Good morning!

My latest podcast episode is one you'll want to check out if you've ever had questions about Long Term Care Insurance...

I'm joined by my friend and go-to Long Term Care Insurance expert, Corey Rieck.

Click here to give it a listen and feel free to pass it along to others who might be interested.

Worthless? Really?

Yes, I've written here before about my belief that a financial plan is pretty worthless.

Sure it provides good directional information based on what we know right now.

This very moment in time.

But in 5 minutes or 5 days or 5 months, and certainly in 5 years, things will change.

And today's plan will no longer be relevant. In fact, it could be dangerously misleading.

Or just plain wrong.

I recently shared similar thoughts on Linkedin.

And I was surprised by the response...

As I type this week's email letter on the morning of Friday, August 6th, my Linkedin post has just under 3,000 views and over 20 comments.

Thought I'd share it here again for your convenience:

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If a 60 year old woman has $2 million in an investment portfolio and withdraws $80,000 per year for the rest of her life, and we run 1,000 lifetime simulations to stress-test this model against all types of different future markets, she'll wind up with somewhere between $20 million and running out of money at age 78.

We're assuming a life expectancy of age 95.

So what are the lessons here?

1. A financial plan is worthless. Ongoing financial planning (including adjustments along the way) is everything!

2. Don't be fooled by a false sense of precision or certainty which is often sold by financial advisors. No one knows what will happen tomorrow - so they certainly have no clue what will happen over the next 25+ years. [see #1 above]

3. Despite my example above, retirement planning isn't just about math or number-filled models. Since it involves money and humans (that's you), it's about feelings. And emotions. Retirement planning - done right - is about the quantitative AND the qualitative.

What do you think?

Have a question?

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Hit reply and let me know what you think. I'm curious...

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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