Dennis Kagel, Investment Advisor on September 02, 2014

By Dennis Kagel, Investment Advisor Representative

Contrary to what Wall St. preaches and what the ‘talking heads’ on TV want us to believe, planning for the future doesn’t have to be complex and costly. There is evidence that supports the idea that the ‘lazier’ you are when it comes to planning your financial future, the better off you might actually be” (Martin Weiss, Safe Money Report).

What I’ve seen in my years in the business supports this theory. With this approach, you spend a couple of hours setting up a simple plan and then kick back while it does all the work for you. Retirement should be a “stress-free” time in your life. When it comes to your money, you don’t want to spend a lot of time managing it when you’re supposed to be out enjoying hobbies. Too many people in retirement watch the market and it can consume you and cause a lot of stress in your life if you have a high percentage of your assets at risk.

I often relate the story of the tortoise and the hare. The moral is that most of the time slow and steady beats flashy and inconsistent. When it comes to where you put your money this can be a valuable approach. “A lot of people assume that retirement planning is somehow different, and Wall St. (stocks and mutual funds) continually reinforces this idea. They say you have to move in and out of positions (trade often) to rapidly build your nest-egg…that you have to use exotic strategies to generate enough income…And that paying lots of taxes and fees is just the cost of being successful” (Martin Weiss, Safe Money Report). All these statements appeal to the “hare” in each of us (the idea that you have to be in the market and trade often), but none of them are true. In fact, based on my years of observing just about every investment approach you can imagine, I have come to the conclusion: The “laziest” investors often end up winning the retirement race!

I know, it sounds crazy. After all, we’ve been told that the more effort we put in, the more successful we’ll be with everything. But think about the tortoise. No undue work. No starting and stopping. In other words, successful retirement planning is more about working smarter than it is about working harder. There are easy to understand plans that take a tortoise approach. These plans use time-tested conservative strategies that have contractual guarantees of the income accounts we use inside the plan: with low fees, a real emphasis on no stock market losses, and guarantees an income for life.

Almost everyone should have a portion of their assets positioned to take advantage of market growth. You see, I’m not against the market; I just think that most people overdo it. We have a simple method to determine a percentage of your assets that should be exposed to the market and we use strategies that are designed to seek out areas of the market that are most likely to “outperform.” The biggest advantage of this managed approach is that you will more often than not miss out on stock market downturns.

Dennis Kagel can help you analyze what type of income you will need for a comfortable retirement and help plan to make sure your income will last your lifetime. Call him today at 309-454-9171 to learn more about the “Automatic Pilot” Investing Model. Back to Top

Dennis Kagel, Investment Advisor | September 02, 2014