Welcome to the Spring Edition of The Ultimate Guide For the Successful Steward, Fourth Dimension Financial Group’s newsletter.
It’s a running joke in our office that I can’t resist an opportunity to talk about how much I love spring. Therefore, I won’t tell you how much I love spring. I just won’t do it here. That said, here we are. As I sit down to gather my thoughts I’m reminded of a few obvious realities: life moves fast and we’re powerless to it.
I went to college at Bowling Green State University. If you’ve spent much time on that campus you know how windy and bitterly cold it can get during the winter. In fact, there’s a corridor between the library and the old art building that was affectionately called ‘the wind tunnel’. So when winter hit at BGSU, it HIT. I’m shocked that one of my most vivid memories of being on campus was a day that followed a long, hard winter. I was walking to class and was instantly overwhelmed by the feeling of…nothing. I took my coat off so that I only had on a t-shirt and what I felt was nothing. The air was finally warm enough that it didn’t feel cold on my skin. It was the most stunning sign of spring that I’d ever felt and it was silly how normal and uneventful it really was. Yet there I was, feeling like I’d never felt comfortable in my entire life until that moment. It was perfect.
Josie and I enjoyed her big sister’s first track meet in the sun!
As I consider what a successful retirement looks like, I’m hoping that it feels like that spring day on BGSU’s campus. I hope you have moments when you feel so comfortable, and the day feels so uneventful, that it’s perfect. Sure, nothing in life is perfect, but that moment when you’re safe and secure enough in your planning that you’re able to bask in the peace of it all, free from worry or regret, I hope you get to that place every now and then. And I hope we can help you get to that place. That’s why I do what I do, so that you can feel that feeling.
This edition of the Steward brings you several helpful articles. Richard Chamberlain highlights the ‘why’ behind estate planning, specifically the reasons for planning at all. Investment guru, Stephen Hanley, takes a look back to try to see ahead at what the markets may have to offer in 2019 and beyond. In the Briefcase Study, we look at a Social Security strategy called ‘Reversing the Tax Torpedo’ and in Back to the Basics, we address the question surrounding when to retire. We hope each of these topics sheds some light on the art and science of both getting to retirement and staying retired.
The Steward does not happen without you. Sure, it’s being delivered to your home and for your benefit, but without your support of the work we do we’d have no reason to carry out any of our mission. So thanks for what you do so that we can do what we do. Enjoy spring just as I do, but I won’t mention that here. It’ll be our little secret.
All the best,
Adam B. Cufr, RICP®
