Two Calculations That May Surprise You

March 11, 2016

As the political season continues to drag on and presidential candidates drop out, we are inevitably going to be faced with a decision that makes many of us say “THIS is the best we can do from a pool of 300 million people?” Yet, the day will be upon us shortly and we will make a choice.  One of the things that I found interesting and a little bit fun was this political quiz that calculates how much you agree with the different presidential candidates on certain policy questions. The answers surprised me a little bit (and I’m not going to share how the quiz came out for me) and I’ve shared it with some friends to see where they landed.

While we all have an idea of which candidates resonate with us, it’s usually a bit surprising to see which ones we share the most common ground with. That’s the thing about surprises. Sometimes they are good. Other times not so much.

In my role with Financial Finesse, I get to witness surprises on a fairly regular basis. During my one-on-one coaching sessions, I always like to see the reaction when a person comes in and we run the very first retirement projection. I’d estimate that 95% of the time, they expect to NEVER be able to retire. Yet, around half of the time, they are either on track to retire or with a few slight tweaks (increasing retirement plan contributions, working a couple years longer than our original projection, re-allocating investments or seeking to replace most of today’s spending – not today’s income), can be on track without too much radical alteration of their current course of action.

The other half of the time, though, the surprise is just how under-prepared for retirement someone is. That’s when the meetings get tough. I have to be able to tell someone that their goals are either unrealistic, are unreachable or will require some serious re-thinking and maybe even some radical lifestyle alteration.

That kind of surprise is usually met with a combination of shock, sadness, disbelief and even a twinge of regret over what could have been done earlier in life to be more prepared today. For me, I feel a combination of guilt for telling the person that they are in less than stellar shape and hope that hearing their status in our meeting can lead to immediate changes in financial behavior that will prepare them much better for retirement. I guess I’d rather them hear it from me and get some ideas on how to improve the picture gradually over time than to never hear it and be completely shocked and unable to do anything about it after they announce their retirement to their coworkers.

My suggestion to you…surprise yourself in two ways:

  1. Take the political quiz so that you enter November as a more informed voter.
  1. Run a retirement projection to see where you stand regarding your retirement goals. It’s better to learn today and be able to course correct than to not know until it’s too late.