Don't just wait for the economy to improve. You've got to take action on your own, explain MoneyWatch's editors.
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Jill Schlesinger: I'm Jill Schlesinger Editor at Large.
>> Ray Martin: And I'm Ray Martin Special Contributor.
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Jill: In today's Reality Check: Want your economic situation to improve? What are you waiting for?
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Jill: Ray we just had some good news. 3rd quarter GDP finally positive. This could be a nice thing for people but I'm still worried that they're waiting around for the world to get better. What can we tell people to do right now to improve their financial situation?
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Ray: I don't think you can count on this becoming a normal economic recovery for people and people feeling secure again and going back to the way things were. This is going to be a lot different and you're going to be more accountable and protecting your money, insuring it, saving it and building it is more on your shoulders now than ever before. Employers are doing less for you. You're going to have to do more for yourself. You know and that gets down to being accountable for your own financial responsibility: Paying down debts, restructuring the debt that you have, doing your financial planning. Do you have enough life insurance? Do you have wills? Are you saving enough for retirement? and engaging with that and creating a plan for yourself and staying on top of it. A lot of people just don't do that. They figure they know they need to get these things done but they just don't.
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Jill: Well it's kind of like weight loss or diet and you know no one's going to do it for you and you could read all the great fad diets but in the end you have to do it yourself and you have to have the energy to do it and the cost of inaction is enormous isn't it?
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Ray: Well you know I'm just starting to work with some younger couples with their financial planning children of older clients of mine and I look at their situation and say you know there are things you haven't done here. You haven't refinanced your mortgage. You haven't been saving enough for retirement. You've been building up a lot of cash sitting in your bank because you're worried about the economy we should be obviously but you're not taking any action here. You don't have wills or trusts for yourself and you haven't bought any life insurance for yourself and you're young and you can get it inexpensively and they're like well I know I could do all these things and we need to get it done. I'm like why haven't you you're smart enough to do it but you're not taking action and I look at this and say on a parallel track you do your planning as you should or you don't you're a wealth difference between the person not taking action and somebody is can be significant the cost of inaction here. So you know there's a lot wrapped up in this message but ultimately it is take control or hire somebody that can help you do that in your own financial planning.
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Jill: And you know what's so funny when I was a financial planner I had a client who once said to me you know why I hire you Jill I hire you to be my nudge you make me do the things I know I should do. So if you are not the kind of person who can do it yourself it's great to hire somebody and you want to hire someone who's accredited and has all the right registrations and charges you the right way but be clear if you can't do it yourself go get some help, hire that trainer, hire that nudge and for once and for all stop waiting for something to happen. Take control and make it happen yourself. Ray tell them to get off their tooshes right now.
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Ray: Absolutely you know and you don't have to hire an expensive financial planner to do this. A lot of companies offer financial advice in their 401K plans. You can call the call center and get an investment advisor who can help you create a retirement plan and how much to save for yourself or you can you know talk to your accountant about this but create a plan and engage with other professionals that can help you or people that have experience and that will be that'll get you on track.
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Jill: So as Cher said in Moonlighting, "snap out of it, take some action." Thanks for watching.
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