LIFE…AS WE KNOW IT.

Neal A. Deutsch, CFP^®

Published in Rivertown Journal, September 2009

Erma Bombeck, great American author and humorist, wrote a book entitled “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Why am I in the Pits?” While I never had the pleasure of meeting her, I did admire her style of writing: it was real and pointedly accurate with regard to real life situations and day to day life. So what, you ask does this have to do with investments, financial planning or retirement advice? A lot really, if you look at life like I do: keep it light, don’t take 95% of the day seriously, and look forward to getting up each day to see what fun you can have and who you can help today!

The last year has been tumultuous in so many ways for all of us. Record unemployment, (still) plunging housing values, uncooperative banks, lower portfolio values, lack of vacations, yada, yada, yada, as Elaine from “Seinfeld” would say.  I have been meeting with clients for 25 years, and never get tired of hearing stories of our Nation’s past and what it was like living in the early 20th century from my older clients. Those who were old enough to understand and survived the Great Depression tell stories of breadlines, mass unemployment, and people loosing homes…wait a minute…sound familiar? With regard to their current style of living, even though it’s decades and decades later, they still refer to their outlook on finances as “poverty thinking:” and they have been thinking this way for their entire lives. What this shows is thinking and lifestyle outlook can be altered for a life by experiencing an event so traumatic as to teach you lessons to last a lifetime. What have we learned? Or will we just go back to living our lives just as we did prior to the Great Recession? Oh, my fellow Rocklanders, what have we learned?

The world is not the same. Insanity by definition, they say, is doing the same thing time after time and expecting a different outcome. Are you investing the same way you did before the market slide? Is your portfolio allocation the same, or have you altered it to reflect your different risk tolerance or adjusted goals and objectives? Have you reviewed your lifestyle and monthly budgets? Thought about what kind of car may be next once this lease is up? Did you evaluate your mortgage for a refi? Life is definitely not the same it was a few years ago. Are you?

We have a choice…we can get bogged down in this recession and create our own personal depression, or we can look at this as the new norm: leaner, cleaner and simpler. Now is the time to evaluate your lifestyle, finances, relationships, and anything else you believe could bear revisiting. Look at this time as the Universe giving us a chance for a re-do. Maybe it’s just time…  

Neal A. Deutsch is a Certified Financial Planner^™  & Registered Securities Principal, offering securities through First Allied Securities, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC.  Neal is President of Chestnut Investment Group in Suffern, NY, helping people with financial planning since 1984. Please feel free to call Neal at 845.369.0016 or email him with your questions at neald@chestnutinvestment.com. Visit his website at www.chestnutinvestment.com