Welcome to the Get Ready Money Club newsletter; a weekly newsletter with recommendations to help you succeed on your financial journey including one simple action item.
This newsletter is 1,382 words, a 5 1/2 minute read.
✅ Week #5 Action Item: Organize your financial documents.
🌎 The big picture: Organizing your financial life will make your life easier. You’ll be able to reduce stress and find the information you need.
- Your financial life is dynamic and always changing.
- Being able to quickly find your important documents will help your spouse, children, or executor in the event you become incapacitated or pass away.
- It will also help you during your life - when you apply for a loan, meet with your estate planning attorney, or are forced to leave your house in an emergency.
🤔 Why it matters: Getting organized will help you be able to
find the information you need, when you need it.
💡 Here’s what works:
- Organize physical documents in a binder with tabbed dividers (sections below).
- On your computer, set up a folder called “Financial First Aid Kit” (with sub-folders for the sections below):
- Personal papers and documents.
- Assets.
- Retirement Plans.
- Home and real property.
- Income.
- Debt, loans, expenses and taxes.
- Insurance.
- Estate Planning.
- Identity Monitoring.
😎 Bottom line: Commit yourself to becoming financially organized. Set this as a priority.
💭 Habit of the week: Assemble (organize) any financial documents you receive this week.
🤔 Question(s) of the week: What’s working for you with organizing your financial documents?
💁♂️ Advisor/Coach Corner: Discuss how your clients can organize their financial documents.
📝 Resources:
Get Ready Money Club Members:
- The Get Ready Discussion Guide. Discuss how you’re organizing your financial documents? And, what changes might be helpful.
Get Ready Library and Toolkit members can access your resources for this week's action item (#5) from your Get Ready Library dashboard (located in Monthly Focus Area 2: Be Prepared):
- The Get Ready Blueprint Week 5 (fillable PDF) where you’ll review where your documents are stored and set up your organizational system.
- Personal Papers and Documents Worksheet - you can use this as a guide to organizing specific documents.
Access Your Get Ready Resources here
The Get Ready Library expands on each week’s action item and provides worksheets to help you complete each week’s action item, create a to-do list, track your habits and organize your financial life. It also includes access to all of my books.
Get Access To The Get Ready Library
🗓️ Financial Calendar Reminders:
- Late January: Federal tax filing with the IRS starts.
💡 Long Term Care planning should be part of every financial plan.
🙌 On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Barry Fisher, CEO of Blaze ’n’ Bear Insurance Services and host of the Protecting What Matters radio show about changing the way we think about money and protecting what matters.
🧐 In this episode we discussed:
🔹 Why long term care planning is an essential part of financial planning.
🔹 How advisors can start to have conversations on long term care planning.
🔹 Why long term care insurance is just part of the puzzle - it’s a funding mechanism.
🔹 The future of long term care insurance.
🔹 How business valuations help with succession planning.
🎙️Watch or listen to the podcast (here).
The Get Ready Money Podcast is also available on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.
💡 Rethinking Investing: Insights on Asset Revesting
🙌 On this episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Chris Vermeulen, founder and Chief Investment Officer of The Technical Traders about changing the way we think about money and asset revesting.
In this episode we discussed:
🔹 Success is about bringing in experiences from different areas.
🔹 The importance of having a plan, systems, processes and checklist.
🔹 The power of starting early, saving at least a little and doing so consistently.
🔹 Why you need to diversify asset classes.
🔹 The stock market is a long game.
🔹 Defining technical trading.
🔹 The more you know, the more successful you will be.
🎙️Watch or listen to the podcast (here).
The Get Ready Money Podcast is also available on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.
🎉 Featured:
💡 What should you know about life insurance payouts?
🙌 In this article for MoneyGeek by Mark Fitzpatrick, I share my insights on Life insurance payouts with other experts including Rick Valenzi, Casey Smit, Bjorn Amundson, Howard Davidoff, Joseph Favorito and Jamieson Hopp.
Here’s what I covered:
🔹 What factors can significantly affect the timing of a death benefit payout?
🔹 Could you provide guidance on how to handle the tax implications of a life insurance payout?
🔹 Are there any best practices beneficiaries should keep in mind?
😎 Check out the article: (here)
🎙️ 5 Must Do Steps As You Get Ready For Tax Season with Matt Fizell and Elliott Appel on the Me & Money Podcast. Making use of a digital tax folder. Verifying your W-2 information. Time considerations of when to file. Communicating effectively with your tax preparer. Where to deploy your tax refund. Listen on (Apple Podcasts).
📖 A CPA’s Perspective on Minimizing the Financial Risk of Cognitive Decline by Mike Piper for the Oblivious Investor. I want to focus on those first two risks: fraud and mismanagement. Read it (here).
📖 Never pay a medical bill without asking these questions first by Allie Volpe for Vox. If you think you’re being overcharged on medical bills, you probably are. Patients have tools and negotiating power to reduce these costs both before services are rendered and after they receive a bill. Read it (here).
🎙️ Using Behavioral Finance to Create a Better Client Experience with Ashley Quamme and Libby Greiwe on The Efficient Advisor Podcast. How integrating behavioral finance actually makes your financial planning process more efficient! Ashley gives us very tactical advice (think specific things you can say and do) to integrate behavioral finance into our client relationships without it coming across as weird or jarring. Check it out on (Apple Podcasts).
🎙️ Grief, Trauma and Money with Donjay Rice and Christine Luken on the Money is Emotional Podcast. The impact of childhood trauma and financial enmeshment. Strategies for healing the emotional ties to money. The importance of supportive spaces in financial recovery Check it out (here).
🎙️ Will Renting or Owning a Home Make You Wealthier? With Laura Adams on The Money Girl Podcast. Review the rent-versus-own debate so you can consider the pros and cons of each side of homeownership. Check it out (here).
🎙️ Stock-Based Comp: Keep It Simple with Andre Nader and Steve Jarvis on The Retirement Tax Services Podcast. How to navigate unexpectedly making a lot of money and the tax implications that go with it. If you're an advisor working with someone with RSUs, we got to make sure that the basis is reported correctly because if withholdings happen on the day of the vest, there should be no capital gain, maybe a dollar or two of a gain. Check it out (here).
📖 The Return on Hassle Spectrum by Nick Maggiulli on the Of Dollars and Data Blog. Return on hassle is the idea that you need to consider the time and work associated with an investment in addition to its expected return. Read it (here).
📖 The Tech You Use Doesn’t Matter by Matt Beecher on Wealthmanagement.com. It’s how you use it, why and how you explain that value proposition to your clients. Technology needs to "do" something. It’s not about bells and whistles; it’s about tangible impact. Does it save time, expand your capabilities, enhance client experience or improve profitability? If not, it’s just noise. Read it (here).
🎤 IDFA (Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts) 2025 National Conference - May 7-9, 2025 - Denver, CO. Hear from some of the industry's top experts in a broad range of topics including silver divorce, QDROs, expert testimony, Medicare, marketing and more! Learn more (here).
Thank you for being part of the Get Ready Money Club. Please hit reply to share your thoughts.
Let’s Change The Way We Think About Money!
Tony
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