When Life and Money Intersect

Life rarely unfolds exactly as we expect.
Financial planning helps prepare for both the milestones we anticipate and the surprises we don’t.

By: Tracey Bennett, Director of Corporate Communications

Tracey Bennett is Director of Corporate Communications at John E. Sestina & Company, a fee-only financial planning firm in Columbus, Ohio. She helps oversee the firm’s communications, marketing, client onboarding, and podcast initiatives. As host of the Managing to Be Wealthy™ podcast, she helps make financial planning more relatable through conversations with advisors, industry professionals, and subject matter experts.

What’s Your First Memory Surrounding Money?

I was recently asked about my very first money memory. My answer brings back a lot of emotion, but sharing is giving sometimes.

My parents divorced after nearly two decades of marriage. The aftermath left my mom with three young daughters, a house, and the responsibility of holding everything together. At a time when child support and alimony weren’t always guaranteed, my once stay-at-home mother entered the workforce with no experience. She took a job as a server at a downtown hotel, working from 3:30 in the afternoon until midnight, six days a week.

You can imagine the physical and mental stress of trying to hold it all together.

One night I woke to her whimpering and hid around the corner. She was sitting at the head of our dining room table counting coins. Back then, people often tipped servers with silver dollars and half dollars. I remember those tall stacks all over the table, arranged methodically from smallest to largest.

It wasn’t enough.

I don’t remember what happened next, but I never forgot what I saw or how it made me feel.

Looking back, the coins probably aren’t what stuck with me. It was what they represented. Fear. Uncertainty. Deprivation. Sadness. Food. Shelter. Fun. Lifeline.

Over the years, she worked hard. She kept the house. She fed us. We had a car. When I got sick, I went to the doctor. But there were very few extras, and there were memories that weren’t there because she had to work to provide for us.

But she did it. She saved us.

When she was gone, I saw evidence of how painstakingly she had worked to protect us. I also couldn’t help wondering how a few changes in her financial planning might have affected her own quality of life and the legacy she left behind.

That was my epiphany.

Good Financial Planning Overshadows Your Money

Sometimes watching someone else’s experience changes the way you think about your own. Behavioral finance tells us that our relationship with money is often shaped by our experiences. What feels “normal” can have a lot to do with what we’ve seen and how it made us feel.

That moment shaped me in ways I probably didn’t fully understand at the time. It fueled a work ethic and a desire to understand finance in every way I could grasp.

October is recognized as Financial Planning Month in the United States. I’ll bet few people know that or really think about what financial planning could mean to their future.

Mention financial planning and most people immediately think about investments, retirement and savings. Fair enough. But that’s not really the whole picture.

Money sets the table for the discussion, but earning and accumulating it is only part of the story.

We’ve all seen people land the promotion, build successful businesses, retire comfortably or accumulate more wealth than they ever imagined. We’ve also seen people who seemed to be doing everything right suddenly face a major home repair, health issue or unexpected expense that changed the plan.

You’d think there comes a point where all the questions are finally answered. Usually, the questions just change.

Then there are those who are trying to keep up with the Joneses. You know the Jones family. Best house. Coolest cars. Always jet-setting somewhere fabulous. Just get on Instagram in case you missed it.

Maybe the Joneses have a financial plan that comfortably supports all of that. Or maybe they’re funding their best life from one credit card to another.

You really don’t know.

I compare financial planning to a suspension bridge. It looks pretty simple from a distance, but there are a lot of moving pieces holding it together.

The same is true of our financial lives.

Landing my first big job taught me, through the school of hard knocks, the shocking relevance of cash flow. I remember opening that first check and thinking, “What?! This has to be wrong!”

Nope. What I made was what I made, and that bottom line had to cover everything.

Cash flow isn’t the most exciting part of financial planning, but it’s where a lot of good decisions start. Most of us don’t wake up and decide to spend too much. Life happens. Your kid needs braces and new dance shoes, the car makes a weird sound, a weekend trip pops up, and suddenly the credit card is filling the gap.

That’s where debt enters the conversation.

Most of us hear debt and think credit cards, bills and stress. But not all debt is necessarily bad. A mortgage can help you buy a home. A business loan can help grow a business. That’s very different from carrying a credit card balance at 25% while the interest piles up.

And sometimes debt just happens. The car breaks down. The air conditioner quits in July. Something unexpected comes along and you deal with it.

The question is: Is your debt helping you move forward, or getting in the way?

The same can be true of insurance.

After an emergency surgery, I was reminded just how important the right coverage can be. I had good insurance and understood my deductible and how it worked. That made a real difference when additional care and expenses came along.

But what happens if you fall at work and can’t earn a paycheck for a few months? Or you’re in an accident and your income suddenly stops? The bills don’t stop with it.

You can have a great budget, save consistently and make thoughtful investment decisions, but one major event can change things pretty quickly if you aren’t prepared.

I’ve also seen how the wrong type or amount of insurance can create serious financial consequences. You can have a colossal bag of money saved, but if part of your house burns down and your coverage isn’t enough to rebuild it, you’re going to start reaching into that bag.

That’s why insurance is part of the bigger picture. Not because you need every policy under the sun, but because it’s worth knowing what could knock your plan off course.

Review it. And then review it again. Life has a funny way of changing the plan when you’re not looking.

Working at MTBW, I’ve had a front-row seat to the way money intersects with real life. I’ve seen clients celebrate retirements, welcome grandchildren, buy dream homes, navigate health challenges, care for aging parents, lose loved ones, change careers and experience all the surprises life can throw our way.

One thing has become pretty clear: Life doesn’t happen in neat financial categories. What happens in one area usually affects another.

We work, make money, save for retirement and, throughout all of it, two things are happening in tandem: we’re living our lives…and we’re paying taxes.

I’d rather walk on a sea of Legos than spend a Saturday reading tax law.

It’s an ever-changing landscape, and just when you think you understand the rules, something changes. Taxes also have a way of sneaking into almost every major financial decision we make: a raise, a bonus, selling an investment or taking retirement distributions.

It’s hard to imagine spending years building a solid financial plan and developing good habits, only to be surprised by a big tax bill when it’s finally time to enjoy some of that hard work.

That’s why having a CPA you trust really matters. Not because they can magically make your taxes disappear, but because they may spot things the rest of us wouldn’t know to look for. And when your CPA and financial planner communicate with each other, even better. You’re looking at the whole picture instead of each piece on its own.

Usually, when people are doing well, the topic of investing usually enters the picture next.

There is so much information on the internet that it can make your head spin. Every few months, someone appears in front of a sports car to tell us they’ve cracked the code and found the next big thing.

That’s the thing about investing. It isn’t always about finding the perfect opportunity. Your goals, timeline, comfort with risk, taxes and everything else happening in your financial life matter too.

One of our favorite sayings is, “It’s a marathon, not a race.” Looking at investing that way makes it less about chasing what’s happening today and more about what you’re trying to accomplish over time.

Which brings us to another part of financial planning that doesn’t get nearly as much attention as investing: what happens to everything you’ve worked so hard to build when you’re no longer here to manage it?

Estate planning is one of those things most of us know we should do but somehow keep putting off.

Nobody wakes up excited to talk about wills, healthcare directives or what happens when they’re gone. But this isn’t really about death. It’s about control and making sure the people you love aren’t left trying to figure everything out while they’re also trying to grieve.

If something happened to you tomorrow, would the people closest to you know what to do? Would they know where things are, who to call and what your wishes are?

Because “they know what I would’ve wanted” isn’t exactly an estate plan.

My Gramma put our names on masking tape on the bottoms of everything she wanted us to have. Needless to say, that doesn’t always work.

There are bigger questions too. Who gets to decide where your stuff goes? Who gets your money? Who cares for your pets? Do you want certain jewelry or meaningful items to go to your kids? And you probably want to make sure your ex-wife isn’t still listed as the beneficiary on your life insurance policy.

Working with a good attorney and your financial planner can help make sure those pieces work together and the right people are in place if something happens. Honestly, there’s a lot of comfort in knowing you’ve got those things covered.

Because when you really think about it, financial planning isn’t just about the money.

It’s taxes. Investments. Insurance. Retirement. Estate planning. Your family. Your goals. The things you can plan for and, of course, the things you can’t.

And money means something different to all of us. Maybe it means retiring when you want. Maybe it’s helping a kid through college, taking the family on a great vacation, spoiling the grandkids a little or simply knowing you can handle whatever comes your way.

That’s why there isn’t a one-size-fits-all financial plan. What makes perfect sense for one person might make absolutely no sense for someone else.

Financial planning isn’t about having all the answers or making every decision perfectly. It’s about looking at all the pieces, understanding how they fit together and making choices that make sense for your life.

At the end of the day, the money is just one piece of it.

It’s what the money, the planning and all those moving pieces help you do with your life that really matters.