Retire With Ashley

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: 2023 So far…I’m recapping what happened in the economy and markets in the first quarter of 2023 and looking ahead to the rest of the year

Today…I’m talking about the bad news for investors for 2023:

What’s interesting about the factors currently driving the economy, markets and portfolio returns is that we’re already 15 months into the current stock market downturn, yet we haven’t yet officially entered a recession. Usually, stock market downturns accompanied by a recession last about 12-18 months, so based on historical norms we should be almost “out of the woods”. If the recession hasn’t arrived, but is coming soon, that means we’re likely going to experience another calendar year of below average growth. We think it’s possible that the worst is behind us in the stock and bond markets, but with an economic slowdown comes additional downward pressure on stocks. We think that 2023 could be a year of treading water for most investors – not much growth from beginning to end. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: 2023 So far…I’m recapping what happened in the economy and markets in the first quarter of 2023 and looking ahead to the rest of the year

Today…I’m talking about the economic outlook for the rest of the year:

The Conference Board forecasts that “economic weakness will intensify and spread more widely throughout the US economy over the coming months, leading to a recession starting in mid-2023”. We agree with this forecast, believing that a significant economic slowdown is underway, and we will likely see a recession later this year.

The Fed still has more work to do in raising rates to bring down inflation, and that won’t be without economic pain. Consumers and businesses have been surprisingly resilient to higher inflation and higher interest rates, but the cracks are starting to appear – a rapidly cooling housing market, corporate layoffs, and higher delinquency rates on credit cards, etc. Treasury yields and an inverted yield curve (where shorter-term rates are higher than longer term rates) also point to an imminent recession. After the Silicon Valley Bank failure, a credit crunch seems inevitable as banks struggle in this rising interest rate environment. 

A recent WSJ article reports: “U.S. banks’ lending capacity will decline by 1% this year because of the fall in the value of many bank stocks as investors reassess the health of midsize banks, the International Monetary Fund said in a report on global financial stability. That reduction in lending is expected to dent U.S. gross domestic product in 2023”

The result will be even slower growth as businesses will find it harder to borrow, grow and expand.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: httpstr://apple.co/2DI2LSP

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: 2023 So far…I’m recapping what happened in the economy and markets in the first quarter of 2023 and looking ahead to the rest of the year

Today…I’m recapping what was driving markets in the first quarter of 2023:

Stocks rallied sharply to start the year as inflation subsided and investors grew increasingly confident that the Federal Reserve was nearly done raising interest rates. But when Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed, stocks gave back most of those gains. When conditions stabilized and the Fed suggested they were almost done with their tightening cycle, stocks rallied, and the S&P 500 finished up 7% in the first quarter of 2023. Bonds have also turned around after suffering their worst calendar year loss ever in 2022. The US Aggregate Bond Index gained 2.91% this past quarter. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.    

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast! I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $340 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor and I’m using my 15 years of experience as a financial advisor to help you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision.

On this podcast, I cover everything from investing, to retirement spending, to taxes in retirement in just a few minutes each day, so if you’re 5-10 years on either side of retirement, and looking for some daily doses of retirement planning wisdom, stick around this week as I talk about 2023 So Far...

[Not your source for news…

So this week I’ll be talking about what was driving the markets and the economy in the first 3 months of 2023, when the recession may hit, and the good news for investors looking ahead to the rest of the year. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! Come on back tomorrow…where I’ll talk about…

My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

It’s Sunday, which means...it’s recap time here on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast

This week the theme was:Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

In case you missed any episodes, here’s what we discussed this week…

• Understanding Habits 

• Identify Your Bad Money Habits

• Pick One Habit At A Time

• Make Bad Habits Harder

• Make Good Habits Easier

The most important takeaway from this week is…

Tomorrow, I’m starting a brand new theme: Crafting Your Retirement Budget

One of the most challenging things to figure out prior to retirement is how much you’ll actually spend in retirement. Only about ⅓ of us have a household budget, but if you retire without a good understanding of what you’ll be spending each month, you could be setting yourself up for disaster by spending down your assets too quickly, or huge disappointment by not being able to live the lifestyle you hoped for in retirement, because you simply don’t have the income and assets to do what you envisioned. 

So next week, I’ll talk about everything from how to plan for the basics and the one time expenses that you might not have thought about, as well as how to incorporate health care spending, and some rules of thumb that can serve as a good starting place to those of you who might be allergic to budgeting and will struggle to get around to actually doing it. 

Thank you so much for listening this week! If you’re enjoying the podcast, chances are someone else you know who is getting close to retirement could also benefit from checking it out, so please share the show with a friend, a neighbor, your sister, or your boss. Just go to your favorite podcasting app, hit the share icon, then text or email the show link to someone you know who is eyeing retirement. 

Thanks for sharing the love and spreading the word. I hope you have a blessed Sunday. My name is Ashley Micciche, this is the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast.

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Yesterday, I talked about how you can stall or stop the habit loop of: cue, routine, and reward, by creating some barriers to your bad habits. The goal is to make your bad habits harder to stick to. 

On the flipside, we want to make our good habits easier. One research backed method for doing this is Habit stacking - according to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, “Habit stacking increases the likelihood that you’ll stick with a habit by stacking your new behavior on top of an old one. This process can be repeated to chain numerous habits together, each one acting as the cue for the next.” 

Add in a new habit to something you’re already doing each day: Get out of bed. Take a shower. Brush your teeth.Get dressed. Brew a cup of coffee. Eat breakfast.

One simple example of this: After I finish eating dinner, I will put my plate directly into the dishwasher. After I put my dishes away, I will immediately wipe down the counter. After I wipe down the counter, I will set out my coffee mug for tomorrow morning.

You can start with just one thing like adding in wiping down the counter if you’re already putting the dishes away. Then once the routine is set, you can stack in something else, like setting out your coffee mug. 

It creates easy to follow, simple routines that allow habits to stick and become automatic. And when you attach a new habit with something you’re already doing, it’s much easier to stick with.

Getting back into an exercise routine after having a baby in January. I enjoy exercise, but it’s hard to fit it into your day. So I decided I needed to do a few things and use habit stacking:

• Each night when I’m getting ready for bed, I lay out my workout clothes for the next morning. Heard this tip before, never thought much of it, but when I’m half asleep in the morning especially with the fragmented sleep I get now with a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night, it’s much easier to get dressed to workout and not having to use any energy at all to pick out my clothes

• Build it into my morning routine. Every morning I pretty much do the exact same thing:

• Wake up at 6:15

• Get my workout clothes on

• Wake and change the baby

• Go downstairs, make coffee, and unload the dishwasher

• My 2yo wakes up at 6:45, so I get him up and changed and I’m drinking coffee, nursing the baby, and praying from 7-7:30

• Around 7:45, I head upstairs to workout. I used to workout 3-4 days a week, but it made it a lot harder to be consistent since my morning routine varied too much. Some days I would workout, others I wouldn’t. So now, for the first time in my life, I workout every day except Sunday, and I’ve been able to stick with it for the last 8 weeks now. I only workout for 30 minutes, so its manageable and easier to build into every day. 

This routine has developed over time, but 2 important things that I want to do every day - pray and exercise, are built into my morning routine because I’ve stacked them on top of things I was already doing - like drinking coffee. The habit of prayer is tied to the habit and reward of drinking coffee in the mornings. 

And all of these habit stacking principles apply to any habit, including financial ones. The key is tying a new habit with an existing one through habit stacking, to help it stick.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Today, I’m talking about how to Make Bad Habits Harder

We rely on habits because our brain needs to devote energy to new and difficult tasks, not brushing our teeth or remembering how to get to work each day. We are also incredibly lazy, and we can use laziness to our advantage when trying to break a bad money habit.

• Example: This isn’t a bad money habit, but it’s a good example. Let’s say you watch too much TV and you want to stop or reduce how much you watch TV. Unplug your TV - creates a barrier to overcome before indulging in the habit. I don’t know about you, but often it’s that little bit of effort that I need to do something or get started on something that keeps me from doing it at all. You can use the same thing 

• Turning to money habits, let’s say you shop too much online on your phone. If you’re like me, you use Amazon nearly every day. If overspending is a problem and you routinely shop and buy things on your smart phone, then remove all shopping apps from your phone. This way, when you want to buy something on Amazon or wherever, you need to do it on your computer instead. It’s a small change, but you’d be surprised how much it can reduce overspending by just having a small barrier to following through with the bad habit we want to break.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Yesterday, I talked about how to identify your bad money habits. Once you have 1 or 2 or 10 bad money habits that need to get out of your life, what’s next?

Something I came across over and over again while researching this week’s theme was the advice: Don't try to change a bunch of things all at one time. Pick just 1 bad habit to focus on

• Problem with resolutions or goals is that we can try to accomplish too much at one time, and it leads to failure. 

• Gave up sweets for Lent. After the first week it became a lot easier. Had I also given up wine or tried to build another new habit along with it, it would have been much harder for me

• Maybe you have a habit of going out for lunch more than you’d like and it’s is a bad habit you want to break. Just focus on that. 

• Often better to focus on easier habits that aren’t so ingrained or addictive, so you can break it sooner, replace it with a better habit, and get a quick win that will be motivating in continuing with improving your financial health in other areas

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Today, I’m talking about how to identify Your Bad Money Habits 

• 1st step in getting rid of your bad money habits is simply to recognize those habits. We’re often blind to our own shortcomings in many ways and our own bad habits are no exception

• My bad money habits

• Impulse buying - boredom lead to shopping; shopping with a list and sticking to it, and adding things to my cart, but waiting a week or 2 or longer to buy it. 

• Name the habit you want to change. Examples:

• Look first to spending. These are where some of the most destructive bad money habits live is in your spending habits. It’s also the source of debt and why many people can’t get out of debt permanently, because they have bad spending habits. Daily coffee, mindless online shopping on your cell phone or ipad, eating out too much, booking a vacation without the cash to pay for it, impulse purchases at the grocery store, shopping as a hobby or something to do, buying lottery tickets

• Other bad money habits - looking too often at your bank or investment accounts, not having your saving and investing on auto-pilot, not running the numbers on something before you purchase - especially a larger purchase 

So take the time to really pay attention to your habits and routines. With many bad habits, there’s a little voice in our head that occasionally whispers “I don’t think you should do that”. We often tell that voice to shut up…I’m going to have that entire sleeve of Oreos! Or maybe after we do that bad money habit we feel guilty. We all know that feeling, and when we pay attention to that nagging feeling, it can help identify the bad money habits that should be eradicated. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.  

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: httpstr://apple.co/2DI2LSP

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance

This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Change Your Bad Money Habits With 5 Simple Tweaks

Today, I’m talking about the first step in changing your bad money habits, and that is to simply understand how habits work.

Our brains need habits to function, and they help us do everything from playing an instrument well, to arriving at work each day, to remembering to brush our teeth every night before bed. Can you imagine if the things you do each day required the same mental effort each time? So our habits free our minds up to focus our energy and attention on the things that are new or require more effort. 

The other important thing to understand about habits is that our habits are tied to cues, routines, & rewards - understanding this habit loop will help you better understand the habits that don’t serve you and make sure you tie a reward to any new habits to make them stick. 

• Cue - need something sweet after each meal

• Routine - Grab a hershey kiss, a fun size chocolate bar or some other piece of small candy

• Reward - obvious - the sugary sweetness & sugar’s dopamine, drug-like impact on my brain

And lastly, you’re not going to be able to ditch a habit overnight. Those connections between cue, routine, and reward can be very strong and difficult to break. New habits take time to become routine and automatic - 2021 study - 2-3 months to form a new habit.

So be patient with yourself and understand the habit loop so you can stop the habits you don’t like and replace them with something new, tied to a healthier reward. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.    

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>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

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>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance