Believe it or not, another year has rounded third base, and is dashing toward home plate. That said, there’s still time to make a few good plays in 2021, while positioning yourself to score more in the year ahead.
In our last two pieces, we covered some tools of the tax-planning trade, as well as how to deploy them for tax-efficient investing. But tax planning isn’t just for your investments. Life happens. Often, we cannot predict its next moves. But we can weave each event into the tax-planning fabric of your financial life.
In our last piece, we introduced some of the tools of the tax-planning trade. These include tax-sheltered accounts for saving toward retirement, healthcare, and education, as well as tax-efficient tools for charitable giving, emergency spending, and estate planning. It’s one thing to have the tools. It’s another to make best use of them. After all, the same paintbrush can create a valuable work of art, or a clashing mess on canvas. It all depends on how you use the brush.
Whether you’re saving, investing, spending, bequeathing, or receiving wealth, there’s scarcely a move you can make without considering how taxes might influence the outcome. No wonder people get nervous when there’s lots of talk about higher taxes, but little certainty on what may come of it, and who it might affect.
We’ll wrap the ABCs of Behavioral Biases by repeating our initial premise: Your own behavioral biases are often the greatest threat to your financial well-being. We hope we’ve demonstrated the many ways this single statement can play out, and how often our survival-mode brains trick us into making financial calls that foil our own best interests.
Our exploration continues with more behavioral biases that may negatively impact your financial well-being. You can read our earlier posts, here and here. Let’s continue, shall we.
Let’s continue our exploration of common behavioral biases that can harm your financial well-being. If you missed our previous posts, you can access it here.
Over the summer, we will identify and describe numerous behavioral biases. As you learn and explore, we hope you’ll discover: You may be unable to prevent your behavioral biases from staging attacks on your financial resolve. But, forewarned is forearmed. You stand a much better chance of thwarting them once you know they’re there!