Your MGFS Team is in great form!This picture was taken recently as part of a photo shoot for our updated website.
What’s New at MGFS
We have been very active in 2021 and wanted to share some updates…
Our team is working both remotely and in the office and we are holding in-person meetings again. However, with technology, many of our client meetings continue in the form of phone calls, emails, and Zoom calls. This has become the new “convenient.” We always look forward to connecting! In the coming months, you will want to try out our new appointment booking tool under our contact names at www.mgfs.net. We will let you know when that form of access becomes available!
We are almost done with a formal update to our website. This has been a long and time-consuming process. We feel it will reflect a contemporary and thorough view of our financial services and how we approach financial planning, showing our unique individual and firm level values to our clients. Our goal is to make it easy to access your account portal(s), informative and interesting content (such as our blog posts and suggested reading list), and to complete planning forms while communicating with us, securely.
Our office building in Oakbrook Terrace is undergoing major remodeling in the lobby – to include high-top tables for work and client meetings and to provide a very large conference room for a return to in-person events. The construction should be completed soon. We expect to resume our events soon. We are excited to be able to educate, entertain, and socialize with you again- soon.
We have received great feedback about our custom From the Desk of MGFS quarterly briefs along with our monthly 2-minute market videos. Our goal is to keep you updated and inspire you to consider your own financial circumstances.
With communication in mind, please let us know if you have either changed your phone numbers, mailing address, or preferred email address so we may reach you, as needed.
About Us
ADAM – Adam and Lisa celebrated their 20th anniversary
a year late – better than not at all! They took Zander to Vanderbilt for his first year while Jadyn turned 17 and is heading into senior year. Their puppy, Rafi, turned 1, too!
BARRY – Barry and Ruth are enjoying watching their adult children flourish and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their third grandchild. They love to travel and are looking forward to getting out there again as things continue to open up. This photo was taken during their son Mark’s very recent visit from California.
TOM – Tom and his family recently had their basement finished – they felt it was time considering the home is 92-years old! Mason turned 9 in May and just started 4th grade. He loves being outdoors, looking for bugs or playing soccer. Tom is also excited to become an uncle for the third time in January 2022!
CORY – Cory and her family like to get away on the weekends to a vacation retreat they own near Starved Rock in Illinois. This way they are able to escape the city and enjoy the great outdoors for a while!
Planning Corner
Do you want your cake and to eat it too? With investments – do you want a portfolio that participates in growth while being less effected by market declines? We help our clients structure their portfolio to accomplish this. Today there are sophisticated products that will perform in this way.
Alternatively, we often, alternatively, build a portfolio strategy that designates one part of your assets for growth and the other for low risk, resulting in two accounts. When the market goes up, there are no surprises when the growth account participates with greater certainty. When the market goes down it is also expected the lower risk strategy will participate significantly less, if at all.
This is also an important planning strategy for those in the retirement risk zone – 10 years before and after retirement and reviewed among a number of income distribution strategies in our book Guided Retirement Income Planning. As you transition from the entire focus of accumulating wealth to growing it, using it, and preserving it, a retirement mindset, the structure of your portfolio is paramount to enhancing its endurability during use, strengthening its longevity, and, frankly, settling your emotions over time. The approach is called “bucketing” and it aligns with retirees’ mental accounting for different needs and wants, “paychecks and playchecks,” in retirement.
Writings
Many of you have read our book Guided Retirement Income Planning, published with Amazon last November. In case you haven’t, it was written as a roadmap to help those who are approaching or in retirement. We have identified both the obstacles and general strategies to help enhance the probability of a successful and fulfilling retirement, both financially and emotionally. Each chapter is complete with tactics, quotes, and humor. If you have not received a copy and would like one or know someone who might benefit from learning more about what it takes, please let us know. We want people to read our book because we know it will simplify planning and create clarity. For clients, it forms a solid level of financial literacy that will help us help you!
In the upcoming months, we are going to be writing more about the threat from inflation and the financial planning implications. This is a serious topic, and we will cover this both from a higher level to a much deeper one. We believe that inflation is not transitory (which doesn’t mean your portfolio will not perform in the short-term), and we feel it is our obligation to educate you to prepare for it.
Great Money Thought
As we are in the business of financial planning, we also know that money is not everything. In this spirit we bring you a great thought by author Roy T. Bennett.
The Top 15 Things
Money Cannot Buy
- Time
- Love
- Respect
- Class
- Happiness
- Character
- Morals
- Common Sense
- Inner Peace
- Manners
- Trust
- Dignity
- Integrity
- Health
- Patience
Fun Trivia
These questions are designed just for your entertainment. See how many you can get right. *Answers at the end.
MGFS Questions
- What is Barry’s favorite movie?
- a. Plan 9 from Outer Space
- b. The Shawshank Redemption
- c. Ishtar
- d. Attack of the Crab Monsters
- e. Muscle Beach Party
- What is Adam’s favorite music or musician?
- a. The Allman Brothers
- b. Justin Bieber
- c. Weird Al Yankovic
- d. Jonas Brothers
- e. Milli Vanilli
- What is one of Tom’s favorite pastimes?
- a. Breakdancing
- b. Synchronized Swimming
- c. Kayaking
- d. Alligator Wrestling
- e. Extreme Ironing
- What is Cory’s Olympic?
- a. Archery
- b. Curling
- c. Judo
- d. Luge
- e. Weight Lifting
- What is Mary Pat’s favorite food?
- a. Spam
- b. Fried Chicken
- c. Turducken
- d. Twinkies
- e. Pizza
Other Trivia
International Money – What countries use these currencies?
- Yen
- Rand
- Pound Sterling
- Yuan
- Shekel
- A Tom Clancy book: The Hunt for Red _______.
Show mothers – Name the famous mothers of these stars:
- Liza Minnelli
- Kate Hudson
- Carrie Fisher
- In what Hitchcock movie is the protagonist confined to a wheelchair?
- Name the backup band for Buddy Holly.
- In what hollow did Ichabod Crane reside?
- Can you name the tv show from the title of the first episode?
“12:00 a.m – 1:00 a.m.”
Answers
Answers to Fun Trivia:
1- The Shawshank Redemption
2- The Allmann Brothers
3- Kayaking
4- Archery
5- Pizza
6- Japan
7- South Africa
8- Great Britain
9- China
10- Israel
11-October
12- Judy Garland
13-Goldie Hawn
14- Debbie Reynolds
15-Rear Window
16- Crickets
17-Sleepy
18- 24
A Time For Reflection
One of our favorite expressions is to “remember the past, live in the moment, and plan for the future.” While it is important to be in the moment and to plan, it may also be therapeutic to take a few moments and reflect on how far we have come.
Last year we were sheltered in place, using hand sanitizers everywhere, socially distanced, wore masks and lived with concerns about new cases of Covid-19, hospitalizations, and death rates. Many businesses were shut down. The economy went into a deep recession and the markets declined sharply only to recover just as quickly. There was a massive paradigm shift in how we approached our daily lives with the pervasive fear of contracting and spreading the virus. We were just so paralyzed and scared.
Flash forward to today. While we are not entirely out of the woods with the Delta variant and its impact, the data is significantly more promising. Many people are now vaccinated. Businesses are reopening and the nation and economy are returning (some parts quicker than others) to where we were pre-Covid. The economy is rebounding, and the markets have soared.
These are unprecedented times, and we are hopeful the worst is behind us. We adapted! While we experienced sadness and empathy for all those who suffered, there were some positive takeaways for many. We learned how to work from home, do Zoom calls, spend more time with our loved ones and develop new hobbies. Some of us have been forever left with a new sense of “sanitary!” It is important to pause and be grateful for everything that is positive and good in the world.
So, let us reflect on what was then and now; channel the lessons we learned, good and bad, and grow from them. Let us celebrate life again and take inventory of what we have and appreciate what really matters; remember the experiences that we all went through can help us live in the moment today and allow us to plan a safer and better future for tomorrow!
Client Introduction Program
The economy, the markets, and pending tax and capital legislation place us in uncharted and un-navigated territory. We help our clients and their referrals with basic financial needs and execution and highly comprehensive planning and professional collaboration. We are grateful for the confidence you place in us with a steady stream of referrals every month!
We intend to thank those of you who have made referrals and those who become new clients each year with a special, year-end event. Our invitation list will close for this year within the next couple of months. We know you will not want to miss this event!
If you would like to refer us or discuss how to do so, give us a call.
Additionally we are happy to add friends, family members, and co-workers to our communication lists, provide a complementary copy of our book, and with our website refresh, you might like to direct them to it.
Thank you as always for being a client and having the confidence to refer us to those in your trusted circle of contacts.
| Index | YTD | 12 mos | 5 yrs |
|---|---|---|---|
|
All Country World Index (Stocks) |
14.80% |
21.97% |
45.81% |
|
Barclay's Global Bond Index |
-1.85% |
15.28% |
-.52% |
|
Performance provided by Google Finance as of 9/1/2021 |
|||
It's a Wrap!
We have a ton of fun putting this letter together twice a year, and we hope you enjoy seeing what’s happening with us personally and the passion we have focusing on you. With our best wishes for prosperity, health, and peace for the rest of the year, we look forward to the next time we see you!
