Merino Mindset
Practical Views on Money and Life
Believe it or not, 2021 is almost over. 2022 is less than 12 weeks away. Time is running out, but luckily there’s still enough to get your financial house in order. One of the main ways you can do this is through proper year-end tax planning. Here are two simple steps that will help you uncover opportunities to minimize your taxes.
As a new parent, I want to give my son the world. Just the other day, my husband and I had a passing conversation about potentially saving to help Jax buy his first home. He's 3 months old, so the math is simple. If we save a few hundred dollars a month for the next 30 years, he will have a pretty nice nest egg before we know it. In working to support your own child’s future, keep non-traditional savings options in mind to go beyond college funding and other basics.
As a financial planner, I know that most parents jump to college funding when they think of saving for their children. That's wonderful, but what if college isn't the path for your child?
“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”
– Fred Rogers
Undoubtedly, retirement is a major life event! But now, some people have more than one ‘retirement’, effectively taking a break from work, then feeling their way into a new career. And many of our clients are taking sabbaticals, designated time off work. All of these take planning and a considerable financial cushion. A healthy dose of over planning will help you breathe easy when you are starting a new chapter of your life.
"Some people are worth melting for." - Olaf, Frozen
So you’re in love. That’s enough, right? Well, it’s definitely the best foundation for a successful marriage. But money issues can quickly tear apart the strongest of relationships. Data from TD Ameritrade in 2018 showed that 41% of divorced Gen-Xers reported money disagreements as the top reason for their divorce. If you find someone worth melting for, being upfront and deliberate about financial decisions may literally save your marriage.
“If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.” -Stephen Covey
With all the uncertainty in life, it pays to plan ahead in a manner that will allow you to move forward with a goal. We do this often with our clients and find that no one’s ever upset if they’re over prepared financially. It’s definitely better than the alternative.
This post is the second in a series about preparing financially for five BIG life events. You can find post #1 on buying a home here.
Job Transition
The days of retiring after decades at the same company have all but vanished. The average number of jobs in a person’s lifetime is 12, according to a 2019 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey.
“The only thing certain in life is uncertainty” -Derek Hough
With all the uncertainty in life, it can sometimes feel as though you can’t always plan ahead, but that’s rarely the case. In fact, with your finances you can actually plan ahead in a manner that will allow you to move forward with a goal should you want to in the future. We do this all the time with our clients and find that no one’s ever upset if they’re over prepared financially. It’s definitely better than the alternative.
This post is the first in a series about preparing financially for five BIG life events.
"I made two good decisions. The first was to start working with you in the first place. The second was following you to your new firm." This huge compliment came from one of my favorite clients during a recent client meeting.
When she first signed up, she was to the point where retirement planning was literally keeping her up at night. It was at the top of her middle of the night worries. She felt that she started late not because she didn’t want to prioritize her finances, but because she didn’t know what to do. She was also a bit skeptical and even admitted "I’m not sure why I stayed on the phone with you. I usually hang up when Advisors call me." Years later we’re both glad that she didn’t!
Happy February! I’m not gonna lie, these days, we’re really busy at Merino Wealth. And when we’re busy things can get kind of stressful around the office. We have a great team, wonderful clients, and we’re doing great work. But if we’re sleep-deprived, logging in on the weekends, and overwhelmed with our workloads, things can feel a bit tense. In some cases, it’s just the simple feeling that we might not have done "XYZ" perfectly, which of course, is an unrealistic bar to set for ourselves.
"You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday too, yeah. They say it's your birthday. We're gonna have a good time!" — The Beatles
It’s that time of year again. My Birthday/Merino Wealth’s Second Annual Referral Month. All month long we’ll be celebrating the good work we do, the trust that our clients put in us, and the fact that I’m another year older and wiser.
Just like a lot of you my birthday can lead me to think about the past. I’ve been an advisor for 15 years (crazy, right!?) and I’ve learned a lot of lessons.
Recently I received a call from someone I hadn’t heard from in years. A lot had changed since we originally met! She had gotten married, made partner, and was pregnant with her third child. With all of these changes, it seemed like a great time to work on financial planning for her family. I mentioned that we work with a lot of working parents with small kids, so it’s our goal to try to help them feel more comfortable with their financial decisions.
My husband and I were married on April 16, 2014, in Los Angeles, California, where same-sex marriage was legal. A little over one year later, on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage, legalized it in all fifty states, and required states to honor out-of-state same-sex marriage licenses.
A year ago Michael and I found ourselves at an industry conference listening to the politically incorrect keynote speaker. He focused a portion of his presentation on the issues with children who aren’t raised in households of married heterosexual families. He asserted that these children weren’t as capable as those who were raised by a married mother and father. By the end, we were both feeling pretty offended by the fact that the organizers of this conference felt it was appropriate to bring this person to present to us.
Mansplaining /ˈmanˌsplāniNG/ (noun) the explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.
“She met with several Financial Advisors and they all treated her like a stupid girl. So eventually she got to the point where she figured she’d just have to choose one of these guys that would treat her like a stupid girl.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard something like this and it won’t be the last. This is a quote from a woman who referred her sister to me. She’s definitely not “a stupid girl” and shouldn’t have been made to feel that way.
This is a really fun and exciting time around our office. After spending time with our loved ones for the holidays, we are back at work with New Year’s Resolutions and a new tax year. Through our financial planning process, it’s our goal to help clients make more comfortable and confident financial decisions. So when someone reaches out to us this January, we want to make all this money stuff easier. But what does that actually mean?
Going into 2018 I set a goal for myself to establish a retirement plan for Merino Wealth. I looked into options, received feedback from my employees, and figured out the logistics. I then decided on the type of plan, the company match, and even planned to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors into the investments. While presenting at financial workshops to audiences all over Chicago, I announced this as my top 2018 goal. Wanna guess what happened next?
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