Centered and Resolute
My inbox recently displayed the subject line, “The Center of Your Celebrations”. No, it wasn’t about the matriarch or patriarch at your holiday dinners. Or even the newest member of the family. It involved a more pedestrian, though quite lovely, topic associated with holiday dinners, a promotion about table centerpieces. Maybe it’s just the time of year, but somehow it got me thinking:, “What would we consider the “centerpiece” of our own lives?” Going even further, I began to wonder about what is the actual definition of a “center” to begin with? Personally, I think of a foundation, scaffolding, or even a backbone. Merriam-Webster has a lot to say on the matter and I found their answer pretty fascinating. Once I was past the set of mathematical definitions involving circles and then team positions in certain sports, it read:
“2a: a point, area, person, or thing that is most important or pivotal in relation to an indicated activity, interest, or condition.
b: a source from which something originates.”
This seemed to be a lovely way to look at the notion of a “center” and had me wondering, how do we see our lives? How do we live our lives? What do we hold near and dear? This is the time of year when the world pauses. It’s winter. We’re hunkering down. Another holiday season has come and gone. We’ve thought about resolutions for the new year. So these questions only seemed natural to contemplate at this point in time.
And it made me realize that there probably are some core universal values we can all relate to. One such central value is for parents in regard to their children’s (monetary) future. We’ve all heard someone say, “I don’t want to be a burden to my children,” but often it goes well beyond that, with parents hoping to leave their children money or other property as a legacy for them to build on with their own families long after they are gone. Such a value certainly requires an element of financial planning, though.
To this end, financial planning professionals understand that the foundation of every financial plan is insurance. During working years, that means that the center of your financial plan is health, disability, and possibly life insurance. Yet, as retirement age approaches in a person’s early 60’s, even though someone may plan to never retire, long term care insurance belongs in the foundation-—the center—of a financial plan. There, it protects retirement assets and supplements them if long term care is needed. It provides a way for that core value of financially paying-it-forward with assets for children, a surviving spouse, and/or charity.
So, what is at the center of your post-retirement plans? And what resolutions should you act on now, to become more…centered.... moving forward?
For information regarding long term care insurance, feel free to contact Baygroup Insurance at http://www.baygroupinsurance.com/forms/contact-us or call us at 410-557-7907 for more information.
