Road trips can be epic or awful, unforgettable or regrettable. (We could swap stories, I’m sure.) The difference usually comes down to planning.

The same is true with the journey of retirement—which is a lot like a road trip.

Given that reality, here are six “trip tips” to help you plan your retirement journey:

• Fill your tank. The distinctive thing about your retirement road trip is that once you’re retired, you don’t usually get more chances to “fill up.” In retirement, you leave wages and salaries behind. Barring a windfall, retirement income comes from whatever wealth you’ve accumulated. 

To use my road trip analogy, you need enough fuel on day one of your retirement to last until the end…no matter how long your trip is.

• Make sure your vehicle is fuel efficient. During my lifetime I’ve driven vehicles that get 10 miles per gallon and some that get 40 mpg. If you only have one tank of fuel, that makes a big difference. 

In our retirement analogy, “mpg” is the amount of income your accumulated assets can produce each year. Depending on what blend of savings, investments, and insurance you choose, you may get high or low retirement “miles per gallon” out of your accumulated assets. 

This is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of retirement planning. Most retirees enter retirement unaware some of these options even exist for them.

• Determine your speed of travel. In retirement, how much you spend each month is analogous to how fast you drive. The faster you drive, the lower your gas mileage will be. Slow down your driving (i.e., your spending), and your tank of fuel will last longer. 

• Calculate your range. How far can you go on one tank of gas? Depends on the size of your tank and the mileage you get. A vehicle that gets 15 mpg and has a 20-gallon tank can go 300 miles. A compact car that gets 30 mpg can go 50% farther, even with a smaller, 15-gallon gas tank. 

• Allow for a few side trips. Ever go on a road trip and get sent on an unexpected detour? Ever feel the impulsive urge to get off the beaten track and see the world’s largest ball of string? Unplanned side trips often make family road trips unforgettable.

Retirement involves side trips too. A spontaneous splurge, perhaps. Or major home repairs, financial assistance to a family member, or even an expensive health emergency. 

You want to be sure to build in some extra margin for side trips on your retirement journey. 

• Take care of your car. In 1974 my 48-year-old father bought a baby blue Mercedes Benz 450 SEL convertible for $17,000. I thought he’d lost his mind. “Dad, you’re over 40…what are you doing? Your life is nearly over!” 

Well, he managed to eke out 46 more years of life. And after keeping that car for 20 years, he sold it for…$17,000! 

I’m convinced someone is still driving it today. (I only wish that someone were me.) 

You may not want the assets that transport you through your retirement years to disappear with you. If that’s the case, I’ve got good news. Unlike your car, your assets aren’t destined to depreciate and fall apart over time. If you take care of them, you may be able to pass them on in better shape than they were at the beginning of retirement. 

With careful planning, it’s possible.

In truth, all these retirement “trip tips” take planning and coordination. Which is why I wrote my e-book How to Put Money Worries in Your Rear View Mirror – The Financial Freedom Roadmap.” Get your free copy by emailing me at bmoore@argentadvisors.com. 

Argent Advisors, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment adviser. A copy of our current written disclosure statement discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request. Please See Important Disclosure Information here.

You can have too much money.

I know you don’t believe me. I hear you out there saying, “Try me! Just try me!”

Of course, “too much money” is not the malady facing most Americans. Credit card debt is at an all-time high (over $1 trillion) and student loans are 50% higher (about $1.5 trillion). The average savings rate is up (over 8%), but the truth is that higher-income households account for most of the sunshine in that statistic. 

If you can’t imagine the words “too much money” ever coming out of your mouth, don’t tune me out just yet. It can happen at the most inconvenient time.

Let’s just assume you’ve got the usual profile of credit cards, car payments, a mortgage payment and maybe the last tidbits of a student loan. You save enough to get the 401(k) match at work but not much more. You feel like you’re going to be making debt payments for the rest of your life. 

Well, let’s look 20 years down the road. Your 20-years-into-the-future self has come into my office more times than I can count. Here’s what happens (if you’re lucky!)…

When times were tight, you learned to live on whatever was left after all the debt payments (often 30% to 50% of take-home pay). Then a funny thing happened – time marched on and the mortgage got paid off, you kicked the credit card habit and you realized you didn’t need a new custom-lifted dually pick-up truck every three years. Instead of pumping your lifestyle back up, you saved the money you were sending to lenders all those years. 

Now you’re retired. Your Social Security check is about $3,000 a month. Same for your wife (she had a better job than you did). You’re old enough that the IRS mandates you take a minimum amount each year from your IRA. 

With no debts to pay and a fairly simple lifestyle, you have more money coming in each month than you can spend. To be honest, it isn’t hurting your feelings one bit to see your checking account grow and grow and grow.

Now…so far so good…what I’m describing is not every American of retirement age, but it’s more than you might think. And most are kind of surprised when they get there (“I didn’t know I was doing this good…”). 

Then it happens. 

A parent dies and leaves an unexpected inheritance. A land-man calls you and says an oil company wants to lease some land you own so they can punch a hole in the ground and try to make you rich. A business you invested in years ago pays off and you get a windfall. 

Now, remember, you’re retired. Your lifestyle is set. There’s only so much you want to travel. Only so much you want to eat out. At some point, it takes more energy to spend more money than you have interest or energy to offer. 

You have…more money than you’ll ever spend. And you know it. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing this column to drum up sympathy for people who have “too much money.” 

I’m simply acknowledging what some have experienced but were perhaps too humble or embarrassed to admit – above a certain level (which is admittedly different for everyone), more wealth is simply more worry. 

You are investing, managing and paying fees for wealth, property and accounts that will never benefit you one bit. This is wealth being managed for another generation. For someone else. 

If that someone is someone you love, great. This whole process will be very satisfying to you. 

The balance of a current life (and lifestyle) and the need to save for an unknown future is both an art and a science. There’s only so much you’ll ever spend.

So, keep it simple, keep it sane and keep it balanced. 

Argent Advisors, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment adviser. A copy of our current written disclosure statement discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request. Please See Important Disclosure Information at https://ruston.argentadvisors.com/important-disclosure-information

And, yes, as a matter of fact, this has a lot to do with your money…especially in retirement. 

Whether you are a football fanatic experiencing the post-Super Bowl blues or someone who could care less about the sport, nearly everyone realizes football players come in large, extra-large and “oh my gosh can anyone be that large?” sizes.

The really large guys play on the line, facing one another. They average 6’5”, 315 lbs. 

The middle-weight guys (linebackers, defensive ends, tight ends and running backs) are generally of similar height but are smaller – only 225 to 250 lbs! They’ve got to be able to move quickly to survive the impact of being struck by another player of similar size and speed.

Then there are the “little” guys – wide receivers and defensive backs. These guys are typically about 6’0” 200 lbs and fast. Really fast. 

Finally, each team has a small crew of “specialists.” These are kickers and punters. While extremely valuable to the team, they rarely make contact with another player, so height, weight, and speed are not much of a consideration for them.

Now, one way to approach the above information is to summarize that the average NFL player is 6’2” and 245 lbs. 

But if I tried to field a team of men who all stood 6’2” and weighed 245 lbs., my team would likely not win a single game. 

Because football is a game of specialization and extremes. The movements of the different players must be carefully coordinated and well-timed, but the players are anything but interchangeable with one other. 

Tyreek Hill (receiver for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs) is perhaps the fastest man playing football today. But his speed would do him little good if he was face to face with north Louisiana’s favorite football son Andrew Whitworth (offensive tackle, Los Angeles Rams). Whit stands 6’7” and weighs 310 lbs. He might not be able to beat Tyreek in a footrace, but he could keep the little speedster from getting anywhere near his quarterback. 

Oh yes, I did promise to tell you why this is relevant to your money, especially your retirement. 

Retirement is like football…the demands of the sport require players of differing abilities and characteristics.

Whether conscious of this fact or not, everyone entering retirement faces different and competing demands for what their retirement money must do. I call this set of retirement choices the “Retirement Triple Play.”

Income. First, it must provide an income. Hopefully, that income is highly consistent and will never run out. 

Contingencies. Second, retirement money may have to meet occasional and unforeseen demands for additional money. This could be a new car, a new roof or a nursing home stay. 

What happens if you are taking money out of your nest egg and you have to withdraw an extra $75,000 to $100,000 per year to pay for long-term care expenses for your spouse? Any chance that might have an impact on how long that money might last?

Legacy. Do you want to leave anything behind after you die? Do you want to make sure your spouse is taken care of financially? How about your children? Is there a church or charity you’d like to impact long-term?

If all your money gets spent funding your own needs for income and contingencies, the amount you have left for any legacy is zilch. 

What I usually see when clients first come in is the average, one-size-fits-all-retirement-needs approach. The thought is “I can best meet my retirement needs by putting all my eggs in a retirement account.” 

Unfortunately, this often leads to a situation where a choice must be made to spend less or run out of money too soon. 

Careful planning with a view towards specialization can prepare you to win the retirement game.

Argent Advisors, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment adviser. A copy of our current written disclosure statement discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request. Please See Important Disclosure Information at https://ruston.argentadvisors.com/important-disclosure-information

And what does that have to do with money?

A really smart guy once said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Well, if the treasure is money and the heart is love, then love and money go hand in hand.

From one perspective, you could say that where you spend your money, and on whom you spend your money, and for what you spend your money… shows where your heart is. Where your love is. 

But I also want to suggest that money may not only be diagnostic of your love, it may also be directive. It’s not just that money diagnoses where your love is, but in many cases, it directs your love where to go.

Only teenagers and Hallmark movies believe love is 100% a feeling. As we mature, we learn that the feelings of love are wonderful but pretty unreliable. Beneath, and supporting, the feelings of love is a bedrock decision to love. 

“I will love this person. Period. Sometimes I will feel like it. Sometimes those feelings will be stronger than others. And sometimes those feelings will be dormant. But the decision doesn’t change.”

That’s the big idea behind mature, lasting love anyway.

So, back to money – what in the world does all this have to do with money?

Again, I’d like to argue…pretty much everything. 

Here are just a few ideas on how couples can spend money on each other in ways that demonstrate their love to one another and encourage that love to grow. See if you can come up with some more on your own. Then share them with me, please! 

Life insurance. This may not sound very romantic but start here for a very good reason. When you decide to buy something that only pays off if you are not around to enjoy it, there is no doubt this is a selfless act. Life insurance is a love product and is bought for love reasons. 

My experience is that women are naturally selfless lovers of others. It is the male of the species that must be taught the benefits of selfless love. I’ve watched men go through a decision-making process as they moved from “oh, she’ll get married again…” to “I’m going to get enough of this stuff to make sure she’s OK no matter what…” And in making that selfless decision, his love for her grows (not the other way around). It’s kind of cool to see.

Simplify. Sometimes it takes time, focus and some money to de-clutter our lives from all the distractions and details that keep us busy and apart. Spending money to make your lifestyle simpler, so that you can spend more time together, is a great investment in love.

Personal growth. Help your spouse continue to grow. Are one or both of you stuck in a rut? Why stay there? Let your spouse know you’re willing to spend money to promote his or her ongoing growth, professionally and personally. It’s selfless. It’s loving. And it will be a great investment in your spouse.

Together trips. Vacations are great, but this isn’t exactly what I’m talking about. On a vacation, the focus is often the destination, the experience or your own relaxation. On a together trip, the focus is the two of you and your growth together. This can be as simple as a long weekend. Or maybe a “staycation,” where you declare yourselves on vacation, but stay in your home (it’s inexpensive and you have all your stuff handy!). Or consider a couples’ weekend put on by a specialty group. Family Life Ministries has a Weekend to Remember event they do in Dallas, Houston and Little Rock each year. 

Valentine’s Day is coming this Friday. So, gentlemen, get the cards, the flowers, the candy, and the dinner reservations. But please don’t stop there. Because all that is one-day-out-of-the-year romantic talk. And if that’s all we do, talk is cheap.

Invest in your love. Remember, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 

Argent Advisors, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment adviser. A copy of our current written disclosure statement discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request. Please See Important Disclosure Information at http://www.ruston.argentadvisors.com/important-disclosure-information

“Mr. Moore, this is all the money I have in the world.”

She is clutching an investment account statement pulled from a tattered envelope. She has told me about the years of hard work she’s put in, saving as much as she could while putting three sons through college. Now she’s within a month of retiring and anxious about her ability to make it all without a paycheck.

“I want to make as much money as I can with this, but I don’t want to take risks.”

“What do you mean by risk?” I ask.

The corners of her mouth turn down as she thinks. “Well, I guess I don’t want to lose all my money.”

“OK, we can certainly both agree on that. Losing all your money would be very, very bad. What else? What else does risk mean to you?”

“Umm…I guess that’s pretty much it – I don’t want to lose my money,” she says, not sure if she means it.

“OK. I get that. So, what about income from the money. Is the risk of getting no income from that money an issue for you?” I ask.

“Yes!” she says, her eyes getting wider. “That’s why I’m here. I really need this to make me some money!” Her voice is urgent.

“So, losing some or all of your money is one of the risks you want to avoid. And getting no income off of this money is another risk you want to avoid. Is that right?”

“Yes. Absolutely,” she says. “That’s what I want. I want enough income from this money, but I don’t want to risk losing it.”

“I think I understand,” I answer. “But here’s the thing. You’ve got a choice to make.

“Option one means your account value is guaranteed to be steady and stable, guaranteed not to go down. With this option, your monthly income from the account would be about $1,600 today.”

“Option two means your account value is not guaranteed to be steady. In fact, I promise it will jump up and down. Historically it trends up, but there can be prolonged periods of time when the value of the account goes down.

“On the other hand, the income from this kind of account is about $3,500 a month, based on the amount of money you have. And there’s a decades-long history of the number going up every year by the rate of inflation or more.”

Option one describes a bank account. The money in the account is guaranteed and you know you won’t make much money off the current interest rates.

Option two describes a portfolio of financially stable bonds that pay interest and stocks that pay dividends to their owners. These days, a portfolio like this would earn significantly more than a bank account. But you’ll have to put up with some fluctuation (risk!) in the stated value of the account over time.

I don’t think it is possible or realistic to try to avoid all risk with your money. You must choose which risk is right for you.

Are you better off accepting the risk of low income? Or are you better off accepting the risk that your account will fluctuate in value (sometimes significantly), while at the same time paying your much higher consistent income?

The question isn’t “how can I avoid all risks?”

The real question is “which risks should I accept?”

Argent Advisors, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment adviser. A copy of our current written disclosure statement discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request. Please See Important Disclosure Information at http://www.ruston.argentadvisors.com/important-disclosure-information

By this time last century, we’d fought a world war, built the Panama Canal, begun the Federal Reserve, started the income tax, given woman the right to vote and witnessed the birth of the first communist state. It was a busy 20 years. 

Now the calendar is about the turn again and we’re two decades into this century. 

If you’re not sure you’ve got a lot to show for the last 20 years, let me suggest you get focused on living one year at a time. This time of year, many of us will compile ambitious lists of resolutions and goals, only to find them in the process of spring cleaning, stuffed away and forgotten in a desk drawer or computer file. 

Learn from the past. You can’t change the past, but you can learn from it. As you take stock of the last year (or even the last decade, if you dare), you’ll notice there were seemingly random events, good and bad. These apparently random events happened “to you,” and you had little control of their occurrence.

What you did have control of was your reaction to these events. Do the random events of life control you, or do you exercise a growing level of control of your response to life’s events? Do you notice any way in which you may have contributed to the event taking place?

You were passed over for a promotion. You got sick. An investment you made went sour. Your teenaged child grew more distant. 

It’s hard to look at hard things. Harder still to honestly ask if any of it was self-inflicted. Many hard things are not. Some are. What can I learn from honestly looking at the past?

Look to the future. You can’t control the future, but you can influence it. If we’ve learned from studying our past, we know that we exercise a degree of influence over our future, but not total control. 

Author Stephen Covey said we all have a “circle of concern.” That’s the stuff we’re worried and bothered about. Inside that circle of concern was a “circle of influence.” That’s the things that we’re worried and bothered about … that we can do something about. 

So if I’m worried about passing a test, I can study. If I’m worried about improving my sales results, I can call customers and ask about their needs. If I’m worried about my health, I eat right, sleep right and get appropriate exercise. 

Covey pointed out that the more we focus on the things we can influence, the fewer things seemed outside of our control.  

Live in the present. This is the art of learning to win today. 

If your goals don’t translate into “today,” they’ll simply be a source of distraction and disappointment. 

Have you even noticed that you never actually arrive in the future? It just stays out there, out of reach, like the horizon.

Since you never arrive in the future, we never fully enjoy the fruit of our ambition. 

That’s why its important to keep score today. If victory only comes in the far-off future, it’s difficult to get through today with much motivation.

The key to keeping score today is gratitude. What are you grateful for?

Someone once recommended to me their practice of writing down three “wins” at the end of each day. He said it only took a few minutes each day, but it was one of the most powerful things he ever did. 

Let’s put all this together in an example. 

Suppose you look to the past, seeking to learn, and you have to admit you’ve allowed your relationship with your spouse to take a back seat to other priorities. And you can tell the relationship just isn’t what it once was. 

Looking to the future, you know you can’t control your spouse, but have influence by making her a priority, scheduling dates and being intentional about asking about her day, her difficulties and even her dreams. 

Living in the present, you come to the end of a day that you had a date with your wife. It was simple and maybe the conversation wasn’t earth shaking, but it happened. Because you planned it. So you open your journal and your write as one of your three things that day for which you are choosing to be thankful “Date with wife.” That was a win.

And daily wins are the stuff that influence the future. 

What’s your 2020 vision?

Argent Advisors, Inc. is an SEC registered investment adviser. A copy of our current written disclosure statement discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request. Please See Important Disclosure Information at https://ruston.argentadvisors.com/important-disclosure-information