Retirement is a process, not a single point in time. Clearly, it’s one that’s best navigated only once.

Reading the key signposts of success along the way will certainly help keep you on the path to a fulfilling retirement. These include aligning your career choice and earnings potential with your natural-born talents and having the discipline to right-size the cost of your lifestyle with that of your income. These are simple, but tough, things.

Beyond strictly financial-related signposts, there are also qualitative pitfalls to avoid. These may include the personal choices you make to avoid a costly divorce or even actions you take to strengthen your biggest asset, your own health.

At the upcoming Front Street Foundation Money Series presentation on Wednesday, May 17th, we’ll work to guide attendees along the pathway of what I call, The Big Transition, and highlight some tangible planning tools for success before and after retirement.

As a preview, I remember a key investing lesson of Warren Buffett’s that I think is worthy of deeper thought for both near- and current-retirees. As many know, Buffett is famous for loving to buy stocks when the market falls. The reason, he explains, is that he’s always a “net buyer” of stocks over time. In other words, he’s always got new money to invest.

His advice for investors is very logical. When you’re constantly investing your savings – like a person does in a 401(k) plan – it’s great to see bargain stock prices. Counterintuitively, bad news is good news.

However, it’s important to note that Buffett’s publicly-stated “long run” is, as he repeatedly says, forever. In this way, his advice is clearly best suited for the younger investor still early on their path to retirement.

What about for the not-so-young? Those nearing or already in retirement inherently know they are not quite like Warren Buffett. And, I’m not talking about relative intellect here.

Those approaching the end of their wealth accumulation phase and pondering the distribution phase may need to rethink some of Buffett’s universal nuggets of investing wisdom.

As you transition between these phases, your years of methodically investing new dollars in the stock market are steadily shrinking. Simultaneously, your years of consistently drawing from your life savings is ever approaching. Like your body, your recovery time for market losses just isn’t the same!

Your likely transition in thinking ironically reminds me of wisdom handed down by Buffett’s not-as-famous, but equally fascinating investor sidekick, Charlie Munger. His advice, when faced with a vexing problem, is to turn an especially tough question on its ear, “Invert, always invert!”

When you apply this advice to your own possibly vexing transition toward retirement, some new thoughts are bound to emerge.

Join Jason P. Tank, CFA for his Money Series presentation on “The Big Transition Toward Retirement” held on Wed., May 17 at 6:30pm in the McGuire Room at the Traverse Area District Library. Register at frontstreetfoundation.org or call (231) 714-6459.

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Attention to all parents and grandparents of a college-bound high school student: our next Front Street Foundation Money Series event will provide your young loved ones with financial lessons that are certain to save them emotional anguish and money for years to come!

That’s quite a claim, but I’ll stand behind it. In fact, for the most enterprising high school students with a willingness to learn from the mistakes of others, we’ll put some money on it.

For the first fifteen students who attend our April 19th event, whether you drag them to it or not, we’ll award a $10 gift card to Brew located in downtown Traverse City.

Our upcoming Money Series presenter, Pam Boyce, is both my colleague and a former MSU instructor of personal finance for over fifteen years. She will share her financial survival tips for college students gleaned from the personal insights and experiences of her many former students.

With the cost of college rising unabated, with student loan debt hitting record levels and with the growing need for a college degree in an increasingly competitive economy, today’s students simply need more personal finance know-how than any previous generation. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.

Understanding the benefits and pitfalls of credit is a prime example. Without the ability to borrow money and manage debt responsibly, many doors in life remain closed or only open up much later in life. The lessons of debt often start with the funding of a college education.

Given this, establishing a sound credit rating from the get-go is important. For many, that process starts in college when many students are issued their first credit card. If used wisely, it can be a benefit later in life. If used unwisely, as far too many do, it can lead to serious financial hardship.

Student loans are a particularly complex form of credit that deserves thoughtful consideration from students.

I remember reading an astounding statistic during the Great Recession of ‘07-’09. When the nation’s official jobless rate peaked at 10% – matching the unemployment rate of those with only a high school diploma – college educated workers were less than half as likely to be jobless.

This proved definitively that not only does a college degree allow for significantly greater earnings over a lifetime, importantly it also increases the stability of those earnings during the tougher times.

However, borrowing significant sums to get that valuable college degree – without regard for the type of job you are seeking, without consideration of the lower cost routes available and without establishing basic budgeting habits while in college – can often lead to decades of financial struggle.

In fact, stretching too far financially for your degree or unconsciously burning through borrowed money during those college years can cause serious delays in many of life’s natural milestones; getting married, buying a home, starting a business or even starting a family.

Pam Boyce’s upcoming Money Series presentation is designed to speak directly to high school students; admittedly a demographic that’s less-than-likely to actually read this column!

Do your part by taking your child or grandchild out on a rare date on Wednesday, April 19th at 6:30pm to the McGuire Room at the Traverse Area District Library. They might even thank you by treating you to a cup of coffee at Brew! Register at frontstreetfoundation.org or call (231) 714-6459.

With the Federal Reserve starting in earnest to raise interest rates, it’s all the rage to worry about bonds. Why all the hand-wringing? It boils down to a tendency to over simplify the math.

To start, bond investors expect two things; getting their money back at some known point in the future and receiving interest income while they twiddle their thumbs.

Investors are imprinted at birth with the notion that rising interest rates are bad news for bonds, and vice versa. Like a teeter-totter; on one end sits bond prices, and on the other end sit interest rates. When rates rise, bonds fall in value. When rates fall, bond prices rise.

Of course, this basic math of bonds isn’t all there is to know. Let me necessarily complicate the matter.

The first thing to know is that maturity matters. I’m talking about the length of time a bond investor agrees to wait to get their money back. The shorter they agree to wait, the less worried they should be about rising interest rates.

The closer to maturity, the smaller the ups-and-downs they’ll feel. Think of it as “scooching” closer to the center of that teeter-totter. In fact, if you scooch in really close, the ride can get awfully boring, no matter how many headlines Janet Yellen and the Fed are making.

The second thing to know is interest rates come in many flavors. There are interest rates for bond investors who don’t want to wait long for their money. And, there are interest rates for the very patient bond investor. And, of course, there’s a full spectrum of rates in between. This spectrum is known as the “yield-curve.”

It’s the changing shape of the yield curve that really matters. The short, middle and the long-end of the yield-curve might behave very differently. As a bond investor, there are lots of teeter-totters on the playground to hop on. Some are slow and some are fast. Some produce a wild ride. Others are boring.

The third thing to know is not all bonds carry the same risks. You might choose to lend to a sure-bet borrower or to a dead-beat debtor. The sure-bet naturally pays less interest and the dead-beat pays more.

To bond investors, everything is a game of comparison. The difference in the interest you’ll earn by lending to the highest quality borrower – the US Treasury with its power to tax and to print money – and to the mere mortal borrowers, are known as the “credit spread.” Credit spreads pay you for taking a risk.

The level of credit spreads changes with the ebb-and-flow of investor confidence. On one hand, “wide” credit spreads can protect investors like an airbag when the teeter-totter hurls you downward. On the other hand, “tight” credit spreads can lead to a sore rear-end or worse.

Yes, it’s true the Fed appears hell-bent on raising short-term interest rates. But, clearly there’s more to know than just that fact alone. Your choice of maturity, your assessment of the shape of the yield-curve and your focus on the level of credit spreads will all play a factor in how your bond portfolio will perform. Be sure to pick your teeter-totter wisely.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That was never more true than with the recent unveiling of the Republicans’ long-awaited “Repeal and Replace” plan, called the American Health Care Act (AHCA). To the surprise of many, under their plan large swaths of the existing Affordable Care Act (ACA) would remain.

Given the likely continuity of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the upcoming Money Series presentation by Laverna Witkop of Ford Insurance Agency couldn’t be better timing. For those interested in learning more about ways to access today’s health insurance market, Laverna’s grasp of both the current ACA’s rules as well as her knowledge of the Republicans’ proposed changes under AHCA will be on full display.

To begin, let’s first describe a few major similarities between the proposed AHCA and the existing ACA.

The ban on denying insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions will remain unchanged. In addition, the rule allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance policy until age 26 would also remain. And, perhaps most controversially for some GOP members, the AHCA maintains the granting of health insurance premium subsidies through tax credits.

Of course, there are also major differences between the ACA and the proposed AHCA.

Where the ACA provides premium subsidies based solely on income, the Republican’s AHCA instead bases its subsidies on age alone. This change favors those with greater income and those who are older. Additionally, health savings account contribution limits would also rise substantially, a change that mostly benefits those with higher incomes.

Further, many of the new taxes created under ACA would disappear under AHCA. Among others, gone are the taxes on some medical devices and the extra tax applied to investment income for very high income households. Finally, penalties imposed on certain employers for failing to offer “affordable” insurance plans are eliminated too.

Aside from the loud critique that the proposed AHCA simply looks too much like the existing ACA, the new plan’s decision to maintain many of the same benefits along with the repeal of taxes may have created a tall political hurdle for certain Republicans; a possible widening budget deficit.

Leaping this hurdle may prove difficult and might add some political intrigue. Passing the law may require the Republican leadership to either make the new AHCA more palatable to the conservative wing or require them to convince enough Democrats to vote for it. Democrats might pragmatically view the new AHCA as just close enough to the old ACA. After all, their acronyms alone look awfully similar! That’s politics for you.

Moving beyond the politics and into the realm of financial education, join Laverna Witkop at the Front Street Foundation’s Money Series on March 22 at 6:30pm in the McGuire Room of the Traverse Area District Library where she’ll speak about the nuances of the Affordable Care Act and your health insurance choices. Register at frontstreetfoundation.org or call (231) 714-6459.