Tim Maurer

Personal finance is more personal than finance. Chief Advisory Officer for @SignatureFD. Write for @CNBC @Forbes; wrote "Simple Money" book; opinions are mine.

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

The Financial LIFE Planning email newsletter has a new home--on @substack! You can learn more, revisit (hundreds of) old posts, and subscribe to receive new editions every Sunday morning at 7am here:

https://t.co/JLURguAixW

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

They're efforting toward something they never genuinely chose.

From their parents, their peer group, their culture, and yes, their financial advisor.

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

Have you ever actually asked yourself whether you consented to the goals you're working toward?

Are your aims rooted in your intentions, or someone else's?

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

"The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little." — Thomas Merton

It's just that we often settle for too little by doing too much.

And we often mistake activity for progress.

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

"The chief act of the will is not effort but consent." — Thomas Keating

Too often our financial plans don't stick — not because people aren't trying hard enough. Because they've never actually consented to the goal.

https://t.co/4acdC5TTgU

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

"When you ask before you tell, and you're genuinely curious, you're communicating: I care, and I'm not afraid of what you might actually mean."

— Edgar Schein on humble inquiry. Some of the best listening advice I've heard.

https://t.co/vHor27uufz

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

Alfred Adler had a name for using work to avoid everything else: the life-lie. And his instruction to workaholics is very pointed, and seems to demand our consideration:

"Workaholics are simply trying to avoid their personal and social responsibilities by using work as an excuse."

https://t.co/zPUaC1JGE3

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

John Glenn became an astronaut--for a second time--in his 70s.

Jim Collins calls it feeding your inner fire, in his new book, "What To Make Of A Life." That doesn't look like escaping work. It's personal evolution with and through it.

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

FIRE frames work as something to outgrow. Jim Collins' research suggests the most fulfilling lives never tried to — they just kept orienting work toward what they were encoded for.

https://t.co/kKe88hiABz

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

Is money fuel for your work, or is your work fuel for money?

Jim Collins calls this "flipping the arrow." Most financial plans never ask.

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

Jim Collins studied what distinguishes deeply fulfilling lives. His findings caused me to question the FIRE approach to financial planning even further.

The most meaningful lives weren't oriented toward escaping work. They were oriented toward doing the work they were built for.

https://t.co/LIGYCGKvhu

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

@torbenanderson @joshua_becker 🤣

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

We're always talking about rebalancing portfolios. But what about rebalancing our spending? Couldn't it make sense to recalibrate periodically, too?

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

The ordinary distractions of life, when compounded by an attempt to navigate them simultaneously, often lead to a diminishment of moments that could otherwise be enjoyed, if not remarkable. The end result can be a squandering of the scarcest of all the resources we’re capable of possessing—our time.

Let’s call it what it is: a near-life experience. Present in body, elsewhere in mind.

https://t.co/nyar39m6Hu

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

"The goal here isn't to spend less. It's to spend lavishly on the things you value and cut ruthlessly on the things you don't." — Carl Richards @behaviorgap

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

"You spend… you notice. Spend… notice. Repeat." That's the whole framework, honestly. (h/t @BehaviorGap)

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

"Live below your means," the all-time GOAT of financial maxims, addresses a symptom. Michael Stipe of REM addressed the root in 1987's "The Finest Worksong": "What we want and what we need has been confused." https://t.co/ypokgx6T9T

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

Eliminating the confusion between what we want and what we need is upstream of virtually every financial dysfunction: lifestyle inflation, status spending, over-saving at the expense of meaning, working too long, retiring too early.

https://t.co/ypokgx6T9T

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

Some of the most precious moments can't be engineered, only received. Good financial planning just reduces the weight enough to keep the door open.

https://t.co/TDLSmNO1CO

[Tim Maurer @TimMaurer]

Financial planning is built around a handful of momentous events. But most of life is lived in between them.