
A Monk Who Left the Monastery to Fix Broken Retirement Plans - Immortalin
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/your-money/monk-who-fixes-broken-retirement-plans.html
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aaronchall
I saw this story going around on Reddit. This guy is getting an amazing amount
of free press.

I went straight to being a financial advisor right out of undergrad. Instead
of going to the big city, I went back to my hometown to fix people's
retirement plans.

(I sold insurance, investments, financial planning, and advice services. Then
I managed other people's money as I went back to school, spending a year in a
Finance PhD program then doing my MBA instead. Now I'm a developer in
finance.)

There are a lot of good-hearted people out there trying to fix people's
retirement plans. I imagine most of them are quite envious of this guy's free
press.

The leading industry certification is Certified Financial Planner (CFP). There
are others. (I'm studying for the Chartered Financial Analyst, CFA,
designation, which is more generally about analyzing and managing
investments.)

We do need more people to pay attention to their financial planning. I think
our economy will become stronger if more people would save more, spend less,
and invest in things that last and grow.

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roymurdock
> save more, spend less, and invest in things that last and grow

That's the basic formula for retirement saving in a nutshell. I'd wager that
most people grasp the logic of this formula at a basic level without a formal
education in investing, or needing to pay for a financial advisor.

What people (myself included) lack is the discipline to save more + spend
less, and the accounting skills + access to information required to make
informed investment decisions and to create/manage balanced portfolios.

The rise of the index fund has been helpful...but investing is still an
extremely opaque process at best. One of the more recent examples is the death
of the intuitive link between "buy low, sell high" AKA "value investing"[1]
that has a bunch of GS investors scratching their heads. If this basic
economic link starts to break down...how can people with already limited
financial knowledge make smart investment decisions? Or is buying the index
really the way forward, until another market correction?

Are you seeing any interesting companies in the space that are working on
solving these basic problems, or working in this space yourself? As a 24 year
old I'd be interested to hear how the industry is evolving to accommodate
younger investors that are just starting out on the retirement path.

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-08/goldman-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-08/goldman-
sachs-mulls-death-of-value-investing-after-losing-decade)

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wbl
Don't make smart decisions. Sign onto Vanguard, set up autoinvest, and forget
you ever did.

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quickben
Theoretically, can Vanguard ever go down? As in a major everything crash?

~~~
wbl
Of course. So buy a target date fund to reduce your exposure as it becomes
time to retire.

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chris_st
I recently got to take a retirement finances course from the local Society for
Financial Awareness (SOFA [1]) person. They're totally non-profit, the classes
are free, and (as was the case with the guy who taught the classes I took)
they can't reveal who they work for, if it's in the financial arena.

The classes were informative, and covered a lot of things I hadn't taken into
account for retirement. So I recommend them highly... as is said in the
article above, many people are lazy about preparing. It's worth fixing that
now, wherever you are with respect to retirement.

[1] [http://www.sofausa.org](http://www.sofausa.org)

~~~
hammock
Can you give examples​ of something you hadn't considered?

~~~
smileysteve
The primary thing taught about retirement planning is the power of compound
interest. And creating a budget to save enough to live x years on money in low
yield low risk bonds.

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jackcosgrove
Helping people with retirement planning is surely an important calling. The
broken promises that are already in the pipeline will shake the developed
world to its foundation.

I hope Mr. Lynam is also honest with his clients about the big picture.
Developed countries have stagnant productivity growth and falling populations.
There is no way everyone can squeeze a comfortable retirement from that stone.
For many people at this late stage in the game all they can do is reduce their
expectations.

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JSeymourATL
One story, from a book called “Tales of a Magic Monastery,” describes a parish
priest on retreat who seeks guidance from a monk about his own spiritual life.
His response comes in the form of a question: What do they need?

 _Brilliant!_

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breitling
>Every person who arrived with a spiritual issue had a financial problem
lurking somewhere beneath it.

Other studies have shown a strong inverse relationship between financial
success and belief in religion.

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workerIbe
Dear NYT,

Please let me zoom your articles on my Android tablet, my eyes aren't what
they used to be.

Thx

~~~
hammock
Fyi Chrome accessibility settings has an option to force zoom-in on websites
that disallow it (as well as an option to force a minimum font size). Happy
trails to you

