New Year’s Resolutions Financial Advisors Wish Clients Would Make

Every financial advisor knows the feeling of having their good advice ignored. Clients splurge when they shouldn’t, play it safe in retirement when they can afford to spend more, and just won’t update those darned beneficiary designations. But what if advisors could create New Year’s resolutions for their clients? Granted resolutions and follow-through are two different matters, but for this week’s Barron’s Advisor Big Q, we invited five advisors to create resolutions for their clients. Here’s how they responded.

Craig Robson, founding principal, managing director, Regent Peak Wealth Advisors

Create or pursue your own stretch goals. Those could be financial, personal, or relational. We always bucket aspirational goals in our clients’ plans, and I will periodically remind them and ask, “What is preventing you from pursuing those goals?” Another way to say it is, “If not now, when?” Examples could be building your dream home, starting a business, going for that C-suite job opportunity.

The second resolution is to take chances. Make yourself available for some new opportunities. For me, the pandemic was a huge reminder of this. We started our firm eight months before the pandemic started. In the summer of 2020, I decided to negotiate a five-year contract for brand-new office space. When everybody was leaving and parking lots were empty, we were going back in. We negotiated fantastic financial terms and got great new fresh office space in Atlanta. Obviously, think it through and be educated, but there’s nothing wrong with taking some chances.

Emily Millsap, manager, financial planning, Avantax Wealth Management

Take thetime to learn your generational wealth story. So many of our beliefs about money and financial behaviours are tied to what we’ve learned and observed from our family and our culture and our community. And we always try to make money about math and logic, but there’s a lot of emotion tied into why we make the financial decisions we do. Understanding how our current behaviours and beliefs are connected to the stories of those who came before us, and then passing those stories to the next generation, is such a powerful and healing thing.

There are a few books out there that I really like on this topic. Loaded: Money, Psychology, and How to Get Ahead without Leaving Your Values Behind touches on some of that. Anything by Dr. Brad Klontz; Mind over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health is a great one. Those are good places to start, and then talking to your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, about what they remember, what they learned, how they felt about money.

If you really want to do a deep dive, you can build a genogram, which is like a family tree, but you outline levels of education and career and how ancestors behaved with money and what they thought about money. Another resolution is that anyone who carries anxiety about their financial future will seek out experts who can help calm their fears and make a plan.

Dane Burkholder, private wealth advisor, Ameriprise Financial

New Year’s resolution No. 1 is to update your financial plan. People spend so much time focusing on markets and investments and rates of return. But the beginning of the year is a really great time to step back and say, “What are my financial goals, and am I on track for those financial goals?” No. 2 is doing a 401(k) audit. That could be as simple as rebalancing the assets inside of the 401(k) or setting the account to automatically rebalance throughout the year. If you were fortunate enough to get a raise, increase your contributions.

Resolution No. 3 is looking at your emergency fund. We have a unique opportunity to get a positive return on cash, with money-market accounts and CDs at 5%. People who are sitting on large cash balances have a tremendous opportunity to keep money liquid and available, but earning some interest. No. 4 is managing emotions: There are going to be points where the market pulls back or potentially corrects, but sometimes the best strategy is to take no action. When you use emotion to create action, generally the result isn’t beneficial. If you have a house that’s worth $800,000 and you go on Zillow the next day and it’s worth $700,000, you’re not going to sell your house.

Andrew Crowell, vice chairman, wealth management, D.A. Davidson & Co

The markets moved upward dramatically last year, and it’s very likely that clients’ target allocations are different than their current allocations. Somebody who owned a little Nvidia at the beginning of the year now has 220% more in terms of market weighting. So it’s important to rebalance annually, because you may inadvertently be carrying more risk than you need to or want to.

And if Santa makes a list and checks it twice, we have to do the same with all of our beneficiaries on every retirement account, with our trust documents, and so forth. Things change, relationships change. People die, people divorce, people marry, and the list that may have been valid 12 months ago may not be valid today. So make an annual checkup appointment and look at all the beneficiaries listed on your company 401(k), the IRA rollover from your first job out of college and whatever else.

It’s always helpful to set a budget and prioritise what you are going to be saving for this year and create spending guardrails. Banks and brokerage firms will soon allow you to download spending summaries from the prior year; pie charts breaking out spending by category. It can be eye opening to see, “Wow, I know we ate out a lot, but that restaurant line is a lot bigger than I thought.”

Nicholas Yeomans, president, Yeomans Consulting Group

Start with getting organised. Folks say they have that desire, but when it comes to actually getting organised and lining up all their affairs, to put together their tax documents, their estate-planning documents, their portfolios, their 401(k)s and IRAs, everything’s everywhere. I work with a lot of people who are retired, and as you get older, things unfortunately happen, from incapacity to death. Often, there is one spouse left holding the bag, and now they’re hunting and pecking and trying to find out where everything was. They’re already in a state of emotional distress, and now you’ve compounded that distress. Organising is a gift to the spouse who might end up having to take care of you or make those final decisions after you’re gone.

My second resolution is to communicate with family. Younger generations are more proactive in communicating with their kids, but unfortunately, a lot of folks in that 60- to 85-year-old group tend to do a much poorer job. We’re talking about the organisation of your finances and who is in charge of what. Who’s your trustee, who’s your power of attorney, what are your wishes with your healthcare directive? Is everything in a lockbox in your office? And what were you thinking when you put your will together? Why did Sandy get more than Charlie? [Explanatory] letters are a great idea. However, it’s even more meaningful to bring everyone together every two or three years and give them an update as to what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.

On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.

The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.

Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.

“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.

“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”

Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Photo: NASA’s Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft being rolled out at night. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images

What are the goals for Artemis II?

The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.

The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.

Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.

SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .

How is the mission expected to unfold?

Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.

The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.

After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.

Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.

Water photo: NASA’s Orion capsule after its splash-down in the Pacific Ocean in 2022 for the Artemis I mission. Mario Tama/Press Pool

Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?

Yes.

For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.

Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?

The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.

Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.

Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.

Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.

What will the astronauts do during the flight?

The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.

Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.

On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.

There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.

Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.

The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.

What happens after Artemis II?

Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.

NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.