What Is Important to You?

I listened to a superb financial podcast today. Benjamin Brandt talked about the 60/40 rule of investing, but I was more interested in the discussion he had with another advisor regarding where to move in retirement. Brandt mentioned that the taxes you pay in retirement should not be the major factor in where you live. Instead, you should consider what is important to you. He talked about golf, the proximity to an airport, and the weather. I agree that each person must decide for themself what is important, though I don’t care much about golf or the airport.

I recently retired. My wife still works, but we often discuss what we will do after she retires. Many people ask if we‘ll leave Minnesota and go somewhere warm with lower taxes, like Florida. What is most important to me and my wife is to live near our son, who currently lives about twenty minutes from us.

I no longer enjoy the cold, especially since I developed Raynaud syndrome. So, what? It is more important to me to live near our son. I will not move to Florida unless he moves there first. If I say that the most important thing for me is to live near him and his future family, then I will do what it takes. I will tolerate the cold. What about the income tax in Minnesota? As the podcasters said, income tax in retirement should not be the decision-maker. Decide what is important. I’ll pay the tax to be near the ones I love.

Every major decision should be considered the same way: Decide what is important to you. That is not as easy as it sounds. It is similar to Stephen Covey’s concept of Begin with the End In Mind. You decide what is important to you, and you do what it takes to make it happen. Of course, you will not always succeed.

Most people do not meticulously think about what is important to them. If they do, they don’t often do what it takes. In my practice, patients frequently said that losing weight was the most important thing. I asked what they were doing to lose weight, and they were usually vague, saying something like, “I’m eating better.” I asked about exercise, and they didn’t have time. You would think that if weight loss were the most important thing, they would exercise instead of streaming shows or surfing the web.

I’d ask about a gym membership, but they couldn’t afford it. Changing to a prepaid phone plan would pay for a gym membership, and canceling cable TV would pay for two. Three lattes a week at Starbucks would cover membership at Anytime Fitness.

I’m not saying everyone should forego lattes and an iPhone. If you have to make a financial choice, as we all do, then choose the one that is important to you.

As a physician for over thirty years, I spent quite a bit of time trying to help people become healthier. I am writing a book on what we can do in our daily lives to live a longer life, and exercise and weight control are the most important changes most people can make. In The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, Second Edition, I describe a plan that works, but you have to give up three types of carbs. I believe it works better than any other plan, and you don‘t need to be hungry. When I discuss it with people, they are very often unable or unwilling to give up certain foods, such as bread or pasta. It wasn‘t easy, but I did it because losing weight and keeping it off was important to me, more important than baked ziti or bagels.

Life is made up of choices. You cannot have everything. You can never have enough money to buy everything you could possibly want, and you don’t have enough time to do everything you might want to do. And if your son lives in Minnesota, you cannot avoid the cold if you want to live near him. Choose what to do by first deciding what is truly important to you.