Day 30: Have a Healthy Investment Outlook
Degree of difficulty: Moderate
This is the final day of our 30-day financial fitness regimen. If you've have managed to keep up with our daily routines, you're well on your way to getting in the best financial shape of your life. And if you have skipped a day or five, it's easy to go back and tackle additional tasks on an as-needed basis.
The final day of our fitness programme is less about specific tasks and more about your general attitude. Be realistic, do your homework, keep on top of it, allot some time to assess and reasses your situation--and then forget about it.
Be Realistic: When it comes to investing for retirement, no one wants to spend the vast majority of their life working towards an unattainable goal. If you're planning on spending your retirement enjoying luxury cruises and safaris but you're pinning your hopes on a property boom, then you're likely to be disappointed. Conventional wisdom has long claimed that retirees need an average income in retirement of around 80% of their working salary but as my colleague John Rekenthaler discusses here, this is not only hard for many to achieve but is actually not necessary in many cases. Assessing your financial goals and outlining realistic saving and investing habits to achieve them is half the battle when it comes to successful financial planning.
Power to the People: With a wealth of information and educational material available to individuals, including Morningstar's personal finance articles, fund analysis and equities commentary, ETF research, and ISA guides, there's no reason why you can't Do-It-Yourself when it comes to investing. If, for example, you've been happily paying into a company pension for years but you never got round to assessing whether the default funds allocation is to your liking, this is a must. Use Morningtar's informative articles and tools to educate yourself about asset allocation, diversification and risk assessment. And if you need a helping hand, find yourself a financial adviser who can help you assess your goals and go about achieving them.
Check Up Regularly but Not Frequently: It's important to assess and reassess your portfolio's performance, but checking in on your investments too often can lead to the risk of emotion-based decisions. Set a schedule for reviewing and, if needed, rebalancing your portfolio on an annual basis. But between check-ups, try to tune out the market noise: if you're comfortable with your targets and allocation, then taking note of short-term volatility will only undermine your confidence unecessarily.
Return to the article: "The 30-Day Financial Fitness Plan".