After a few decades, you were done – you had reached the top of the proverbial mountain. You climbed your Mount Everest. And from this new vantage point, things look pretty different. But here’s the thing – you still have to climb down the mountain.
We recently had the opportunity to know exactly where to hit the machine when a client recently approached us with a goal of making a significant charitable contribution in 2020, with the hope and expectation of making the same contribution for as long as they are able in subsequent years. After determining that they could do this without jeopardizing their other spending goals, we set about figuring out the best way to make their gift this year.
To be clear, we don’t expect folks to react indifferently to the political and ideological roller coaster that is an election year. We simply caution letting those viewpoints infiltrate your investment decision-making process. Time has shown this to be a losing strategy.
Both the ancient Greeks and modern behavioral scientists seem to agree that one of the paths to greater happiness could be to just not look.
As investors, we want to have our cake and eat it, too: we ideally only want gains and would like to avoid all decreases in value. How great it would be to have a portfolio that could simultaneously accomplish both things? Sadly, we know that’s impossible. A better tactic would be to spend some time trying to find our own personal FOMO-JOMO nexus point.
Until Hurricanes Florence and Michael last year, my family hadn’t truly experienced huge and destructive storms. As we approach the one-year anniversaries of both storms – and as we keep those impacted by this year’s Hurricane Dorian in our thoughts – it’s helpful to think about any potential lessons or insights we can take from our storm experience and apply to our financial lives.