Ask Yourself

Engaging with a financial professional should be about helping you sort out the matters that are most important to you and then taking action to address each of these concerns. Here are 10 simple questions to ask yourself. If you are looking for help in addressing any of these, you've come to the right place.

1) What do you want to see happen to your savings and investments after you die?

2) What has been your annual rate of return the last 5 years and are you satisfied with it?

3) What income do you require in retirement to live a good quality of life after taxes?

4) What retirement income will your current savings and investments support?

5) What are the potential risks to your retirement plan and how do you plan on dealing with them?

6) What is your philosophy regarding investing and specific investment strategies?

7) At what point during a market decline would you want to do to cash, 20%, 40%, 60%, never?

8) How much risk are you comfortable taking on to achieve a higher long term rate of return?

9) Would you want to switch your indexing strategy if the S&P underperformed another index for an extended period of time? How and when would you make that switch? What about growth vs. value?

10) Are you concerned about the risk of outliving your money?

Rich Jacobson is a Registered Principal Offering Securities and Investment Services through United Planners Financial Services, Member: FINRA, SIPC. JWM and United Planners are independent companies.