Investment Management

SET REALISTIC GOALS.   You will not get there if you do not know where you are going. Set a goal to never run out of money. If you are not saving and you do not have savings working for you (invested), it is quite likely you will run out someday even if you maintain good spending habits (a/k/a Inflation). If you are on track with life and you do not want your heirs to waste what you worked so hard to earn and grow, set a goal to keep this from happening. Work smart (earn what you are worth). Save (% of gross income) and invest wisely. Spend conscientiously.

CREATE A PLAN TO MEET YOUR GOALS.   Create a plan for income/saving/investing, spending, “just in case” (risk management), and “after” (estate planning). Have experienced people helping you, or at least get a second opinion. Discipline yourself. As the leader of Al's favorite football team, Vince Lombardi, once said; “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

DO NOT FEAR.   Do not fear the volatility of the market, no matter what you see on television or read from “experts.” Embrace the opportunity to invest. Have the appropriate amount of cash or cash-like on hand and own portfolios of great companies in (non-tax and tax qualified) brokerage accounts. Allow the account value to go up and down, as it has always done. Reinvest the dividends that these companies give owners. When the market is down, these dividends buy more shares “on sale.” This is wonderful. There has never been a time that stock markets (depicted by indexes such as the NASDAQ Composite, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and S&P 500) have gone down that they have not gone back up; through world war, dust bowls, terrorist attacks, and governmental elections.

KEEP IT SIMPLE.  Keep it simple. Do not be lured by fancy products that “guarantee” anything. They are expensive and you do not need them.