Financial procrastination is when you have financial obligations and moves to make, but you put those decisions aside on a continuous basis. For instance – you know you need to balance your checkbook, but you continue waiting until things are going wrong. Or, you may have student loans and need to apply for a deferment but you let the time-lapse and end up in the credit bureau.
Writing about whether the next stock market correction would come in 6 weeks or 6 months (below)...I had no idea how real my words would soon become. It's actually chilling to think back to when I wrote about what we're currently living through as merely a distant hypothetical. And yet...nothing has changed. So yes, we're in a devastating stretch...it could go on for the next month or for the next 22 months...I have no idea. But here is what I know...This TOO SHALL PASS. As every single market crisis has before. The words below are just as true as when I wrote them 6 weeks ago...but they are about 1000 times more important to believe in your heart today.
Many of us are living through our first REAL stock market meltdown. For myself & most of my 30-40 year old clients, we either weren't out of college yet or we weren't making enough money (and didn't have enough money certainly!) for the pain to really reach us on a physical and emotional level. So this all feels new...which makes it feel even scarier and more unnerving. I get it...and you're not wrong...it is both of those things! But, please, take the time to ask your parents what they did in 2008...and knowing what came after, what they would have changed in their investment behavior if they could? And read my post below...because, trust me, it seemed like the world was coming to an end back then...and then it didn't. This too shall pass.
Do you watch the weather channel all day when you see sun and clear skies for the weekend forecast? My guess is probably not. Why am I asking you this? Because similarly in the financial world the TV talking heads, magazines, fund managers, guest economists on the CNBC panel, and the like, have no vested interest in sharing the sort of behavior driven and common-sense financial planning tips that we share with our clients.
Gideon Drucker, CFP was a guest on the radio station The Voice of New York where he discussed his book How To Avoid HENRY Syndrome: Financial Strategies to Own Your Future. Click to listen to the full interview!
