which men and women differ when it comes to behavioral investing.

Investment Goals and Strategies: According to the Wall Street Journal, finance professors Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, women tend to focus more on longer-term, non-monetary goals. Women generally associate money with security, independence and the quality of their life and their families’ lives. Women have a ‘safety first’ mentality. Generally speaking, women are more inclined than men to wear seat belts, avoid cigarette smoking, floss and brush their teeth and make regular doctor visits. They even have been shown to be 40% less prone than men to run yellow traffic lights. Men, on the other hand, who tend to be more competitive and thrill-seeking by nature, often focus on the short-term track records of their portfolios, incurring larger overall returns, and tend to be more risk tolerant. In contrast, women tend to be more averse to risk and are more skeptical. When it comes to investing and planning for their future, women shy away from uncertainty and will take a longer time to make investment decisions, are more methodical in how they go about research, and ask more questions.

Both men and women should make sure that their investment styles and horizons match their overall financial goals. For women, this may mean taking on more risk. As they become more familiar and understand the ups and down of the stock market they will naturally become more risk tolerant. For men, this may mean focusing more on longer-horizon goals, rather than on short-term trading track records and larger gains.

Prudential’s study Financial Experience & Behaviors Among Women

 

The Learning Curve: A 2012-2013 Prudential study on women investors reveals that women are more receptive to financial research and advice than men. Women seek help more often. Men tend to enjoy learning on their own and take a more independent approach, like the internet,  while women prefer learning in a group setting. Women rely more on personal networks with friends, family, financial planners, and they take a networking approach to gathering information. They often require more of a financial advisor’s time and resources, but are looking for a trusted relationship to be established, one  they can rely on long term. Men, however,  prefer to teach themselves and are more self-directed learners, using the Internet (more often than women) to gather information and are more likely to claim they understand financial matters than women. In actuality,  knowledge levels are not high for either gender.

Thus far, evidence does not support, however, whether one source of information or learning technique is more or less effective than another.

Information Sources Used By Men Vs Women
Source: Source: Women & Investing, Gender differences in investment behavior. FINRA Report August 2006

 

The Confidence Factor: Women tend to be thorough and take more time to make decisions than men. Several studies, including a national survey by LPL Financial, show that women tend to research investments in depth before making portfolio decisions, and the process, as a result, tends to take more time. Women also tend to be more patient as investors and consult their advisors before adjusting their portfolio positioning, whereas men are more prone to market timing impulses. Men veer toward overconfidence while women lean towards indecisiveness and insecurity.

Overconfidence can lead to taking too much risk. While women risk missing out on some investment opportunities in taking more time to make decisions, men’s generally higher impatience when it comes to seeing investment returns makes them more likely to attempt market timing, and prone to loss when the timing is off. Women are less afflicted than men by overconfidence, or the delusion that they know more than they really do and are more likely (than men) to attribute success to factors outside themselves, like luck or fate.

Yet, taking too little risk, due to lack of confidence, can hurt your investment goals just as much as overconfidence. When it comes to investing for the long term, taking risk is not a luxury. Insecure investors can confine their results by investing too conservatively, nearly as much as their overeager counterparts could do by excessive trading and risk-taking.

Meanwhile, to help avoid rash decisions and market impulses, men may benefit from implementing a systematic investment strategy and a periodic, rather than continuous, review of their accounts and rebalancing. They may want to consider becoming even more open to professional financial advice. Women may also want to review the efficiency of their investment allocations across their portfolios to counter the negative impact of mental accounting. In addition, they may want to consider attending financial education seminars to help boost their confidence levels and ability to make timely, well-informed investment decisions.

Men Vs Women Confidence Level
Source: Women & Investing, Gender differences in investment behavior. FINRA Report August 2006

 

Call Brad Sherman at Sherman Wealth Management for information on what investment strategy is right for you.

Learn more about our Investment Management services.

Related Reading:

Tips for Millennials to Understanding the Stock Market

What is Dollar Cost Averaging?

5 Things Investors Get Wrong

5 Big Picture Things Many Investors Don’t Do

Why and How to Get Started Investing Today

Mitigating Your Investment Volatility

The Psychology of Investing

Rebalance Your Portfolio to Stay on Track With Investments

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