With a thousand things to do and limited energy, how do you know which to do first? In my personal life, at times it seems like I am a professional juggler. Like most women I know, I juggle the work-family balance, laundry, paying bills, feeding the family, reviewing bank and retirement statements, watering the plants, etc. The list seems to be endless.

Just like in the day-to-day routine, your finances are no different. The list can seem endless but with help of goal setting and the magic of prioritization, your financial goals can too be marked off the list.

After spending a bit of time thinking of your and your family’s big picture goals, you can begin to prioritize, so that the most pressing or highest importance are at the forefront. Now that your goals are set it will be helpful to make a list of smaller “to-do’s” that will help accomplish the ultimate goal. For example, if one of your long-term goals is to retire, you might break this large task into manageable annual goals. Perhaps setting an annual dollar amount you would like to save or increasing your monthly savings contribution to meet the company match, then a recurring increase each year. You may also need to create a schedule or reminders to ensure you don’t stray from the original task.

When prioritizing financial goals, sometimes the least appealing is easily pushed to the back of the pile, like paying off debt. Breaking your goals down to smaller, easily attained tasks can help. Try outlining all of your debt, then develop an action plan to pay off each loan. Take small steps to help achieve the financial independence you seek. Once the ball is rolling, the momentum will help push you along to capture the end result of meeting your financial or other goals, or at least make a big push towards them. Keep your goals fresh on your mind, perhaps as a new screen saver on your computer or phone, review often, and reward yourself as you make progress.

It’s 2021, time to determine your financial goals and start checking items off the to-do list once and for all! Call a CFP® Professional today.

Published in the Victoria Advocate

Beth Koonce is a CFP® Professional for KMH Wealth Management, LLC. She has been with the firm for over five years.

The holidays are officially upon us and with a house full of young kids that can only mean one thing: time to start planning. If your family is anything like mine, planning for Thanksgiving doesn’t start the week of. Even though there’s a pretty set standard of how the day will go, there’s been an family email chain for the past week where we clarified what time we are expected to arrive and most importantly who was bringing what dishes.

I read recently that the average American plans more for vacation than they do for retirement and it is safe to say the same about the holidays. Why is that most will take the time to plan out every detail of an event that will last a few hours, but take at face value assumptions that could affect the rest of their lives? This holiday season, I encourage you to spend at least a few minutes of your time digging a little deeper into some age-old retirement traditions (or rather misconceptions) that need to be set straight.

Myth #1: ‘If I have $_____, I will be able to live comfortably in retirement.’ Reality: There is no magic number. Maybe you have an idea of what it takes you to retire, but that number could look substantially different from your friend down the street. The amount you need in retirement is driven primarily by your retirement spending and long term goals. Does your current employer pay for the cost of your medical care? You may not need as much as someone else who has to pay these bills out of pocket. Planning to buy a second residence out of state? You’ll need to account for that as well.

Myth #2: ‘Once I retire, all of my money should be in ‘conservative’ investments like bonds, cash, and CDs.’ Reality: Asset allocation is specific to a person/couple, not an entire life-stage group. This may have been true fifty years ago when life expectancy through retirement was relatively short. Today, the average couple has a 97% chance of at least one spouse making it until age 93. If that same couple retires at age 65, they need their funds to last them for another 28 years! This isn’t exactly a short-term investment outlook and you’ll likely need more saved up than those with a long-term investment strategy.

Myth #3: As long as I only withdraw 4% of my portfolio, I will have enough money to live off of. Reality: This is one of the oldest retirement assumptions in the book driven largely by market assumptions. While it may not be entirely wrong, it was never meant to provide a guarantee of security in retirement. Similar to Myth #1 above, this assumption isn’t dynamic enough to forecast what retirement looks like for you, your way.

So just like with the holidays, you could assume that the way things have always been with retirement planning are the way they will continue to be. Nevertheless, just like your family member that changes up the recipe on her dish each year, the truth is that the difference is in the details and minor changes can make a big impact on the end result.

Work with a CFP® professional to see if you are on track for the retirement you’re expecting.

Published in the Victoria Advocate

Sara Potts is a CFP® professional for KMH Wealth Management, LLC.

As a woman I sometimes find myself not wanting to bother with financial planning, insurance, and tax returns, just to name a few financial issues.  I am married to a CPA, CFP® professional so this makes it is easy for me to not get in the weeds on these matters. 

However, I know I need to be as intelligent as I can be for many reasons.  Many, many years ago I felt I had no clue what insurance policies we had, what they covered, what they paid out if and when.  I even paid the bills but did not know any specifics.  So my husband and I sat down and I forced myself to educate myself about our insurance.  You hope you wake up to another day, but if something had happened to my husband I had to have the knowledge to carry on and the insurance would have been a major start.  Do you have the right insurance for your needs?

We have an older daughter and triplets who are four years younger.  They are all ‘adulting’ now, but when they were born we knew they would be in college at the same time so we needed to plan ahead.  We immediately started saving for their college educations and calculated this into our annual budget.  Three graduated from college with no debt and some money left over and the fourth went out-of-state so her out-of-state tuition ate through all of her savings.  But she had no debt.  So from sound college planning our children and us dodged the college debt bullet.  Where are your college savings?

As baby boomers, we are entering “twilight years.”  We stay active and healthy, but we have wills, power of attorneys, and directives to physicians and have made sure the beneficiaries are noted on our portfolio and bank accounts.  I have to be prepared, as well as my husband if something were to happen to one or both of us.  Like most, we have property and interests that we have the responsibility to maintain.  We also want no surprises for our children such as no will that would require time and effort in the probate process, and potentially have our assets distributed in a way that we did not approve of.  They live all over the country and do not have time for our financial negligence.  Do you have a will and estate documents?

So, as a woman, as much as I would prefer to keep my head in the sand, I have financially enlightened myself.  This makes me prepared for most things life throws my way so I can carry on.  I hope women take charge of their finances, call a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional since October is Financial Planning Month, and understand what it would take for them to carry on.

Published in the Victoria Advocate

Phyllis Keller is the Chief Information Officer for KMH Wealth Management, LLC and Keller & Associates CPAs PLLC.  She graduated from Texas A&M University, has an MBA from the University of Houston Victoria and has been with the firms over 15 years.

You have worked hard over the years to accumulate wealth, and would probably find it comforting to know that after your death the assets you leave behind will continue to be a source of support for your family, friends, and the causes that are important to you. But to ensure that your legacy reaches your heirs or causes as you intend, you must make the proper arrangements. Legacy planning as defined by Investopedia “is a financial strategy that prepares people to bequeath their assets to a loved one or next of kin after death.”

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“In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” We have all probably heard this quote by Benjamin Franklin multiple times in our lives. It is certain we will all eventually die and continue to pay taxes, but by engaging in effective tax planning, we can manage and potentially avoid paying more tax than necessary.

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