3 Things 6-10-24

Thing One

Learn From His Regret

In responding to the World Regret Survey (yes that’s a thing) designed and administered by Daniel Pink, author of The Power Of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Jason Dent, the employee relations manager for a large apparel chain, had this to say:

“I regret not saving money diligently ever since I started working. It’s nearly crushing every day to think about how hard I’ve worked over the last 25 years or so, but financially I have nothing to show for it. I’m very transparent about being 43 and not having any money. I only wish more 43-year-olds had been more honest with me [when I was younger]”

When I first started working almost three decades ago, several people told me that I should start saving in the company’s 401k plan. I didn’t object but I also didn’t fill out the paperwork immediately – for several years actually. Luckily for me, there were constant reminders in those first few years from those same people and I finally signed up. I’m not sure why they cared so much. They really didn’t have any reason to but I’m so glad they did.

Maybe you are like Mr. Dent. If so, it’s never too late to start. Or maybe you know younger people who are just starting out. If so, start gently encouraging them to put something aside for old age. In either case, you’ll have one less thing to regret if you start or start encouraging.

As always, let us know if we can help.

Thing Two

Know Your Beneficiaries

Below are the first few paragraphs from an article in this past weekend’s Wall Street Journal. It’s a cautionary tale about the importance of keeping the named beneficiaries on your various policies and accounts consistent with your current wishes:

“Jeffrey Rolison and Margaret Sjostedt dated in the 1980s. Now, almost 40 years after they broke up, she stands to inherit his $1 million retirement account.

The reason she might get the money is that in 1987, Rolison listed Sjostedt on a handwritten form as the sole beneficiary of his workplace retirement account. He never changed the beneficiary designation and died in 2015.

Standing in her way are Rolison’s brothers, who learned about Sjostedt’s claim to the money weeks after his death on a phone call from their estate lawyer. They don’t think he could have intended to leave the money to her…”

Yes, you read that right. The decedent’s ex-girlfriend (from 40 years ago) is first in line to get his retirement money. Why? Because while they were together, he signed up for his company’s 401k plan and named her his sole beneficiary on the plan documents. They broke up a couple years later, she got remarried, and he moved on. But he never revisited his plan documents and updated his beneficiary designation. So, even though there is no familial relationship between him and his ex and even though he has two surviving siblings, she has been determined by two courts to be entitled to the money. Why? Because, as the article’s author points out, “…Under federal law, employers are generally required to pay out these retirement accounts to the last recorded beneficiary, or a surviving spouse if the spouse hasn’t filed a waiver. That could be a name on a 3×5 card filled out decades ago, as in Rolison’s case…”

If you have retirement accounts or insurance policies, please make sure you know your beneficiaries. And if you need to change them, don’t let the idea of experiencing a little anxiety by going through the process cause you to put off making those changes. The people you leave behind will appreciate you for it.

Thing Three

Just A Thought

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” — Jordan Belfort