George Shirley. Any opinions are those of George Shirley and not necessarily those of RJFS or Raymond James.
I look at your investing life as 4 different phases: accumulation, preservation, distribution and legacy. Each one of these had its own challenges, but I find it can be difficult to switch your mentality from accumulation to preservation and distribution.
It is easy to understand accumulation of wealth; earn money and regularly save and invest. Rinse and repeat, and let the power of compounding interest and time do the work. Determine the level of risk you are comfortable with to determine an appropriate allocation.
But in the preservation and distribution phases, you are no longer drawing a regular income stream and need to use your assets to support your living expenses, which requires different investment strategies and investment vehicles to meet that objective.
I often find investors have difficulty when they no longer need to grow their wealth to meet their objectives, and many times I see excessive risk in portfolios that do not require investment growth to comfortably meet their goals.
Adjusting your strategies to meet the new reality can be difficult to accept since “I’ve always done it this way”, but the amount of money at risk is greater and the amount of time to recover is less.
There are many parallels to growing companies, raising children, professional sports teams in that what got everyone to this point, is not going to get you to the next point. Understanding that and accepting that is the first step.
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