Investment ideas when retiring early Living with children

Hey TaylorI’m in my mid50s and am about to retire. I have a good amount of money saved up and feel comfortable leaving work, but I’m wondering if you have any advice for handling my finances once I’m done working.

Taylor Kovar

Bradley

Hey Bradley - Does it feel great?

I’ve got a lot of working years ahead of me, but I imagine it must feel oh so sweet to step out of the workplace a few years earlier than your friends. Congratulations!

To your question, you have to tighten things up when you first step into retirement. That’s not to say you have to become painfully frugal, but you need to get conservative in some areas while still allowing money room to breath in other ways. For you, patience will be important as you wait for social security and IRA distributions. Nothing wrong with retiring before those payments kick in, but you have to have a solid spending plan since your own funds will be responsible for covering all your bills.

Start by making sure you don’t have money in risky markets. Certain tech and energy sectors have lots of appeal but too much risk for a person who needs to start living off their investment money. Some people seem to think retirees have to pull everything out of the stock market, but I don’t agree with that philosophy. Reconfigure your portfolio and cut back on the more volatile positions, but don’t be afraid to leave money in there to work. I am a huge fan of high quality (blue-chip type) dividend-paying stocks so if you have some of those, I'd hold onto them.

If you have the money, time and energy, I’d strongly consider investing in a rental property. That’s a good way to diversify and increase your wealth, while potentially bringing in enough revenue to cover some of your own costs. A good rental property has helped many people transition from employee to retiree, especially those like yourself, who are a little ahead of the curve and might otherwise get bored.

Beyond that, you can look into the unexciting but safe options, such as bonds, CDs and highyield savings accounts. If you have a healthy amount of capital and aren’t ready to commit to anything that ties those funds up, see what kind of savings rate you can get and lock your cash up somewhere safe for a bit. As long as you aren’t blowing through cash, you might find the interest payments are pretty substantial.

For a few more ideas and details, check out my recent post at GoFarWithKovar.com on this very subject. It sounds like you’re already pretty good with money, so stay smart and I think you’ll have a very happy retirement.

Taylor Kovar, CEO of Kovar Capital. Read more about Taylor at GoFarWithKovar.com

Disclaimer: Information presented is for educational purposes only and is not an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. To submit a question to be answered in this column, please send it via email to Question@GoFarWithKovar.co m, or via USPS to Taylor Kovar, 415 S 1st St, Suite 300, Lufkin,

Methodists to display a Silent Nativity at Summit Gardens

On December 11 at 7 pm, the Kids 4 Jesus group from the First United Methodist Church will display a Silent Nativity at Summit Gardens again this year as they did in 2018. The scene will take place in front of the Mame Roberts Arbor along Highway 5.

There is a call out for a choir to sing carols during the nativity. If anyone is interested in putting together a Christmas Carol choir, please contact Janice Akins or Summer DeLavan.

“You’ve accused mothers of being in co-dependent relationships with their children,” she (a journalist) said, then asked, “What is codependency, exactly, and how does it apply to today’s mothers?”

Great question! One that cuts right to the core of America’s parenting problem. A co-dependent relationship consists of a wellintentioned enabler and a person who is being enabled. They need one another. The enabler needs to do what she is doing in order to feel like she is rising to some external standard (in this case, being a member in good standing of the Good Mommy Club), and the person who is enabled uses the enabler to avoid taking responsibility for a portion (or in some cases, all) of his or her life. The enabler teaches her victim how to manipulate her and the person who is enabled teaches his victim how to properly enable. The latter acts like a victim or helpless or both, thus helping the enabler feel needed. The enabler, however, feels put upon and frequently complains of the heroic lengths she is going to in order to save her victim from the consequences of his own choices.

“He is so darned irresponsible!” complains the enabler, alternatives being “He just can’t do it on his own” and “Without me, he would surely fail.” Thus, enabling masquerades as morally-superior self-sacrifice. The problem is that the enabler herself is fooled by her own masquerade. In addition to being an enabler, she is also, paradoxically, a disabler. The more she enables, the more she disables, and the more convinced she becomes that her enabling is absolutely necessary.

These two people have constructed a drama in which they both play lead roles – a soap opera that automatically renews at the end of every season.

FACT: The more person A enables person B, the more person B behaves as if he/she requires enabling. And around and around they go.

The preceding description nails many, many mother-child relationships. In today’s America, when a woman has her first child, the sucking sound she begins to hear is the Good Mommy Club, an unspoken sisterhood in which maternabling (I made up the word) is celebrated. The Good Mommy is defined as a female parent who does one maternabling thing after another, is always on the lookout for new opportunities to maternable, and nods enthusiastically (and maybe even vents a few tears) when Oprah says that being a mother is the hardest job in the world.

My mother, a member of the socalled Greatest Generation, was as far from being a maternabler as one can get. If anything, she erred on the other side of the coin. Mind you, she caused no damage albeit young JR certainly wanted her to think she was at times. Most of my peers attest to moms who were cut from the same cloth. Proof! Being a maternabler is not historically typical of mothers. Maternabling is yet another highly destructive post-1960s parenting phenomenon – miserably destructive to both parties.

Most moms who seek my help have either reached the bottom of the maternabling well or the end of the maternabling rope, or both. My prescription: STOP! All of it! Now! Today! Without preparation! Without apology! Just do it! And no, don’t tell the child in question what you are doing or going to do. Part of the problem is that the explanations the maternabler gives her live-in tyrant are actually a means of seeking his approval.

Yes, just figure out what you need to stop doing and stop doing it all at once. “Phasing” it in is excruciating for all concerned and all-but guarantees that the maternabling will continue, picking right up where it half-heartedly left off.

Here’s the good news: NEVER, when i’ve successfully persuaded a maternabler to STOP the maternabling, cold turkey, forever, has the child in question suffered anything more than temporary collapse. “Temporary” may last several months, but when the child figures out that he will henceforth succeed or fail on his own merits, he chooses to succeed.

Family psychologist John Rosemond: johnrosemond.com, parent guru.com.

John Rosemond has worked with families, children, and parents since 1971 in the field of family psychology. In 1971, John earned his masters in psychology from Western Illinois University and was elected to the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.