Why Work with a Financial Advisor?
Perspective From One
One of the top questions I receive as a financial advisor is, “What exactly do you do and how can you help someone like me?” If you’ve ever wondered the same thing, you’re not alone. The answer I give when I meet new people is this: Financial advisors are committed to helping individuals and families set and reach their financial goals. Advisors provide value beyond investment strategies and financial advice; they are there to help clients feel more financially confident for the expected and unexpected moments of life. Here are some specific ways you can benefit from this professional relationship:
Personalized advice. There’s no “one size fits all” financial plan. A financial advisor can help you evaluate your current circumstances to create a plan of action specific to your goals and concerns. You don’t have to achieve a certain level of wealth or have complex finances to enlist their
services. Financial advisors are equipped to serve you, whether you are starting out in your career, in the middle of your working years, entering retirement or if you’re already retired.
(Financial cont’d from pg 2) ing board as you move through life and experience events that impact your bottom line. You can ask your advisor for input on how a job change, large expenditure, or other financial commitment will affect your financial outlook. You can feel more secure about your charitable giving when it’s been incorporated into your overall plan. Together you can adjust your investment strategies to accommodate life circumstances. As a result, you will be able to make financial decisions knowing you have considered the larger picture.
Investment strategies, product recommendations and more. A financial advisor will suggest ways to move forward based on your short-, medium-,and long-term financial goals. Investment strategies will vary based on your time horizon—the years ahead of you in which you have to reach your goals. Your advisor may recommend a balance of stocks, bonds and other solutions aligned to your risk tolerance. You may be advised on ways to optimize your tax situation, which can include investing in accounts that offer tax advantages, such as a Roth or traditional IRA, Health Savings Account, or 529 plan. You can expect an advisor to review insurance coverage and other solutions to strengthen your financial safety net. Lastly, your financial plan may also include tips for saving and budgeting.
Confidence in your financial decision making. A financial advisor can be a sound-
Multi-generational support. A trusted financial advisor can be a resource for your entire family. Your goals may include caring for aging parents or putting kids through college. Your advisor can also educate you on a wealth of topics that impact your family’s financial wellbeing. These may include estate planning, wealth transfer, wills, health care directives, powers of attorney, trusts and beneficiary assignments. It’s never too early to introduce your adult children to your advisor and encourage them to make use of financial planning services. Financial advisors understand the values that drive you and can
help instill these as your family forms their relationship to money.
Collaboration. In addition to providing consultation to you, your advisor can work directly with a tax preparer and estate attorney as needed. By keeping your advisor in the loop on tax and estate matters, you can be assured of comprehensive professional support.
Ongoing advice for your changing circumstances. Life happens. Goals change. Markets fluctuate. In a constantly changing world, a lasting relationship with a financial advisor allows you to work in tandem with a partner you trust to navigate all that life will throw your way.
Duane J Lusson, CFP, ChFC, CLU, MSFS, is a Private Wealth Advisor with Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. in Ottumwa, Iowa. He specializes in feebased financial planning and asset management strategies and has been in practice for 30 years. To contact him, call 641684-4200 or stop by his office at 527 W. Second in Ottumwa, Iowa.
Ameriprise Financial, Inc. and its affiliates do not offer tax or legal advice. Consumers should consult with their tax advisor or attorney regarding their specific situation.
Stock investments involve risk, including loss of principal. High-quality stocks may be appropriate for some investment strategies. Ensure that your investment objectives, time horizon and risk tolerance are aligned with investing in stocks, as they can lose value.
The initial consultation provides an overview of financial planning concepts. You will not receive written analysis and/or
or obligations of, or
Turkey Hunting Accessories
When I get to my desk early each morning to check email, I look across the lake an up the hill to the adjoining timber. Most mornings now, I will see two or three turkeys strutting down the hill getting ready for breeding season. As we draw closer to April, and the start of gobbler season, I get more anxious with each passing day. On a sunny morning, with a light layer of fog creeping across the newly greening grass, I can hear the turkeys gobble. They are still in bachelor groups, and all the birds are sporting beards. It is a sight that would make a postcard. Knowing a group of fifteen or twenty big old gobblers are strutting around my place makes the waiting almost unbearable.
This is the time of year, people who make catalogs about hunting stuff are their most vicious. On a sunny day, approximately a month before turkey season, a catalog will arrive. It contains every imaginable accessory and piece of paraphernalia known and not known to turkey hunters. We as a group carry more stuff into the woods than anybody. Less equipment is required to hunt cape buffalo or alligators than is needed to hunt turkeys. The people with the catalogs do not make it any easier. They know turkey hunters. They may even be hunters themselves, so they know our weaknesses. We already have so much stuff, we might need a few more things. When I first started hunting turkeys, I used a box call, a shotgun, and one shell. I would find a nice wet log to sit on, use my box call to entice a nice Tom turkey, shoot him, and go home. There was no need for a second shell, because there was no second shot. If a person missed, they went home to try again another day. There was no need to pack up, just throw the gun in the truck and
leave. Over the years, thanks to the people with the catalogs, we have found huge amounts of equipment to make our turkey hunt more successful and enjoyable. First came the assortment of calls. A person should really carry scratch, diaphragm, and box calls. If the gobblers do not respond to one, they will surely respond to another. Camouflage was the next best secret. Everything from boots to hats had to be camouflage, requiring an entire new wardrobe, including a little camo bag to carry all the calls. This could all be ordered from the catalog. Decoys were just the thing. A hen decoy placed conspicuously in front of a person with a minimal amount of calling experience would convince any gobbler to come in.
The next catalog showed an even more effective arrangement of several hens and a Jake decoy. If a person
had a pop-up camouflage colored tent, they could set up their flock of fake turkeys anywhere they wanted, and not be limited to a convenient wet log or rose bush as a hiding place. I currently have enough turkey hunting stuff; I pack it in with a Ranger the night before, so I do not forget anything. The pop-up blind has two chairs complete with coffee cup holders. The decoys are set out and distances are measured with a range finder. The calls are all arranged with the full box of super-shock turkey loads.
I am not convinced the new system, complete with all the amenities works any better than the old ways, but I do have a good time preparing for the big hunt. There are just a couple of things I saw in the new catalog I still need, and I will be ready for opening day.
Better Than Before
Dad often said, “If you borrow something or use something that doesn’t belong to you, always leave it in better condition than you got it.” I try to follow this rule, even when I rent equipment.
I have never paid a cleaning fee when I return equipment. One time, I returned a paint sprayer to Voss Equipment Rental, and asked, “Did I get it clean enough?”
Craig looked at the sprayer, “This is cleaner than when you took it. Do you want a job?”
“No,” I replied, “but I would take a discount on the rental fees.” We laughed about that.
One Saturday, when we lived in Winona, Minnesota, Melissa, and I drove to Wisconsin to look at an antique dining room table and chairs. We liked the set and wanted to buy it, but my truck wasn’t available, and we would need a way to move the furniture. I asked the seller, “If we pay you today, could you hold the table until next weekend?”
“My new dining room set is coming on Monday,” the seller said. “This table
has to be moved by tomorrow.” Then the lady said, “If you can drive a stick, I would let you use our old plow truck to take the table to your house.” Her offer was very generous considering we lived about forty-five miles away.
After we loaded the table, the lady said, “The truck has just under a half tank of gas; that will be plenty to get you to Winona and back.” Still, before returning her plow truck, we topped the tank with gasoline. Whatever you borrow should be returned better than when you got it.
A while back, I was using a restroom in a business, and someone had left the room pretty smelly. On top of the paper towel dispenser were a few rolls of toilet paper and a tall can of air freshener. I decided to use the spray; Lord knows I didn’t want the next person coming in to think I was the source of that foul stench.
I removed the lid from the can and shook it well. I squinted looking for the
small arrow on top of the nozzle to ensure it was spraying away from me. Pointing the can into the air, I pressed the little button on top while vigorously waving the can through the air. I had predetermined it would take a lot of spray to make this little room smell like a rose garden.
I started spraying toward the stool and then began my 360-degree turn to ensure all the air was properly treated. As the mist fell from the air, some gathered on my arm, tingling just a bit. When I continued my turn toward the sink, particularly the mirror, I felt something was going horribly wrong.
I sprayed the air freshener for about fifteen to twenty seconds (maybe longer) before it occurred to me that the product didn’t smell like roses, lilacs, or fresh linen hanging out to dry in the warm spring country air. So, I sprayed a little bit more and then stopped to read the can. “What scent is this,” I wondered.
That morning, my left eye
was slightly irritated, so I wore only my right contact lens. My right contact lens also didn’t focus well. It was one of those days when I surrendered the notion of reading any fine print. I squinted my eyes a bit, holding the can at arms-length, looking for the fragrance on the label.
Can you imagine my horror to find on the canister’s label, little blue characters that looked like helmets, with eyes black as coal, big goofy-looking eyebrows, and a big smile on their faces? Each was racing around on a cushion of bristles. Yep. I just sprayed the whole room with Scrubbing Bubbles. The foam was getting thicker and building up as I looked around at the mess I just made. It wasn’t very heavy anywhere, but it sure covered a lot of territory. I quickly put the lid back on the can and placed it back on top of the paper towel machine. The bathroom was a oneseater, so there were no witnesses, still, I could hear Dad saying, “Leave it better than you got it.”
“To heck with Dad,” I said. “I’ve got a serious predicament here!” I wondered if there was an escape route to avoid the walk of shame. There was none, so I had to do something.
I began waving my hand in front of the automatic paper towel machine. It would only give me about 14 inches of towel and then need a couple of moments to reset. I needed more towels—a lot more, and faster!
I began wiping down the wall with a wad of towels in each hand. I dispensed more clean towels, then moved on to the next wall; “Darn,” I said.” I got the roll of toilet paper, too.”
I pulled about thirty feet off the toilet paper roll (about the same amount my daughters used when living at home) until I reached dry paper. I waded up and tossed the TP in the stool, and pushed the handle.
I briefly thought about how many times I’d lec -
(Just the Other Day cont’d from pg 4)
tured my daughters while I was plunging a stool, “You don’t need to use so darn much toilet paper; that stuff doesn’t grow on trees, ya know!” I would tell them, “It’s a waste of paper and just plugs up the toilet!” Then, a bad thought crossed my mind; I glanced at the toilet I had just flushed.
“Oh, sweet Mother Mary, no!” The water in the bowl was trying to swirl, but then it stopped and just kept rising. I dropped my paper towel to grab the plunger and frantically began plunging away with no success. My heart was racing; the water was almost to the rim. Now my motion was making waves that sloshed over the edge. “This is not good,” I said as I paused my plunging.
Only by God’s grace did the water make that glug-glug noise and begin making a rushing down the drain. “Yes! Victory is mine!” Suddenly, I was thankful my daughters
trained me as an Olympic athlete in the Toilet-Plunging competition. Now that the toilet was no longer a threat, I could focus my attention on the rest of the mess.
I cleaned the walls fairly quickly. I wiped all the foam from the door and handle, then wiped down the tank and the stool seat.
The mirror was tricky. Scrubbing Bubbles are not streak-proof, like Windex. I ran water over my hands and flicked them toward the mirror, then wiped it down with towels. After repeating this process two more times, the mirror looked great. The cloudy residue vanished. After wiping down the sink
top and faucet, everything except the floor was cleaned. I would need a lot of paper to clean up the pool around the stool. More trouble was lurking at the door!
Just as I’d feared, someone was wiggling the handle outside the restroom.
I waved my hands frantically to get more towels. A few moments later, they tried the handle again and followed with three soft taps on the door. “Just a minute,” I said.
I reloaded eacPPh hand with paper towels and squatted, ensuring my knees did not touch the wet floor. There were more bubbles on the floor than on the walls, and in some places, the towels pushed those stupid bub -
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bles around like a squeegee. I scooped the gooey mess with the towels and tossed it in the trash can, then I got another towel and returned to the floor. I was getting more towels when the door handle rattled again. “Wait your turn! I’ll be done in a moment,” I said to the impatient person.
I wondered how long they had been out there. Could they hear the machine each time it dispensed more paper? More importantly, I was concerned about how much paper towel was left in the dispenser. The cleanup was almost done; everything looked good, and the restroom certainly smelled better.
I washed my hands in the sink and took more paper towels to dry them. I used my hand towels to compress the wads in the trash can, concealing the evidence.
After one final glance around the room, everything looked good. I was going to sign the sheet on the back of the door, ‘This bathroom was last cleaned at 10:00 by Tom,’ but I didn’t have a pen. I composed myself and looked in the mirror to straighten my hair. In my haste, I had worked up a sweat.
I went to get one more towel to wipe the sweat from my brow, but the ma-
chine was finally empty. I didn’t want the next person to see me sweating; they might think I was…. Well, you know; having difficulties. So, I wiped the sweat away with my hands and rinsed them in the sink.
I opened the door and told the man waiting outside, “It’s all yours. Oh, by the way, they’re out of paper towels.” With no time for conversation, he hurried in and closed the door behind him.
I wanted to warn the man, “Don’t spray the air freshener!” However, such a suggestion would only stimulate additional inquiries and questions, which would undoubtedly lead to my admission and confession. It was best to move on, and hope his vision is better than mine.
Dad always said, “Leave it in better shape than you found it.” I certainly did, and Dad would have been proud.