The new year: a fresh start on old habits

Your 2023 money goals start with your systems, habits, and baseline. This week Jon discusses two safer investments for a stormy 2023 and Tim & Bennett wrap up our market brief on 2022 and look ahead at 2023. The working title for the brief is “WTF????”

01. Setting a solid foundation for 2023

From Nate Hoskin, Founder & Lead Advisor

These are the three main messages I’m sharing with clients to start their new year on the right foot:

1. Set up your systems. Financial systems include your budgeting app, your brokerage account, your automatic bank deposits, and your automatic investments. Review these systems to make sure everything is running correctly: your checking account automatically transfers chunks of your paycheck to savings and your brokerage account, all three of which are linked to your budgeting app so they update in real time. The money deposited into your brokerage account gets automatically invested on a schedule to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging.

2. Focus on habits, not amounts. If you can, break your goals down to each day, week, and month. The aim is to get the habits to outlast the goals. It also gives you something to work on immediately, since motivation is always at its strongest in January.If you’re seeking a book for the new year, Atomic Habits has a great take on the role of habits in your success.

3. Set your baseline. It will be a triumph to reach your goals at the end of the year, but the place you started from will be a blurry memory by then. Today, write down the place you’re starting from: how much do you have in savings? How much do you have in debt? If you want to take it a step further, you can record your personal balance sheet and income statement to get a snapshot of your assets, liabilities, income and expenses. Personally I use QuickBooks because I run my personal finances like I’m a business of one. Understanding where you are will both push you forward and give you the clarity to reflect in a year’s time.

02. Safe investments, drastic actions

From Jon Scott, Lead Author

Happy New Year! I am always thankful to see the start of a new year, however I haven’t been as excited about a new year in a very long time.

We have some amazing new articles released this week on the Knowledge Base. The first article is, Safer Investments for 2023: I Bonds & Brokered CDs. In this article, authored by Yours Truly, I breakdown two of the safer investment options for 2023 in light of the fact most investment firms expect to see stock market declines for 2023.

The other two articles are just as incredible including: It's time to take drastic measures: a plan of action when on the brink of running out of money by Jessica Dosseh and Monetary Policy, Interest Rates, and how they affect you by Roshan Pourghasemi.

03. Mild Recession or Ragnarök?

From Tim Frenzel, Head of Data Analysis & Research

As we reflect on 2022 and look ahead at the new year, the investment team is focused on these six topics:

• Prepping for a recession

• The path of interest rates

• Direction of the real estate market

• The job market

• Managing risk in your portfolio

• Improving on the 60/40 portfolio

The complete market reflection will be released Monday, January 9.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems"

- James Clear, Atomic Habits

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