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res·o·lu·tion
(re-zə-ˈlü-shən)
noun: a course of action determined or decided
on; a plan made on New Year’s Eve and forgotten
by Valentine’s Day
As the clock approaches
midnight, a new year equals
a new beginning for many
residents of Arlington and
Lakeland. The View 38002
offers three local experts’
advice for making smart
changes in 2014 and sticking
to them.
Whether your aim is to be
healthy, wealthy, or wise, we
wish you all the best. We
promise to continue to strive towards our own goal to
inform.educate.connect our communities.
Happy New Year 38002!
FINANCIAL FOCUS
Financial Resolutions for the New
Year
By Mark Louderback, Contributor
About 45% of Americans
usually make New Year’s resolutions, according to a survey from
the University of Scranton. But
the same survey shows that only
8% of us actually keep our resolutions. Perhaps this low success
rate isn’t such a tragedy when
our resolutions involve things
like losing a little weight or
learning a foreign language. But
when we make financial resolutions — resolutions that, if
achieved, could significantly help
us in our pursuit of our important
long-term goals — it’s clearly
worthwhile to make every effort
to follow through.
So, what sorts of financial
resolutions might you consider?
Here are a few possibilities:
• Boost your contributions to
your retirement plans. Each year,
try to put in a little more to your
IRA and your 401(k) or other
employer-sponsored retirement
plans. These tax-advantaged
accounts are good options for
your retirement savings strategy.
• Reduce your debts. It’s not
always easy to reduce your debts,
but make it a goal to finish 2014
with a smaller debt load than you
had going into the new year. The
lower your monthly debt payments, the more money you’ll
have to invest for retirement,
college for your children (or
grandchildren) and other important objectives.
• Build your emergency fund.
Work on building an
“emergency fund” containing
six to 12 months’ worth of
living expenses, with the
money held in a liquid account that offers a high degree of preservation of principal. Without such a fund, you
might be forced to dip into
your long-term investments
to pay for emergencies, such
as a new furnace, a major car
repair, and so on. You might
not be able to finish creating
your emergency fund in one
year, but contribute as much
as you can afford.
• Plan for your protection
needs. If you don’t already
have the proper amounts of
life and disability insurance in
place, put it on your “To Do” list
for 2014. Also, if you haven’t
taken steps to protect yourself
from the considerable costs of
long-term care, such as an extended nursing home stay, consult with your financial professional, who can suggest the appropriate protection or investment vehicles. You may never
need such care, but that’s a
chance you may not want to take
— and the longer you wait, the
January 2014
HEALTH & WELLNESS
A New Perspective on New Year’s Resolutions
By Jared Leath, Contributor
Every New Year’s since I
can remember, I have set
resolutions for self improvement for the coming
year. Most of these have
revolved around losing weight
or making more money or
some other financial or health
related goal. Every summer,
about half of these resolutions
have been forgotten or
discarded or deemed too
difficult to reach.
I say to myself, “This year
is going to be different and I
am going to do better.” How?
Well, this year I have a plan
that I am going to share with
you all. I have dug into my self
-help book collection and came
up with a few nuggets of
wisdom that will surely make
this year more successful than
those before. Here is my
process:
1. Visualize. See myself at
the end after reaching my
goal. How do I feel?
What do I look like? Pay
close attention to how this
part feels and remember it.
This will be part of what
drives me to success.
2. Commit time. There has
to be time set aside to
work on my goal(s). This
time needs to be dedicated
to only one purpose, the
goal.
3. Plan ahead. Break down
each step that I will need
to take. Chunk larger
pieces down into smaller,
more doable, tasks.
4. Accountability. Have a
team that can be my
cheering section. There
are several of these groups
in town like Leath
Chiropractic’s Healthy
more expensive your protection
options may become.
• Don’t overreact to market
volatility. Too many people head
to the investment “sidelines”
during market downturns. But if
you’re not invested, then you
miss any potential market
gains— and the biggest gains are
often realized at the early stages
of the rally.
• Focus on the long term.
You can probably check your
investment balance online, which
means you can do it every day, or
even several times a day — but
should you? If you’re following a
strategy that’s appropriate for
your needs, goals, risk tolerance
and time horizon, you’re already
doing what you should be doing
in the long run. So there’s no
need to stress yourself over the
short-term movements that show
up in your investment statements.
Do whatever you can to turn
these New Year’s resolutions
into realities. Your efforts could
pay off well beyond 2014.
Leaders Book Club or
Yoga Classes.
5. R e w a r d
System.
Rewards are crucial for
good progress to continue.
I will wait until I hit a
milestone before I indulge.
6. Realistic Expectations.
Set small, manageable,
short term goals. When
those are met, set a new
goal to meet. Keep doing
this until forever, for
everything.
The final thing that I must
remember is to avoid all
roadblocks. This may involve
some drastic changes such as
avoiding all Negative Nancys
or Debbie Downers. It could
involve defriending
Procrastinating Paul or All
Talk Ted. Avoid all time and
energy wasters. This way I
will be sure to have a much
greater chance of building a
better me in the coming year.