In Ep. 114, Tim addresses the question of making a game plan moving forward in these challenging financial times. He clips in a conversation from the Mullooly Asset Podcast between himself, Tom, and Brendan where they discuss questions from clients, messages relayed to clients, their feelings as advisors during this time, and what people should consider when making decisions regarding their investments in this environment.
Show Notes
Mullooly Asset Podcast – Ep. 299
Contact Information – Send us your questions!
Email – tim@livingwithmoney.com
What’s Your Game Plan? – Transcript
Tim Mullooly: Welcome back to Living with Money. This is Tim Mullooly. This is going to be episode number 114 of the podcast. Thanks for tuning in. This episode is going to be about having a game plan. I know we talked a little bit last week about the importance of having a financial plan, and if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, I recommend going back and checking it out.
These last two episodes, this one included, are a little different from what we usually do, but that’s only because we’re going through different times than what we’re used to. I wanted to make sure that these episodes moving forward are as valuable and important and directed towards things that are going on in your life right now and things that are important to you and things that will make the most difference in your life. The format might be a little bit different, but I think hopefully there’ll be more valuable for you right now in terms of what we’re all going through.
Last week actually on the Mullooly Asset Podcast, episode number 299 we talked about some questions that we’ve all been fielding from clients over the last few weeks, common questions that we’ve heard from people. We’ve been getting a lot of similar type questions from people. We wanted to just take time to answer it for the masses, for all of our clients here at Mullooly Asset Management. And I wanted to share it with you guys here too, over at Living With Money. We talked about what the overall tone from clients has been. Obviously a lot of people are scared and nervous, but some people surprisingly have been a lot calmer than expected, which is great to see. We talked about the different tones that we’ve been seeing from some clients as well. We discussed our own emotions as advisors and as people going through this time in the market, which I think is super important.
And then we talked about what the game plan is moving forward. Getting back to that point about us taking time to talk about our own emotions. I think that it’s important for advisors to acknowledge their own feelings during tough times in the market. I said it a lot last week, we’re human just like the rest of you, we’re all going through this together and we feel what’s happening now just like you do. I also think it’s important to talk about how we’re feeling to at least try and set some sort of example. Not that we know any better what’s going to happen than you do, but try and be some sort of example for clients, simultaneously acknowledging the fact that what we’re seeing is scary and it’s uncertain and it makes you nervous.
But while also not letting those feelings drive the bus when making decisions with our money, like I said a lot last week, we’re all in this together. As we talked about last week it’s important now, especially more than ever to have a game plan when it comes to your monthly budget and your investments and your finances in general. If you’re in a situation where your hours at work have been cut or eliminated completely, keeping a super close eye on every single dollar going out the door is absolutely imperative. No dollar can be wasted in that instance. If you’re still able to have money coming in on a steady basis, keeping a super close eye on where that money coming in, where is it getting allocated is even more important now than it has been in the past.
Again, no dollar in that sense can be wasted. It needs to go where it needs to go and you can’t afford to waste any dollar at this point. If you have investments that have dropped in value, which essentially all investments have over the last month or so, how has that impacted your financial plan? How would any investment decision made right now with investments down in value like they are, how would that affect your plan moving forward? And you need to think about, while you might be comforted in the very short term, taking your money out of the market or making a certain investment decision, are you potentially wrecking your financial future moving forward in a year from now or two years from now or 10 years from now? What kind of ramifications will those decisions have in the future?
For some people that might not matter, it might matter more to them now to have that short term comfort than the longterm plan is still in effect. Personally, I don’t think that that’s something I would be willing to sacrifice, but everyone is different. Everyone’s going to have their own situation and what matters most to them in this moment. What’s most important, I think is objective really considering all known repercussions. There’s going to be things that we can’t anticipate, unknowns, but considering all of the known repercussions that your actions might have on your accounts, on your plan, on your future. It’s important to consider all of those things and then choose what to do or what not to do from there and hold yourself accountable for those actions. I think that’s one thing that always needs to be practiced, but especially now more than ever as well is accountability.
Whether you choose to make a decision or not, you’re responsible for what happens in your financial life. You have to live with the choices you make, whether they turn out to be right or wrong, when the stakes are as high as they are right now, you owe it to yourself to take these decisions seriously and really give your game plan some thought. That’s why you know we wanted to sit down in the Mullooly Asset Podcast last week and talk about what the game plan might be or should be or what you should consider when making decisions for your game plan moving forward.
Along the same lines for this podcast and its purposes moving forward, I want to make sure that these episodes are as useful as they can be for the listeners, for you guys. With that being said, I will gladly spend as many episodes as needed answering whatever questions, direct questions you guys might have about your finances or your money or your budget or anything during this difficult time, whether it’s personal finance related, budget related, investments, investment related, financial planning, anything in between, anything that has to do with money or what you’re going through right now.
If you’ve got questions, please, please, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will gladly answer them as best as I can for you guys. Different ways that you can ask questions. You can hit us up on Twitter, you can tweet at me either @LWM_podcast or my personal Twitter @timmulloolymam. I’ll link those in the show notes as well. You can either tweet at me publicly or send me a direct message on either of those accounts. You can comment on our Facebook page. If you go on Facebook, just search Living With Money, you’ll see our logo. You can either comment on that page or send us a direct message on Facebook that way. You can comment on our Instagram posts. Again, that handle is @lwm_podcast or send us a direct message on Instagram and you could also email us over at tim@livingwithmoney.com. There’s a number of different ways you can get in touch with us.
Again, I’d be happy to answer any questions that you guys might have because we’re all in this together. The whole purpose of this podcast is to help you guys make better decisions with your money and there’s no more crucial time than what we’re going through right now, so I want to be there for you guys as much as I can. I’ll spend the next 50 episodes if I have to answering questions for you guys, please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions. I’d be happy to answer them. I think it’s important for you guys to hear the conversation that me, Tom and Brendan had last week on the Mullooly Asset Management podcast.
Right now I’m going to clip in that conversation for you guys. It’s pretty brief. It’s only about 15 or 20 minutes, but I think it’d be worth your time to sit down and listen to that as well. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
For the rest of this episode’s transcript, please click the link to the Mullooly Asset Podcast Ep. 299 above!
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