How Procrastination Dooms Your Financial Future

Hello and welcome to Mr. Stillman's opus use Johnstone Rosewood wealth management George and about procrastination.

John what area of life crossing consist I will know all think about that later if you like doing right now will play points are usually something around the house right but the lobby will do it with their finances on four there are a lot of things actually life that I just I just need that deadline pressure, I'm going to get it done. Like, here's an example we have our little blueberry patch area 10 blueberry bushes and blackberries, and there will the goats love to get in there and eat the blueberry bushes which you know when I'm around and I'm kinda keeping an eye on them. No big deal. I'll chase them off as soon as I seem ever there and so eventually I get tired of that as I built this fence around the area. Well, it wasn't completely good proof when I built it but it was enough of a deterrent for them like I'd see them trying to get into the blueberries, not good traceable so it bought me some time.

Right now you have to watch him like a hawk every time I promise you this story has a point. And so then I was saying okay while got to build a better fence that's truly good proof that really is going to keep amounts. I don't have to. I can do is let them out and not worry about and so I put it off and put it off and put it off and then right before we were leaving to go on a trip to Portugal set up me and I'm about to not be here for a week to keep an eye on the goats and would not be fair to the farm sitter to require them to watch the goats like hot so you know we are flying out from Portugal. I think at like 2 o'clock that afternoon and so before we left the airport on out there that morning sweating in the 97° July heat getting the fence done so that we can leave Portugal.

So yes, sometimes I need to deadline pressure, and output stuff.

Good house and I short trips at or about the effects of the labor.

Also, as they work well under pressure and prayer after procrastinating, but with your money.

Asada's position you want to be you know what to worry about trying to make a last-minute decision with your money. Maybe will do quite too often to her tell you why some people do this, make them primary excuses that we here for doing it, but also talk about how to overcome each one of these things so that if you are procrastinator in these areas maybe will help change your habits throughout the course of this episode hi Jon, I know our parents and soon artists we tell our kids you have. The way we used to do things my senior parents plan for retirement not do a whole lot right they they save they went to work. You only work for 30 years in the company and then through any official retirement planning with someone like yourself. Everything turned out fine so the assumption a lot of times people present because they think well I'm a sailboat my parents that it shares to be fine for me to just kind of take care things my own and it'll all work out well. So if you're in your 40s or 50s and you're saying this about the way your parents made retirement work at your 40s. If you're in your 40s and 50s. That means your parents more than likely lived through the Great Depression and the way that they treated money in their older years, almost across the board for that generation the way they handled money in their later years is completely different from the way your generation handles so for one they just had different spending habits. You can't compare yourself to that generation. In terms of how you spend money and just how you view money. The other thing is that generation had a whole lot more help in terms of pensions and things like that. The percentage and remember off the top my head what the number is for the percentage of people from that generation. When you're saying your parents. The percentage of them that had a pension compared to the percentage of today's retirees that has a pension is a drastically different figure and so that's why for them. You say, well, they didn't really have to plan a whole lot. It's true, they didn't. It was kinda taking care of for them and so now let's say you're 30, there is almost nowhere that's going to have a pension other than state or federal employees. If you have folks that are just now reaching retirement age.

We still see a few people who have pension may be from like an old RTP company or if they work for IBM or something like that years ago they might still have a lingering pension out there, but this idea that I'm in a work for Blue Cross Blue Shield and retire with up $2500 a month pension like I saw my mom do yeah that's that's not really a nap. It's just it's just a different landscape that you have to be doing the retirement planning and compared to the past generation that you saw the yes. Much is changed, I'm sure we get to that point arced our kids are going through that process is to be up a lot different for them to so Curaçao that allowed but again you can't just assume that just because it works your parents can work for you that.

So don't put that off any longer.

I listen to John right I like to listen to you.

I think you're someone I can start with, but for people. They just don't know where to turn. There's people everywhere and they're here about finances so I'm not going worry about right now because I just don't know what to do well up so you can run any financial advice or talk that you hear through a couple filters. If it's somebody in your life. Somebody that you know personally that's giving investment advice in the break room at work or the cookout at somebody's house look at their life.

Do they have their life together financially. I don't mean do they have a lot of stuff you don't know if that house and their cars are highly leveraged and really more than they can afford or are they actually in good financial shape. If you don't know what kind of financial shape. There actually in not what kind of material possessions you see, if you don't know what kind of shape you're actually in financially. Then I would be wary of their advice. Just because you really don't truly know who that's coming from now. If it's somebody that you know well enough to know that yes they are in really good financial shape they had made really good decisions there somebody that I would consider financially why is it fair that person then yeah a lot of their advice might make sense but then you have to run through the filter of okay will does that apply to me, is what they're talking about is that also something implied in my life is my life different in some way that what they're saying is perfectly accurate and make sense for them but not for me that's for people you know run it through the filter of is the somebody who I aspire to be like. Financially, there is a some do the work. They just you know wants to tell me what the hot stock is or the hot crypto currency to get into every month but you know he's just constantly trying to get rich. He does next. Have a proven track record.

That's what you do for people in your life.

If it's people in the media you have to run it through the filter of right what is what is this person selling essentially, are they representing some kind of company that sells some particular product or just generally would have a bias, a reason to want you to think a certain way about particular investments or strategies or is this a person who is selling themselves so they want to establish their credibility and one of the ways that you do that a lot cases in media, unfortunately, is by having a very strong opinion and it might be that having a strong opinion is not really the best guidance for somebody on a particular subject because it needs more nuance. It needs more thorough discussion which doesn't sell itself to a soundbite and so in a lot of cases, you just have to run through the filters this person selling something or is this person more in the entertainment business, then they are the financial advice business allowed voice usually wins. In that case quite a bit on the other chest, where we are in the media landscape map right people to get stressed out by finances interest. Quite a few people. It is our couple talking about it when they start digging in the numbers make him uncomfortable. Whatever that is how you help someone that's can I get stressed out by finances and put things off because of it know a lot of people like this. We keep a box of Kleenex in the conference room for this very reason, like some people just when they talk about money they're going to start crying. We have a few clients like that and it's kind of weird. You have to think about like what is causing this. Why do I feel this way about money. Why does money create stress and anxiety in my life. It almost always goes back to some past experience, often it's childhood where money was always an issue around the house or in your family and it was just always a stressor when you were growing up during your teenage years, things like that so really the. The best thing you can do is try to identify why is it that money stresses me out if you can identify that thing and start to learn how to deal with it and then how to help your relationship with money you don't have to do this unhealthy behavior of putting it off procrastinating it forever because you don't want to deal with it. Go ahead and figure out why.

Why is it that I feel so much stress. When I think about money. Oh, it's because this happened when I was a kid and my life doesn't look anything like that.

Now okay I and then you can start to move on but you have to identify first like the eject.

The therapist sometimes to home side that's I never would guess that was part of the job, but very much is I is one that I don't know that you probably like to hear too often, but what is my just does Jonathan listen I got to watch my plate right now I'm just too busy to worry about my finances are get to me eventually, but this right now. This is not enough time today. Well I mean I get that I have many areas of my life that I have put off because I just haven't been willing or able to make time for. I just went from 2000, probably 2008 to 2021 without going to the dentist, and then I finally went for some reason everything was fine.

My teeth were in great shape even a 13 year hiatus, but it was just one of those things where I I couldn't justify making the time for which if you think about it doesn't cost me that much time to go to the dentist was on leave and go every six months is once a year come so putting the time in my schedule for that really shouldn't have been that daunting. But I needed an excuse for a lot of years. There a lot of things where I'll put it off for ever and ever and ever because I feel like I don't have time to deal with it like things related to running the business where I might say you know what I don't have the four hours needed to really create a system that's going to make this task easier moving forward. I was going to keep spending 20 minutes on it every week.

Well, if I would just spend the four hours creating the system, then it would take me 30 seconds every week, but after six years of spending 20 minutes on it. I would've been much better off to have just pulled the Band-Aid off and spent four hours getting system in place and then just spinning almost no time on imports up in a lot of ways the same way with your financial planning. If you can spend the time and put in the effort to get a good plan in place have systems that are working in your favor.

You're not making decisions every month. You have a lot of things that are automated in your creating habits and you don't have to currently think about it actually gets a lot easier as you move forward. You just have to do the work up front and that's like I said difficult for all of us in many areas of our life. Yeah, I know we all face time time crunches everywhere we go.

But what is important to you. You get it done right and that's what were financial planning should rank on your list likable war here for reasons why we procrastinate.

I don't know where to start so much like I don't know who to listen to. There's just so much out there in terms of research information, we can turn anywhere and find an opinion and get info on something, but I know it's accurate what I should listen to what I should so how do you know where to start. Will so this is where having a professional they can kind of assess where you are on your financial roadmap to help you figure out where to go can be helpful because I'll have folks to come in and they can't even tell me how much they bring home a paycheck. I asked him what their take-home pay is made, look at me like, how could I possibly know the answer that question and sauce are right well just just pull up your bank account on your phone. Let's look at your last couple of paychecks and see how much you brought up and they don't they don't know how to log into their bank. All I haven't logged in months.

I don't know what my password is okay well this is a sign you probably be need to be paying a little more attention to this kind of stuff and so were to start with the basics. What you make when you bring home what does it cost you to live your life as you know, that's where those folks need to start understating their income and tracking their expenses. On the other hand, I'll have folks to come in for the first time they have a spreadsheet where they'd outlined every single thing they spend money on every month and exactly how much they make in a detailed synopsis of all of their various accounts, bank accounts and investments and all that some people are really on top of the inventory part of it. They just don't have a clue about when can I retire and if I do retired and how much can I spend when I do retire right so that's where they need to start, let's figure out okay. Let's just pick a date, let's say you retired in two years at age 67. If you did that, based on what you have saved. Now what you're going to say for those next couple years working what kind of lifestyle does that afford you for a lot of people that's a good place to start is that an appealing lifestyle or not, and if so, great is make that the target and let's shoot for it and maybe you and that being able to retire a little earlier than planned. If you save a little more than you expected or the market does better than we hoped for in our projections and things like that so where you start is going to be dependent on your financial acumen and experience. Right now, but that's where having little bit of professional help can help you uncover plus a couple left but I'm set up with the last one off for another day. John stated that a case where I think that illustrates the point really well with do that. I fared off for whatever reason you have for putting things off right it's probably is probably okay is probably defendable but know that no matter where you are is a matter you not too late right. Jonathan is the bottom line, rep of the discussion is the matter what why you put things off in a long even putting them all for taking the next step. Eventually, at some point. This can work out for you should be the next very well said Michelle figured out Rosewood wealth management.com that is the website. John there went up to Mr. Dylan's office coming soon overly increased ridership Carolina once towards doing business as Rosewood wealth management is a registered investment advisor in the state of Carolina material presented is intended to be general and should not be construed by any consumer is the rendering of personalized investment advice