“Everybody’s Got Plans…”

The real quote is from Mike Tyson,

‘Everybody’s got plans … until they get hit.”

This is true in all walks of life, not just pugilism. What is wild is I already wrote about this topic 8 years ago.

If I could find a Financial Planner who would help put together the original plan, but have as part of that plan a “Plan B” and/or “Plan C” as part of that original plan, or gave an outline of a “Plan B” as part of Financial Planning, I think I might hire them. I have spoken to folks who were told what the risks were when they started to invest like:

• The Stock Market is Volatile, if your risk aversion is high, then maybe you should be in Bonds
• Bonds may not pay as high a rate as you wish
• Things may go wrong
• etc., etc., etc.,

However, do planners have other interesting ideas like:

• If there is a market correction along the way, we will not be getting out of stocks, but we may rebalance things at some point during the adjustment, to make sure there is even distribution, in the portfolio.
• If you suddenly have a large bill for your house, we can take money from the more liquid areas in your portfolio to pay for it, and then plan on how to pay it all back.

Planning is fine, but all plans change, due to unforeseen circumstances or just “life in general” (i.e. “… until you get hit”), your plan must either be flexible enough to deal with this, or you must be flexible enough in you financial planning to reconsider things, and change your plans.