Hello, When I was growing up, I loved going to my grandparents’ house. My maternal and paternal grandparents both lived in the country and they had what felt like huge areas of land to play on.   One of my grandfathers even owned a pet store at one point and he had exotic lizards the size of small cats. That grandfather was a little more eccentric and his animal choices reflected it. My other grandfather had more run of the mill animals like cows and hogs. His interest was in producing a harvest. Our daughter Amelia pictured below from a few years ago.

I grew up in the sprawling suburbia of Charlotte, so farm animals or exotic pets were never permissible. When we bought our house about six years ago it was finally my time! My time for livestock that is. We started buying chickens and we’ve had between four and twenty-three at a time. I couldn’t get Mallory, my wife, on board for having a hog. I tried though.    When we’ve only had hens Amelia, our 4-year-old, has been into helping feed them and take care of them. From the time she could walk she would help carry the feed out to them. I messed this pattern up though. Since the spring of 2020 we have had a rooster, and while he’s rather benign when it comes to roosters, Amelia has not wanted to have anything to do with the chickens.

Roosters commonly will charge you for no apparent reason. Even being a grown man, he would charge me. The logic of this is mystifying. Here I am bringing you food to eat and you’re attacking me. Well, once a little girl is charged by a rooster you may as well forget her having any interest in chicken tending.   Since we had Ansley, our second daughter in April, I’ve gone through a pruning season and began cutting things out that are no longer in line with where I am in life. When we have a major life change it brings into perspective things that we otherwise may not be focusing on. Ansley pictured below with Oscar.

I recently made the decision to take a break this winter from raising chickens and gave our flock of birds away. We can always get a new batch in the spring, but Amelia has other interests and so do I right now. Another possible life change is happening for many people.   Many savers are experiencing a life changing event this year with this market correction and it’s bringing a different perspective to light for the many of the people I speak with on a weekly basis. This year has been challenging for investors who are within five years of retirement or are in retirement because the prospects for what they will be able to create in retirement income in the years ahead may be shifting.

When pressure is applied, any issues we have tend to be exposed. What I mean by that is if we are just in the market or growth bucket, which we call the red bucket in our office, we may be in turmoil this year.   Proper asset allocation to the three types of money is crucial to withstanding market volatility. This is part of our unique method asset allocation. We color coat the types of money in our office. We have our green money which helps us with our monthly expenses. This is our money in the bank. Ideally, we’ll have six to nine months of whatever it takes to pay our bills each month.   After that we have our red bucket with our market or growth bucket. We section off a portion of money to put in the market that we can plan to leave in the market for the next ten years. The idea is that the market will come back from corrections within ten years. That is a generous time frame. We need this red bucket to help us maintain our lifestyle and keep up with inflation in retirement.   Finally, we section off our blue money for our income or balanced bucket. We use an investment that’s protected and earns interest and can increase. But it does not go down when the market declines. This blue bucket is where we go for funds for up to ten years.   Our process allows our clients to have peace of mind that they have three types of money working in different ways and this allows our folks to be insulated as much as possible from circumstances that are often out of our control.   If you feel like you need to get more control of your accounts, please let me know. The name of the game is giving you more peace of mind. You can connect with me by calling 864.641.7955. Take care! Until next week, David C. Treece, Financial Advisor

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