I have just started reading The One-Page Financial Plan by Carl Richards @behaviorgap and found a few statements early on in the book that are intriquing.  Part of being a man is providing for your family.  But as you look at the title of this blog and the facts stated in Carls book, it could be that most of us are just Hunters.  I look at the term Gatherer and think of that as savings.  I think we all strike out everyday with our best weapons attached to our belt (smartphone, keys, and EDC items) with the intent of bringing something home.  I think most of us are successfull at bringing it home, but when we get it back to the cave, there is none left to Gather or save.  

Irrational decisions and bad calls about money aren’t “failures”; they’re just what happens when emotional creatures have to make decisions about the future with limited information. (The One-Page Financial Plan)

I recently heard a Carl Richards podcast interview on @artofmaliness and he discussed the current way we try to plan for retirement.  We meet with a financial planner and fill out pages and pages of questions.  These questions or guesses really have nothing to do with what our plan is.  One of the questions on the financial plan questionaire is “year of death?”.  REALLY, we are supposed to guess our mortality.  He set out to simplify this process because he was part of the financial planning world and realized that people didnt have time to truly understand the financial planning world.  Not that we arent smart enough, but we just dont have time to research it because, well, LIFE.  

Second Statement that drives home the need to add some more Hunting area to my daily routine:

“When all households are included—not just households with retirement accounts—the median retirement account balance is $3,000 for all working-age households and $12,000 for near-retirement households.”

WOW!  What do I mean by adding hunting area?  Well its the difference between being a producer and a consumer.  We have to produce more.  How do we do that?  We dont have time?  We do have time.  There is an old statment that says “The Calander and the check book never lie.”  Where or what do you spend your time.  Are there some things you could eliminate or scale back on that would give you more time to “Hunt” elsewhere?  

I’m just a one chapter in and it already has me thinking what can I do different.  On the same podcast interview Richards said, “if i was going to design a bad investor, it would be a human”.  As you start to evaluate, dont be hard on yourself.  Look at everything objectively,  know that you will make mistakes and dont beat yourself up over things that havent gone right.  If it doesnt work, do something different. Just do something. 

Click here to download a sample on the kindle app.