I thought I would give you a little update on what I’ve been doing personally then share some of the financial planning situations I have been dealing with lately. I want to share some of the situations I have run into since the end of last year. If nothing else, it can help you to see some things that we help people with that might not be that obvious. Some of them are the usual financial planning things but some are a bit different.
Girlfriends, Bikes and Spanish
We spend Christmas up at my mother in law’s house in Santa Fe. This year our oldest son went to Tucson to spend it with his girlfriend and her family, so that was new. The other twist was our middle and youngest sons brought their girlfriends to Mamow’s house for Christmas for the first time. It actually worked out great and everybody had an awesome time.
As you probably know, I ride bicycles. Since my accident back in 2018 I have been spending quite a bit of time riding my bicycle on an indoor trainer using a program called Zwift. It allows you to ride your bike and creates an avatar where you look like you’re riding your bicycle in a video game. From December 24th through December 31st, they have a thing called the Rapha challenge. To complete the challenge, you must ride at least 500km, which is a little over 310 miles. This year I was able to ride 358 miles in 7 days, thus reaching my goal. You don’t get anything for riding 500km other than the satisfaction of doing it, but this was my second year in a row of reaching that goal.
Finally, I have been learning Spanish since the pandemic started back in March or 2020. In September of 2020 I started using a program called Baselang.com. In Baselang, I have Zoom meetings with Spanish teachers who live in South America. Since I started in Baselang I have had 1681 30-minute Spanish conversations. My strategy has been to learn Spanish like I learned English when I was a little kid by listening and speaking the language. At this point, I have conversations every day for an hour about a variety of topics. At first, I had to translate every word from English to Spanish before speaking but now I’m to the point where I actually think, listen and speak in Spanish. It’s pretty wild and somewhat weird, but I feel like I’m making progress.
Financial Planning Conversations
I personally believe financial planning is for everyone so I thought I would share some of the conversations and situations that have come up with clients and prospective clients lately just to give you a feel for some of the things a person like me does in their day-to-day work life. Here’s a few of the things I’ve worked on since the first of the year.
- I’ve been working on a financial plan with a client who might retire in the next few years, has some money invested and could possibly sell his business. He wants to make sure he has enough to maintain he and his wife’s lifestyle and last the rest of their lives.
- I helped one of my existing clients rollover two previous 401k plans into his IRA and did a financial plan to give him an idea of what his future retirement would look like for him and his wife.
- Ran a financial plan on an existing client helping him decide on the best age to retire, when to take his pension, start Social Security and figure out how much he will need to withdraw from his current investment and retirement assets.
- Wrote key person life insurance on the partners in a professional practice as well as personal life insurance on one of the partners.
- I introduced one of my new connections on LinkedIn to several of my estate planning attorneys. She has a unique family situation and doesn’t have a will. In addition to that, we discussed beneficiary arrangements on her life insurance.
- I met an attorney who left a firm and started his own practice. We are working on starting a retirement plan for him along with life and disability insurance.
- Met with a guy who is changing careers from working for a big company to starting a consulting firm about ways to market his new business and possibly introducing him to people I know here in town.
- Reviewed a financial plan with clients who have recently retired and need to talk about distribution planning versus focusing on saving and investing after many, many years.
- Met a connection from LinkedIn in real life to talk about his future career plans and made some introductions to people I know here in town who might be able to help him.
- We had to do required minimum distributions for a couple of clients.
- I introduced on of my newer LinkedIn connections to a few speakers’ bureaus as well as a guy who might help him to arrange a TED talk.
- One of my estate planning attorneys called about an unusual situation with one of his clients. I helped him with a question about creditor protection for a life insurance policy owned by one of his clients.
- I met one of my newest clients at the office of a CPA whom I introduced. I was able to clarify her situation to the CPA so all of us are on the same page.
- Wrote life insurance on a client who is going through a divorce and needs the coverage to satisfy the divorce decree.
- Introduced one of my clients to a connection I have known in the banking industry since we were in college to discuss a business loan.
That’s not everything, of course, but I thought I could share a few of the things I have run into lately. The point of this is financial planning and the work we do is more than just getting the best returns on your investments for the lowest cost. While there is nothing wrong with that, there’s a lot more that I do to help my clients than just look at their investments.
Money and investing and insurance and planning are about much more than who’s got the best insurance rates and which investment will grow the most. It’s about collaborating with people, finding about their lives and their dreams, and working together to helped them achieve financial security and live their best life possible. It’s about using my knowledge and experience to help people think about things they hadn’t thought about until they talked to me. It’s about trying to help someone restart a career or in the case of the guy with the TED talk, helping a guy from Australia who lives in Spain to reach a fundraising goal.
Out of my short list of things I’ve been working on, I’ll get paid on some of them and on others I won’t make a cent. But either way, I’m able to use my knowledge, my connections, and my experience to help people I like. If any of this resonates with you and you want to talk, feel free to reach out to me HERE. As always, thanks for reading. KB