Webinar Transcript (6/27/2024): “Children & Money: Timeless Strategies To Transmit to The Next Generation”
Host/Presenter: Jonathan I. Shenkman, President & Chief Investment Officer of ParkBridge Wealth Management (Contact: jonathan@parkbridgewealth.com)
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Jonathan Shenkman: Good morning and welcome to the Park Bridge, Wealth Management Spring Webinar Series. This program is entitled Children and Money Timeless Strategies, to transmit to the next generation.
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Jonathan Shenkman: as always. My name is Jonathan Shenkman, and I'm president and chief investment officer of Park Bridge wealth management. In that role I serve in a fiduciary capacity to help my clients achieve their financial objectives. My practice focused on working with high net worth families, businesses, and not for profits. I manage individual investment portfolios, trust accounts, corporate retirement plans, and endowments to help my clients achieve their financial goals.
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Jonathan Shenkman: In addition to the 20 or so events, I run every year. I also do a fair amount of writing on the topics of investing and financial planning, and you could read my work in a variety of periodicals, including Barons
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Jonathan Shenkman: Cnbc. Forbes, Kiplinger, the Wall Street Journal and Trust and Estates Magazine to name just a few. You could see all my work on my website at Parkbridge, wealth.com forward slash articles, or by following me on social media at Jonathan, on money. Additionally, you can check out my weekly, podcast which is also called Jonathan on money. And you can listen to that on apple spotify or wherever you get your podcasts
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Jonathan Shenkman: okay with that introduction, let's now jump into the program. So the topic of educating children about money can be broken down into many areas. I've decided to focus on 3 broad sections which I think are the most practical. The 1st is teaching our kids the right attitude towards money.
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Jonathan Shenkman: the next is about the importance of positioning your children to earn a livable wage, and the final area are timeless planning principles that are helpful for kids to understand early in life, and will be as relevant 1020, or 30 years from now as they are today, these areas will cover actual financial planning advice, having the proper perspective and making smart lifestyle decisions with money. All of these items are equally important, and the earlier in life they are understood the better.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Let's 1st discuss teaching your kids the right attitude towards money, and this starts with having an appreciation for money. A healthy relationship with money should start at a young age
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Jonathan Shenkman: while teaching budgeting, cash, flow, management and savings are all important skills. Few elementary or high school students have the patience to sit down and discuss any of those topics. It's far wiser to start with simply instilling an appreciation for the things one has an iphone laptop car, family vacation, a nice meal, a new clothes, or any other luxury that may be in your child's life.
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Jonathan Shenkman: teaching kids to be grateful through casual discussion, not only reinforces a positive attitude towards money, but will also serve as a springboard for other financial related conversations.
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Jonathan Shenkman: It will also open the shot. Your child's eyes to families that may have may not be as fortunate
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Jonathan Shenkman: that awareness and understanding is helpful beyond just the word world of personal finance. And, as I tell my clients.
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Jonathan Shenkman: financial planning is not only about the accumulation of wealth, it is also about the transmission of values to the next generation.
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Jonathan Shenkman: A next way to teach a good attitude towards money is imparting the advice of avoiding lifestyle creep as college graduates enter the workforce and begin to make money. There is a natural desire to spend that money on more things, this temptation to spend more as one's income increases, is known as lifestyle creep. It's important to understand that this mindset will not lead to more satisfaction. Instead, it usually will lead to more financial strain as one tries to maintain.
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Jonathan Shenkman: maintain an increasingly expensive lifestyle. One of the smartest decisions a young professional can make is to continue to live like a student until they bolster their financial reserves and get a handle on their cash flow for those fresh out of college, and accustom to living with roommates continuing in a shared living space, will not impact their lifestyle, but will allow them to save more money for the next stage of life. The discipline of not continuously inflating your lifestyle, as you make more money.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and foremost at home, the way you behave in this regard will likely be passed down to your children. Remember they're watching what you do very carefully. Another concept that is related to the previous point is to never to try to keep up with the Joneses. This is also a lesson children learn from watching their parents. Once you settle in a community, certain social pressures begin to build in order to maintain a particular lifestyle.
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Jonathan Shenkman: It's important to teach your children that there will always be someone who has more. There will always be a family in your social circle that appears to have a higher income. Nicer house fancier car goes on better vacations and on and on at all levels of wealth, trying to keep up with others is the futile goal that will only lead to unhappiness and financial hardship. It's far more important to live within your means, save money every year invested prudently
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Jonathan Shenkman: and focus on the things in life that give you true joy, like spending quality time with family and friends.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And lastly, for this section. Money is a tool, not a scorecard. My grandfather once told me that he was fortunate to enough to never have to worry about money. He said if he needed something, he bought it. He wanted to go on vacation. He went. If family needed money, he was able to give it to them, since he was objectively not a rich man. His secret to his success was that he lived within his means, and was very satisfied with what he had most of my grandfather's happiness was not derived from his money, rather it was from being able to spend time with his family
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Jonathan Shenkman: money, allowed him to pay his bills, and gave him the flexibility to spend time on the things he enjoyed most. If money isn't a concern in your life, and you could spend your time as you want. That is the ultimate blessing to share with your children, and I'll conclude this section by saying that parents should model their behavior on what you want your kids to do, because your kids will copy you, and that seems to be a theme. I've brought up a number of times already.
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Jonathan Shenkman: A client of mine who had been bad at handling his own finances, told me that he always tells his kids do as I say, not as I do. It's important to point out that this does not actually work. You should act the way you want your children to behave, they will ultimately follow your lead.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Now let's shift gears a bit to discuss one of the most important aspects of personal finance that is not emphasized enough, which is the importance of earning a livable wage.
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Jonathan Shenkman: What teens and kids in their twenties really need to hear as they embark on their life and career is practical advice, and how to achieve successful career growth and how to financially support their lifestyle. This is done by building one's human capital, and I know some of you may be thinking what is human capital and why should I care? Human capital consists of the knowledge and skills that people invest in and accumulate throughout their lives, enabling them to realize their potential and position them for financial success.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Life can be difficult at times, and money is certainly not the answer to all of life's problems. However, the ability to earn a decent wage and be valued in the workforce can be immensely beneficial.
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Jonathan Shenkman: The beginning of the journey to building your kids. Human capital is understanding that college is an investment, not a time to find yourself.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Failure to recognize this truth may saddle your kids with an insurmountable level of debt. In truth, college is not necessary for many high school graduates. It's an expensive place to hang out for 4 years while you figure out what you want to do with your life? However, if your kids do decide to go to university, they should make sure to attend an institution that they can afford and earn a degree that will allow them to pay off any debt and maintain a lifestyle that they want.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Remember, if you won't be on better financial footing after university. Then it may be a financially prudent decision to forgo college the college experience, and I realize that some attendees may find these comments triggering. But I've seen too many horror stories of college graduates who will struggle the rest of their lives because they were not thoughtful and practical about the decision of going to college. In the 1st place.
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Jonathan Shenkman: next is to encourage your children
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Jonathan Shenkman: to find a career that is practical. Pursuing your passion is generally not practical advice.
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Jonathan Shenkman: I'm passionate about eating pastries and going on road trips. Unfortunately, neither of those things will help me pay my bills. Your passions are best pursued as hobbies, and not as a means of supporting your family. The proper way to choose a career is to 1st understand the lifestyle you want to live. If you want to live in Los Angeles or Long Island, have 6 children, go away 4 times a year, have a second home in Aspen, then a career as a part-time dog. Walker may not be practical.
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Jonathan Shenkman: I'm not suggesting that every person needs an extravagant lifestyle, or that most people should consider a career as an investment banker. I'm just pointing out that your choice of career should be able to support the lifestyle you want. It's amazing to me how many people don't understand that your career directly impacts your lifestyle.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next, it's important that your kids find a career that plays to their natural abilities. Every person brings certain natural abilities to the table. Some people are very analytical, others are great with people, some are great writers, coders, orators, and many more. There are many skills that are valued in the workforce. The key is finding a career that places an emphasis on the skills your kids have to offer.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Your kids may be interested in becoming a physician, but if they're bad at school and become woozy around blood, they're starting with a huge handicap relative to the many others who pursue careers and medicine every year.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Another way to build human capital is, find a career that you don't hate. This is something that should not be as controversial as it sounds. Your kids don't need to love their job. They just need to not hate it. This doesn't seem glamorous, but being realistic about what they can stomach doing every day for 4 decades. That will also make them financially independent is a sensible strategy.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and the next piece of advice on building one's human capital is just to stick with it. It's important to impart the advice of avoiding jumping around frequently to other opportunities after the 1st few years of one's career. It's important to settle on an industry and plan to stick with it over the long term. Constantly moving around is a big red flag professionally may ruin one's career. Momentum. The decision to stick with a field will make someone an invaluable resource to colleagues.
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Jonathan Shenkman: clients, and allow them to develop a reputation of being skilled in particular area. Every career has its pros and cons that are not always apparent to the outside observer. They're always speed bumps along the way to success, but they're usually temporary. The ability to persevere through them will usually position an individual for more opportunities, responsibilities, and higher earnings in the future. This perseverance teaches kids
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Jonathan Shenkman: that will be helpful throughout their lives. And finally, the last point for this section is to play the long game. It's important to emphasize, to never make a short term business decision at the expense of long term success. This advice may come in many forms, whether it's trying to reach a near term goal
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Jonathan Shenkman: sales, quota. Really anything else. Success is developed, and more money is made by playing the long game, developing long, lasting relationships, establishing trust and creating a stellar reputation. This takes decades to build, but will pay enormous dividends in any line of work.
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Jonathan Shenkman: honesty, trustworthiness, and doing what's best for your clients should be valued above all else, and allow folks to have a career that they're proud of. The short term. Accolades are just distractions, and should be treated as such, and I'll end this section with a thought that every child needs to hear regarding their career. Which is this.
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Jonathan Shenkman: the race is long, and in the end it is only against yourself
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Jonathan Shenkman: spending the time and money today to invest in your decisions, relevant education and training and values in order your for your human capital to grow when you're young, will set the financial trajectory for the rest of your life.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and now that we know how to impart the right attitude towards money and to teach our kids to be financially independent. Let's discuss timeless personal finance strategies. And I've structured this section to be rapid fire financial planning advice. Each point can be its own webinar unto itself. But I've decided to just touch on each of these timeless principles, and the sooner your kids appreciate these enduring concepts the better off they'll be.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Let's 1st discuss financial planning basics. First, st cash is king. The foundation of any prudent financial plan is to have at least 3 to 6 months worth of expense. Money sitting in cash.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Adequate cash reserves should allow your kids to sail through challenging times, like job loss or experiencing a significant decrease in income relatively unscathed.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And the next one is debt is bad. This point should be hammered home to your kids every single day from when they're in diapers until they're out of the house. Many advisors will point out that borrowing money has both positives and negatives, and they're right in the right set of circumstances. Leverage may be quite helpful.
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Jonathan Shenkman: However, the people who are in the best shape financially are generally folks who are not indebted to anybody. Most people should strive to eliminate all their debt on that point. Make sure your kids understand how credit cards work. Credit cards exist to ease transactional burdens, and allow people to shop without carrying wads of cash. The added benefit is to build your credit score building your credit score is as simple as paying off your full credit card balance on time every month.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Many folks believe it's only necessary to pay the minimum balance every month. This is always the wrong approach. Think about a credit card debt as rapidly growing cancer to your financial health that can quickly derail your finances.
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Jonathan Shenkman: The next one is to pay yourself 1st before helping family friends are spending on discretionary items. It's important to understand the need to set aside money for your own future. If you're not taking care of yourself, you may need to depend on the generosity of others, and that is a very precarious situation is to be. And on this point
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Jonathan Shenkman: you should advise your kids to enroll in their employer's retirement plan when they 1st start working as a 22 year old 1st entering the workforce. Your child's 40 plus year time. Horizon is their biggest asset. In order to capitalize on this asset, it's essential to enroll in one's 401 k. And contribute the maximum amount if possible.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Once the money is automatically contribute contributed, they probably won't miss it. They will likely just learn to live on less over time. The power of compound interest will work its magic and increase your child's nest egg exponentially. And last item for this section is to get your big spending decisions, correct student loans purchasing a home
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Jonathan Shenkman: buying, releasing an automobile, taking out credit card debt, are all big financial decisions, buying an occasional latte or splurging an extra $2 for guacamole on your sandwich are not big decisions. If you help your kids get their big spending decisions correct, they will likely not overextend themselves. The little things the many financial gurus harp on are far less impactful.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next theory is related to housing. First, st a home will achieve poor returns relative to stocks, but it is still a good investment for most families.
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Jonathan Shenkman: So my thoughts on home ownership have evolved over time much data supports the fact that one's house is a low returning investment after factoring in all associated expenses. In fact, it will likely barely outpace inflation. However, a home is a form of force savings fuel. Homeowners will risk losing their house by becoming delinquent. Other mortgage.
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Jonathan Shenkman: If your kids commit to living in a home for several decades, and the value appreciates a little bit. Every year they will likely be left with a significant asset to sell, which will help fund their retirement
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Jonathan Shenkman: for most people. The annualized returns relative to the market are irrelevant, and the ability to build equity in your home will be very helpful over time.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And, by the way, listeners should not equate building equity in a home to building cash value in a life insurance policy impart on your kids that most people, for most people permanent life insurance is a rip off and a huge financial mistake. That may be hard for some people to hear. But it's the truth.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next is, renting is still a wonderful option. There are many cute phrases that dismiss renting as a form of housing. These include renting as throwing away money, or why would you pay your landlord's mortgage instead of your own? These phrases are easy to remember, and are meant to underscore the merits of buying over renting.
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Jonathan Shenkman: In reality, renting is actually a sensible solution, for many allows folks, especially those on a tight budget, to outsource the financial burden and headaches of home ownership to a landlord. It also gives them the optionality to move at any time, especially in this crazy housing market, where prices and rates are both high. Renting is a prudent, practical, and sensible financial option for many.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Now let's discuss behavioral finance. One's emotions and behavior are one of the biggest risks to an investor's portfolio. Investors tend to make drastic decisions when they're feeling scared, greedy, or impatient. These impulsive moves won't work out when it comes to emotions. The best approach is to keep them in check. This can be done by automating as much of your investment process as possible.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and I believe, Warren Buffett said once, you have ordinary intelligence. What you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble investing.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and the next is mixing politics, and your portfolio is a recipe for disaster. We're in an election cycle, and it's good to remind people that people that are normal and normally civilized can become insane when discussing politics. Even the utterance of a particular candidate's name is enough to enrage folks who are politically charged
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Jonathan Shenkman: every election year. I personally see friends and acquaintances make rash decisions based on the outcome of presidential elections, impart on your kids that politics has no place in their portfolio.
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Jonathan Shenkman: The markets don't care who's in the oval office. Failure to embrace this reality will cost them a lot of money.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next area is the concept of ignoring the noise. 1st ignore market pundits. There are massive businesses dedicated to selling fear, greed and quote unquote predicting short-term moves in the market. These are called financial news networks, no market prognosticator, no matter how smart they are, should cause you or your kids to overhaul their investment strategy. Remember.
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Jonathan Shenkman: things are never as bad as the talking heads on TV or on social media, or claiming. Furthermore, whenever you hear a prediction, keep in mind the wise words of Yogi Berra, who said, it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next.
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Jonathan Shenkman: don't take investment advice from friends. Some of the worst financial mistakes people make are based on advice from friends. It's far better to hire and pay an experienced investment professional who can help you navigate the investment landscape, avoid social pressures and minimize the many pitfalls that others make.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Okay, here are some big picture investment advice.
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Jonathan Shenkman: simplicity trumps complexity. There is a tendency for investors to make their lives more complicated. This includes having funds scattered at various institutions in search of the best opportunities, having way too many funds or e-t-f's within their portfolio or stocks. A better approach is to keep your investments streamlined, keeping your money consolidate, and only a few financial institutions and a few investments will allow you to be organized and avoid major mistakes.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and as Leonardo da Vinci once said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and the next is that process is more important than product, it is highly unlikely that any single product will change the trajectory of your kids financial life. Instead, it's far more productive to focus on their
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Jonathan Shenkman: process for building wealth. This process includes spending less than you make investing those savings in stocks and bonds and sticking with this strategy over the long term. Another big picture item is a high savings rate is far more important than trying to achieve high returns.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Future returns are impossible to predict. Investors can exert far more control over their financial lives by how they choose to allocate their cash flow. Deciding to maintain a high savings rate is one of the best tools any investor can make to secure their financial future. More savings means more funds for short-term expenses, more money invested for the future, and more cash on hand in case of an unexpected expense.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next one is that lifestyle decisions are more important than investment returns, and I alluded to this one earlier. Many of the best financial decisions are actually lifestyle decisions. Who you decide to marry, the career you choose, and where you decide to live are all far more impactful to your nest egg than having outsized returns and finally, appreciation of trade-offs.
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Jonathan Shenkman: This is a great lesson for kids to learn early, since it's applicable in more areas than just money, we face constraints and have a finite amount of time and resource. So by choosing one thing, we necessarily are diminishing or eliminating something else with a finite income stream, all spending decisions or trade offs between expenses, savings, and investments.
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Jonathan Shenkman: An individual could decide to lease a luxury vehicle, but a portion of that monthly car payment could have been saved in retirement account and invested towards its financial future, had at least a less expensive car. We all need to make trade offs and determining once priorities in life can help guide what we want to spend money on and what expenses we can minimize. This concept is one of the cornerstones of financial planning.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Let's now discuss investment strategy.
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Jonathan Shenkman: 1st one is, your kids will fail at day trading. Many people have a day trading phase in their life. However, the sooner your kids come to the realization that day trading is gambling, and they will lose money doing it the better off. They'll be
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Jonathan Shenkman: boring over exciting investors often confuse an exciting idea with a good investment. Opportunity. Excitement may be generated from the latest fad, or of, or of an exclusive strategy that promises to trounce the performance of S. And p. 500. These opportunities are being sold on hype and not on their fundamentals. If you want your kids to avoid being lured into one of these situations, then encourage them to pursue an approach of sticking with plain vanilla boring investments.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and the next one is your time. Horizon is the cornerstone of investing time. Horizon dictates. How much risk can prudently be taken within your portfolio? It also the main debt determinant of developing an appropriate asset allocation, investing without having a clear understanding of. When you need to use the money, is imprudent
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Jonathan Shenkman: on this point. I have seen many young people hiding cash or bonds today. This strategy offers a false sense of security. People that do this will have a much harder time achieving their goals. If your kids have money, and that they won't need for decades in the future, they should maintain a heavy stock allocation, or they will be missing out many years of higher returns in the market.
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Jonathan Shenkman: The next one is to automate your savings. Dollar cost averaging is the process of routinely adding money to investments at regular intervals. Every human is emotionally charged. But, as I mentioned, earlier, emotional decisions have no place in the world of successful investing, the sooner your kids automate their investing by adding money to their portfolio at regular intervals, the more seamless it will be for them to build wealth over time by eliminating their emotions from from their wealth building process.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Diversification is the only free lunch with investing. There is a tendency for investors to find and pile into the hot investment azure. This is great while things are going well, but all companies, sectors, industries, countries
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Jonathan Shenkman: go through cycles when things go south, having an overly concentrated position in any one area of the market can be devastating the best way to protect your portfolio from risk of over concentration in one area area of the market is to have a policy of diversifying across many asset classes.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And finally, for this section you will not get rich quickly, and the power of compound interest. It's common for kids to want to get rich quickly. We've all heard stories of some child actors or technology prodigies who have made a lot of money at a very early age. These stories are few and far between, because they are not the norm
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Jonathan Shenkman: for most people financial success take decades of hard, hard work, saving and investing. It's a grind and not glamorous, however, due to the power of compound interest or the interest earned on interest. Anybody could build a sizable nest egg. It just takes investing small amounts of money over a multi-decade time horizon, and you could seamlessly build a 7 figure nest egg. This is true even for folks who are not highly compensated.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next is an often overlooked topic that kids need to understand, which is risk.
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Jonathan Shenkman: High returns mean taking a high level of risk. Investors tend to search for the silver bullet
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Jonathan Shenkman: of high returns with no risk. This panacea does not exist in order to achieve high expected returns, you need to take a higher level of risk. The nature of risk may come in many forms, including leverage.
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Jonathan Shenkman: volatility, illiquidity or poor credit.
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Jonathan Shenkman: go into every investment with eyes wide open. The sooner in life your kids appreciate this reality, the better position they'll be to avoid common investment mistakes that most people make.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and the next one is, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. There's no shortage of charlatans in the investment community trying to take your money. They usually do this with superior sales, skills and promises they will not be able to keep. If something seems too good to be true. Then trust your gut and avoid it. Appreciation to this point will serve as a helpful guide over the course of your children's investment career, and the next one is, if your kids don't take risk, they won't grow.
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Jonathan Shenkman: This is true regarding investing business and life in general. Investors need to gain exposure to assets with risk, like stocks to outpace inflation. If you wanna make more money and become a thought leader in your field, you need to take career, career, career, risk as well. Taking calculated risk makes life much richer.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and then bad things happen. Plan for this inevitability. No one is immune to hard times, unexpected death, disability, automobile accidents, theft, fires, and long-term care needs get the proper risk management in place, usually through insurance, to protect your family, for when these circumstances arise in your life, also make sure you have an estate plan in place. This type of planning will help your family through a tough situation by making it much more manageable.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And finally, for this section there are no guarantees, no investment or financial products is a sure thing. Even insurance solutions which claim to offer guarantees are only as good as the financial stability of the insurance company and its financial assumptions. When it comes to money it's far better to think in terms of probability. If you focus on how likely something is to work out, you can balance your various investments and help manage risk more accurately.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next is the dangers of pursuing perfection. And this section is really dedicated for those kids who are straight a students.
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Jonathan Shenkman: There is no perfect time to invest. Some investors are hesitant to implement a strategy due to finding an optimal time to invest in the market. It is human nature to want the best deal, and to be perfect, however, waiting for a stock to trade at some arbitrary price, often leaves the investor waiting indefinitely.
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Jonathan Shenkman: If you have a prudent strategy, then, hoping for the market to trade at certain levels, is ill advised. Moving forward immediately with your strategy is generally the right decision, and when in doubt, keep in mind that the optimal time to invest is today.
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Jonathan Shenkman: then the next one is, there is no perfect portfolio. There is an infinite amount of literature on portfolio construction. 2 investors with the same risk, profile goals, and time horizon, may have different portfolio suggested to them by various investment firms.
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Jonathan Shenkman: All those portfolios may be reasonable. In fact, the more one reads, learns, and researches, the more one concludes that there is no one correct way to invest.
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Jonathan Shenkman: As long as you embrace timeless investing principles like the items I'm discussing here today. You should be fine.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Now, here's what your kids need to know about taxes.
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Jonathan Shenkman: If they make money they will need to pay taxes. There are many legal ways to minimize one's tax bills. This include contributing to retirement accounts using tax efficient investments, using losses to offset gains, and others, despite many creative strategies, to lower one's tax bill, you will never be able to avoid them completely. There's no way around the fact that if you make money you will also need to pay Uncle Sam his share.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Don't lose sleep over this. It's a fact of life, as I always tell my clients. Don't let the tax tail wag the investment dog
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Jonathan Shenkman: now. It's time to be a bit profound with some money perspective to share with your children. First, st money will not make you happy. I work with many very wealthy families. One thing I've learned over the years is what was famously said by the notorious BIG. Mo. Money, no problems. If you were unhappy before you had money, then accumulating more wealth will not make you a happier or more content person. In fact, it will likely lead to a whole new set of issues. Money can only paper over what's broken inside it can't fix it.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Next, remind your kids that retirement is an outdated concept. The concept of no longer working by your mid sixties is archaic, so don't rush to retire early, like so many youth are doing today. Few people have enough hobbies to keep them engaged every day all day for a few decades in retirement. This lack of structure, social engagement, and intellectual stimulation leads people to mentally and physically deteriorate
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Jonathan Shenkman: or obsess and worry about silly things. The truth is, work is healthy. If you don't need to work for the money, it's worth finding some type of work to keep you mentally and physically healthy.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And finally, for this section live your bucket list today.
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Jonathan Shenkman: People shouldn't wait until retirement to check things off their bucket list. No one knows when they'll die or become too sick to do. Certain activities don't save activities for retirement. Rather do things while you can. Additionally, if you do have some items you like to tackle in retirement, put a date on when you want to accomplish these activities. Goals with no timeline are easier to procrastinate on.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and finally, health and wealth are linked.
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Jonathan Shenkman: work out and eat well. This may not seem like a personal finance lesson, but it is similar to saving and investing for your financial future, you should advise your kids to eat well and work out for their physical future. Granted, there are many diseases that don't discriminate between healthy and unhealthy people. However, there are plenty of self imposed, imposed illnesses that directly correspond to your choices around food and exercise.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Poor health decisions can compound and lead to a very expensive health cost down the road, plus. They may rob you of the ability to enjoy your middle age and golden years most effectively. And I see this working with some 40 year olds, who labor to walk up a few stairs, while I also see eighty-year-olds who look great and feel great
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Jonathan Shenkman: drinking beer and eating pizza at 3 Am. May work in college, or when you 1st start working, but that lifestyle can take a toll on your body very quickly. It's best to get over that phase by your mid twenties.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and I'll conclude with some final thoughts, first, st money doesn't come with an instruction manual. If it did. There will be far fewer stories of families with generational levels of wealth who squander it all within a few decades. So do the best to educate your children on this topic. Second, money should empower your kids to create, build, and pursue their own goals.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Achieving that result requires that children receive a solid fiscal education. Parents can teach their children, starting from a young age through demonstration, and being cognizant of how they speak and act with their own finances in front of their children.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Kids are very perceptive observing the way money conversations are handled at home will serve as the foundation for how they handle money in the future. 3, rd as children are, enter adulthood, which I consider to be after they've been in the workforce for several years, the focus on money should shift, and they should be actively included in discussions related to finances, investments, and philanthropy.
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Jonathan Shenkman: and finally imparting the values, knowledge, and expectations of how your children should handle. Their inheritance is essential in cementing your own legacy over time. Your kids will form their own opinions and thoughts about how to handle their wealth responsibly, but you can help influence the relationship with money in a positive way by discussing all the points I mentioned today.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And with that this concludes today's program. Should you have any? Follow up questions, you could reach me at Jonathan, at Parkbridge. wealth.com email is generally the best way to get a hold of me feel free to reach out if I could be a resource in any way. 3 more quick items before let you go first.st This concludes my Spring Webinar Series. However, I have many exciting webinars lined up for the fall, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, if you have a friend or colleague who'd like to be notified of my upcoming webinars.
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Jonathan Shenkman: They can email me with the word webinar in the subject line, and I'll add them to my webinar distribution list.
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Jonathan Shenkman: Second.
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Jonathan Shenkman: you could follow all my work on X or on Instagram at Jonathan on money. You could also listen to me on my weekly podcast called Jonathan money, which is available on Apple spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can watch my daily, financial planning videos by following me on Youtube, at Jonathan, on money or on Linkedin as well. 3, rd please take 30 seconds to fill out my survey at the end of this program. It helps me improve my webinars and provide timely and interesting content to attendees, and I thank you in advance for that.
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Jonathan Shenkman: And with that this concludes today's session, please stay safe and healthy and have a wonderful day. Everybody.