Welcome to a new week and a new theme here on the One Minute Retirement Tip! 

This week’s theme is What Do I Do With Inheritance Money?

[Client story about Inheritance]: Lifelong savers, never high income earners, worked hard…

After both parents died, their daughter inherited about $600,000 in their investment assets plus their house. She was excited about her windfall and she said she was just going to spend enough of it to buy her dream home. 

The problem was that her boyfriend was unemployed and she worked part-time making about $30,000 a year in income. It wasn’t going to pencil out. Even if she paid cash for the house, she wouldn’t be able to afford the upkeep, taxes, etc. 

She ended up burning through all $600,000 in about 18 months and I would be surprised if she still lived in that house. 

Unfortunately, and sadly, this daughter of my client is like most people who receive an inheritance. Does it surprise you that statistics show that many of us are just going to waste our inheritance? 

One study found that adults who receive an inheritance save just half, while spending, donating or losing the rest; nearly 20 percent of baby boomers who received $100,000 or more spend their entire gift. 

20% of us spend it all! 

So this week I’m going to help you make smart decisions about what to do with your inheritance. We’ll talk about the biggest mistakes made, why you should wait before making any spending decisions, and help you start to think about guidelines for spending, saving, and investing your inheritance wisely. Then we’ll wrap up the week by talking about how you might want to plan now for your own wealth transfer. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

It’s Sunday, which means...It’s recap time! This week’s theme was life changing money habits.

Here are the 5 life changing money habits that I covered in each episode this week:

• Track your spending - most important
• Reduce/eliminate debt, especially paying off high interest credit card debt
• Beef up your emergency savings – maintain 18 months of expenses in savings as you approach retirement
• Prioritize saving for future goals that are meaningful to you 
• Increase your giving – this one has important psychological and spiritual benefits 

Hopefully after listening to the One Minute Retirement Tip podcast this week you are inspired to pick a financial goal to work on for 2021. And if you do, I encourage you to just pick with one of these habits, start where you are, start small, and experience the life changing opportunities that better financial health can bring to your overall well-being and life satisfaction. 

Tomorrow, we are starting a brand new theme: How to spend inheritance money. 

It is estimated that my generation, the millennials - yes, I am a scorned millennial - it is estimated that millennials will inherit $68 trillion by 2030. As my generation’s baby boomer parents enter their 70s and 80s, over the next 10 years, there will be a tremendous transfer of wealth. But the reality is that the transfer of wealth is already happening. And it’s likely that many of you listening will receive at least some inheritance that will become part of your retirement portfolio. 

So next week, I’m going to share with you how I would advise who received a $1 million inheritance. What would we do with that money? I’ll dive deeper into the details of this hypothetical scenario next week. 

One last thing...if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my YouTube channel - True North Retirement, where I cover a wide variety of retirement planning topics - with a new livestream every week,  where I do a deeper dive than I have time for in each daily episode. So if you want to hear more from this week’s topic head on over to True North Retirement on YouTube and subscribe. 

That’s it for this week! Thanks for listening and I hope you have a blessed Sunday! 

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the “One Minute Retirement Tip”.

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week, I’m talking about life changing money habits.These are the habits, the goals, and the behaviors that will have the biggest impact on your life. 

Today, I’m talking about the last life changing habit of the week - increasing your giving. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual benefits of giving are well-documented. According to research, generosity is one of the secrets to a meaningful and happy life. 

I included this habit of increasing your giving last in this week’s topics, because it’s the thing that most of us still aren’t doing enough of, even when we are doing everything else well with our finances. 

Knowing that giving has tremendous rewards for the giver and the receiver, I encourage you to look at how much you gave of your time and talents to the organizations and causes that you care about most in 2020 and ask yourself if you’re in a position to do more this year. 

It’s hard to give at a meaningful level when you’re buried in debt, you don’t have any cash in the bank, you don’t have a handle on your spending or your financial priorities, but if that’s not the case for you and you’re in a comfortable position financially, then I encourage you to get aggressive with your giving. 

That starts with evaluating what you gave last year. How much of your income went to the causes that you care about the most? 

Just over half of American households (55%) donated something to charity in 2014. That means 45% of us gave nothing. On average, Americans give 2.1% of their disposable income to charity. So nearly half of us give nothing, and when you average it out, we’re giving about 2% of our income to charity. 

We can do more and especially with such well-documented benefits of giving more, consider giving more in 2020. 

If you gave 2% of your income last year, give 3% or 4% of your income this year. Set up an automated contribution so your giving doesn’t become haphazard or an afterthought like it does for so many of us. Being intentional with your giving in 2021 will go a long way toward increasing your giving and bringing more purpose and meaning to your life as a result.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week, I’m talking about life changing money habits.These are the habits, the goals, and the behaviors that will have the biggest impact on your life...if you do these things right, they have the potential to offer the greatest rewards. On the flip side, if you do these things wrong or ignore them altogether, you do so at your own peril. 

Today, I’m talking about knowing your financial priorities. When it comes to your finances it’s usually not the money that we really care about, but what the money allows us to do that we really care about. 

I always like to set goals for myself for the coming year. Aside from losing the baby weight from having my 3rd child last September, which is my #1 goal for 2021, my next most important goal is to make quality time and relationships with family and close friends a priority this year. I sketched out a plan for Sunday family walks, monthly weekend adventures with my husband and kids, a monthly date night, a monthly friend get-together, and a quarterly vacation. 

These activities will cost money. But because it satisfies my most important priorities, I’m okay with spending money if it means that I will be making memories with my husband and kids, and enjoying life together as a family. Now I must say that I view travel with children as a mild form of torture, so I’m hoping at least 1 or 2 of those quarterly vacations will be sans kids, but that remains to be seen...

Here’s my point - if you have a goal of retiring early, or helping to pay for your grandkids college, buying a 2nd home at the beach, or building an armory - these things all require financial resources and are most often driven by some deeper motivation that gets to the core of what we value the most. 

Too many of us don’t realize our most coveted financial goals, because we aren’t laser focused on what matters most. We don’t have our priorities figured out, and as a result, we aren’t funnelling our financial resources to these most important financial priorities. 

So I challenge you to think about and answer for yourself: what are your most important priorities - is it centered around family, relationships, career, health, spiritual - whatever aspect of your life is most important to you, should also command it’s proper share of financial resources. 

Knowing your priorities and what is most important to you will help you focus on earmarking the proper financial resources to bring satisfaction - both now and in the future - to those areas of your life.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week, I’m talking about life changing money habits.

Today, I’m talking about beefing up your emergency savings. 

As you approach retirement, you’ll want to consider maintaining even more cash for emergencies because you’re no longer working. When you’re retired, you can’t just work overtime for a couple of months or easily pick up money doing a side hustle if you have a large and unexpected expense to pay for. 

So paying for your emergency with a high interest credit card or having to liquidate your retirement portfolio can be devastating and can completely derail your retirement plans. Which means you’ll need lots of cash on hand in retirement. How much? 

At a bare minimum, you’ll want about 6 months worth of monthly expenses on hand for emergencies.

The other reason why you want to keep a lot of cash on hand in retirement is that it can save you in times of market downturns, recession, and crisis. If your portfolio drops 10 or 20%, you make that crater in your retirement portfolio so much worse by also continuing your withdrawals.

Having cash on hand will allow you to stop some of the bleeding and suspend your portfolio withdrawals in a market downturn. When you can do this, especially if it happens in the early years of retirement, you give yourself a better shot of not running out of money in retirement and preserving more of what you have in the downturn. 

To help insulate you in a stock market downturn, I recommend keeping another 12 months worth of your portfolio withdrawals on hand. Why? Well the average bear market lasts 14 months. Some are shorter, and some of the deeper ones are even longer. If you can stop your portfolio withdrawals for a year while the stock market is reeling and we’re in the midst of a recession, you can sleep better at night and not make the problem worse. That’s why I think 12 months of suspended withdrawals from your investment portfolio should be enough, even if the downturn lasts a little longer than that. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week, I’m talking about life changing money habits.These are the habits, the goals, and the behaviors that will have the biggest impact on your life. 

Today, I’m talking about eliminating debt. 

I took a public speaking class in college with a girl who confided in me that she was $25,000 in credit card debt. She knew I was a finance major and asked me what I thought she should do about her debt. She was just paying the minimum payments and she didn’t understand that she should be paying more than the minimum if she ever had any hope of paying that debt off. 

I asked her how she accumulated that debt. It was mostly from buying clothes and designer handbags. I told her to cut up her cards and stop shopping. Easier said than done. 

Regardless of how much debt we have and how we got there in the first place, accumulating debt in this country is still astonishingly easy. And digging out of the debt hole is often quite hard. That’s why one of the best life resolutions you can make is to maintain a commitment to minimal debt. 

As you approach retirement, ridding yourself of debt becomes even more important. Walking through your retirement years with the shackles of debt obligations - mortgage payments, car payments, credit card debts - will prevent you from being able to fully enjoy your retirement years. 

If you’ve been a listener of the One Minute Retirement Tip for any length of time, I am a big advocate of zero debt by retirement because of the freedom it provides. And especially if you have high interest credit card debt, you’ll want to start there and make a plan to pay off that debt as quickly as possible.

Regardless of how much debt you have and what those monthly debt payments are, one of the most life changing financial habits you can commit to in 2021 and beyond is to reduce or eliminate your debt all together. 

That’s it for today, but before you go...we have a special virtual event coming up tonight - Wednesday, January 27th at 7pm Pacific - The 2021 Economic Outlook, featuring renowned economist John Mitchell. Boring economic outlooks are a dime a dozen, but John is hands down one of the most charming and engaging economists you’ll hear. This is an invite only exclusive event for our clients with the opportunity for Q&A at the end to ask your burning questions. 

I have 25 tickets reserved for listeners of the One Minute Retirement Tip, so if you’d like to attend just send me an email - [email protected] - and if you’re one of the first 25 to email me, I’ll send you the link to register. That email again is [email protected]. 

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week, I’m talking about life changing money habits.These are the habits, the goals, and the behaviors that will have the biggest impact on your life. 

Today, I’m sharing with you what I think is the most impactful life changing money habit - track your spending. Would it surprise you to know that even people who make really good money decisions, people who are able to delay gratification today, and live within their means still have trouble keeping track of where their money goes every month.

In my experience in working with clients I find that this is often the case. Most of us have no idea where our money goes every month. We don’t really have a good handle on how much we really spend on groceries, eating out, gas, and the treacherous Target run. 

Yet, for those of you who actually do track your spending, you can attest for those of us who don’t, how eye-opening this one habit is. Understanding where you’re money goes every month is the first step to accomplishing nearly every other financial goal - want to get out of debt? You’ll need to know how much you have available to devote to paying down debt? Want to save more for retirement or your kids college? You need to know what you’re spending in order to determine where you can cut back in one area to save more in another area? 

Understanding the in (i.e. the income) side is easy. Understanding the out is a little more tricky, but the good news is that with technology, you can track most of your spending these days automatically, so understanding your cash flow isn’t the time-intensive chore that it used to be. 

If you’re not already tracking your spending, I encourage you to start here. It will open your eyes and unlock new possibilities for reaching your financial goals. 

That’s it for today, but before you go...we have a special virtual event coming up on Wednesday, January 27th at 7pm Pacific - The 2021 Economic Outlook, featuring renowned economist John Mitchell. Boring economic outlooks are a dime a dozen, but John is hands down one of the most charming and engaging economists you’ll hear. This is an invite only exclusive event for our clients with the opportunity for Q&A at the end to ask your burning questions. 

I have 25 tickets reserved for listeners of the One Minute Retirement Tip, so if you’d like to attend just send me an email - [email protected] - and if you’re one of the first 25 to email me, I’ll send you the link to register. That email again is [email protected]. 

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

----------

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

Welcome to a new week and a new theme here on the One Minute Retirement Tip! 

This week’s theme is life changing money habits. 

I thought about doing this episode at the end of December when you were likely thinking about your goals and resolutions for 2021. But then I thought, no, you’re bombarded with weight loss ads and everyone talking about resolutions right after Christmas and through the new year. The last thing you need is me telling you about the financial resolutions you should be making for 2021. 

And by now, if the statistics are accurate, that New Year’s resolution may be fading, which could be a sign that it wasn’t a goal that was really all that important to you to begin with. 

But what would happen for you in 2021 if your finances improved? How much more could you accomplish over the next year, 5 years, or 25 years if you had your financial house in order? How much more freedom would you have if you made more progress on your finances and put that front and center with your priorities? 

So this week, I’m suggesting 5 life changing money habits that have the potential to be exactly what they promise - life changing. 

These are the habits and the goals that if done well have the power to make a massive impact in your life. On the flipside, if you ignore these habits and don’t make these important financial goals a priority in your life, it could put you on a path financially that you want nothing to do with. 

I’ll dive into each, one by one, in our time together this week. 

That’s it for today, but before you go...we have a special virtual event coming up on Wednesday, January 27th at 7pm Pacific - The 2021 Economic Outlook, featuring renowned economist John Mitchell. Boring economic outlooks are a dime a dozen, but John is hands down one of the most charming and engaging economists you’ll hear. This is an invite only exclusive event for our clients with the opportunity for Q&A at the end to ask your burning questions. 

I have 25 tickets reserved for listeners of the One Minute Retirement Tip, so if you’d like to attend just send me an email - [email protected] - and if you’re one of the first 25 to email me, I’ll send you the link to register. That email again is [email protected]. 

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

----------

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

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>>> Check out our blog: https://truenorthretirementadvisors.com/blog/

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

It’s Sunday, which means...It’s recap time! This week’s theme was how I invest my money as a financial advisor.

Here’s what we covered in each episode this week:

• How my assets are allocated between property, stocks, cash, and how my largest asset is completely illiquid - and the pros and cons that come from that
• Then I talked about how I spend my money as a financial advisor - our budget and where it all goes on a monthly basis 
• I also talked about how I prioritize saving for retirement and my kids college, 
• And lastly, I talked about how much cash I have for emergencies and a good rule of thumb to follow for how much cash you’ll want to always keep on hand for emergencies.

I tried to bring value by being candid with you about my own spending, saving, assets, etc. to provide some insight into how a financial advisor allocates her resources. 

After all, I’m providing advice to my clients and thousands of daily listeners on this podcast, so hopefully you have benefited from better understanding where my financial priorities are and how that influences the advice I provide to my clients and how my personal money values influence what I talk about here on the podcast. 

Tomorrow, we are starting a brand new theme: life changing money habits. I’ll be talking about 5 money habits that can be a game changer for you in 2021 and beyond. It’s late January and chances are you made a resolution or a goal for 2021, and maybe you’ve already broken that esolution. 

That’s ok because I have a few resolutions to consider that have the potential to improve your finances and change your life. 

So next week I’ll be talking about 5 life changing money habits and how just picking with one of these habits, starting where you are and starting small can be a complete game changer for you and your finances. 

One last thing...if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my YouTube channel - True North Retirement, where I cover a wide variety of retirement planning topics - with a new livestream every week,  where I do a deeper dive than I have time for in each daily episode. So if you want to hear more from this week’s topic head on over to True North Retirement on YouTube and subscribe. 

That’s it for this week! Thanks for listening and I hope you have a blessed Sunday! 

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the “One Minute Retirement Tip”.

----------

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

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week, I’m talking about how I invest my money as a financial advisor. 

Today, I’m talking about how much I have in cash as a financial advisor. 

The standard advice is that you should have 3 to 6 months worth of living expenses in cash for emergencies. This has become even more important during the pandemic with widespread layoffs and unemployment benefits that were slow to pay out in many cases. 

Having a cushion of 3-6 months living expenses in savings will keep you from having to pay for emergencies or even put basic living expenses on a credit card when the inevitable emergency happens or if/when a job loss occurs. 

For that reason, my husband and I (both being savers) have always tried to maintain a cash balance that was consistent with this recommendation. We typically maintain about 5 months of living expenses in cash. Because of our adherence to this recommendation, we haven’t yet had to put a roof leak repair, or medical  bills, or any other emergency expense on a high interest credit card, which is the goal of having savings in the first place - to make sure you can cover life’s inevitable setbacks without making things worse for yourself and your family financially. 

That’s it for today, but one last thing before you go...I have an amazing free tool for you to help you on your path to retirement. It’s called the Retirement Success Forecaster.

Using data from a simple questionnaire, the retirement success forecaster will tell you if you’re on track for retirement, and if you’re not on track, it will pinpoint exactly what adjustments you can make today to live the retirement you envision.  

Getting a customized retirement forecast is easy. Just go to www.truenorthra.com/retirementsuccess/ to download your forecaster questionnaire. Fill it out, send it back to me using the instructions in the forecaster, and I’ll send your personalized results for free - no strings attached. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast