Greetings Creedians.
There’s a simple yet profound difference between knowing and doing. Simply knowing something isn’t enough to always influence me to action. For example, I know I need to eat healthy. I need to eat less sugar, less often; however, an open bowl of candy corn on the kitchen counter is too tempting to resist. I’m going to eat a few pieces of Halloween candy every time I walk by that bowl.
Besides, consistently acting on knowledge alone takes effort and I’m typically a lazy guy. I don’t like to apply effort doing things that I don’t find enjoyable. Who does?
So, like many of you, I’ve had to adapt and overcome. I don’t like flossing. I don’t like the feel of string between my teeth and touching my gums. I dislike water flosser too – but as a matter of principle rather than physical discomfort. I know I should floss my teeth – a healthy mouth leads to a healthy body. So I’ve had to find mechanisms to make sure I’m consistent with flossing during my bedtime routine.
In order to act, I have to have a compelling reason to start the process and then keep the momentum going. The thought of being unhealthy is usually enough reason for me to keep my flossing routine up – for a while.
This same principle applies to retirement planning as well. To be honest, retirement planning is more difficult since we’re usually thinking about a goal that is sometimes decades away. When you’re in the throes of life in your 30’s and 40’s, it’s incredibly difficult to make something in your 60’s real – especially if it means giving up something in the present for something in the distant future.
Our Journey
Jennnifer and I have spent our entire adult lives saving towards retirement. Ever since our first paycheck, we have taken advantage of the employer 401k match and have saved a little here and a little there over the years. We really didn’t get serious about retirement until our 5th wedding anniversary when we listened to the audio book “Millionaire Next Door”. This book really changed how we looked at our personal finances.
We’re probably not the typical couple. Besides being type A personalities, we both share a natural love of personal finance. We have spent our life learning and applying financial planning principles to our personal finances.
Jennifer is a CPA by profession and her unique view on taxes really helped influence some of our initial retirement planning strategies. Over the years, as we’ve methodically addressed the different risks most people share in retirement, we’ve been flummoxed by the observation that most retirement professionals seem to ignore tax risk.
Our personal journey took us through several different kinds of financial advisors, where we learned for ourselves that many people in this industry didn’t have our best interest at heart (surprise, surprise!)
Over the years, we both decided we wanted to help others on their retirement journey. Jennifer decided that she wanted to work as a financial advisor and focus on helping people address the looming tax risk that most other advisors are currently ignoring. She currently works for a small firm in the city where we live, and thoroughly enjoys helping other people untangle their retirement plans. I believe she’s an absolute genius when it comes to understanding how to address tax considerations in each of the stages of retirement.
I’ve spent the last several years studying and writing about retirement. My work until this point has been a private endeavor, as I’ve pondered how to best articulate what I’ve learned along my life’s journey, and better apply it to our circumstances. I’ve recently decided that I would start a blog and focus on sharing what I’ve learned with everyone else. Currently there are few, if many, blogs on developing a tax-free retirement that are not also trying to sell you services as a financial advisor.
A Creed is Born
Creed /krēd/ a set of beliefs or aims which guide someone’s actions.
Over the last two or three years I drafted ten axioms to outline the key principles I’ve learned. After a process of refinement, I later consolidated these ten into a list of six. As I considered the possibility of sharing my lifelong experience of personal retirement planning with others, I decided that I really needed something more than a boring list of axioms. Besides, I knew reading a (yet another) list of something I “really ought to do” wouldn’t be enough to drive me to action to and through retirement.
If that wouldn’t work for me, why would it work for you?
Hence a creed. I thought, if I have a set of simple beliefs that boiled down the essence of what I wanted to accomplish regarding retirement, then I could have a reason to act. Especially, if I make a public proclamation that I’m drawing a line in the sand and doing something different with my life. Of course, writing about it also creates personal accountability.
So, I created The Retirement Creed. It’s a set of simple axioms and principles that are neither earth shattering nor entirely unique to me. Theres no “hidden secret sauce” that I’m trying to sell. Just good information for people motivated to do something on their own about their situation, or who simply have questions about how retirement planning really works under the hood. I wanted to provide detailed information so people who plan of using a financial advisor for their personal situation could feel informed when talking with their advisor.
I’ve sought to provide something for free to help educate and entertain anyone wanting to improve their personal finances and plan for retirement. The information on this site is simple, yet profound in the fact that, if followed, will help me and others define and live our best possible retirement.
So How Did It Start?
On a whim I did a quick check on the Internet to see if someone else had thought about creating a creed for retirement planning, fully thinking that if I had thought about it, then surely dozens of others had beat me to it. I was surprised to learn that TheRetirementCreed.com domain was free. I purchased it after a quick sanity check with my eldest son, and posted The Retirement Creed after a few days of finalizing the website configuration.
This is the simple origin story. I look forward to sharing more details with you as the weeks progress.
