Is Your Financial House Haunted?

It’s nighttime, and you’re walking down a long, dark hallway with only a flashlight to guide you. Suddenly the light falls upon a horrifying sight — is it a creepy clown? Or a flesh-eating zombie? Oh no, it’s something far more ghastly.

Behold the terror of your credit score!

Feel the chill of a depleted savings account! Scream as you imagine your 401(k) balance!

While lots of people love a good scare at the movies, no one does when it comes to finances. People often fear their finances because they are full of the unknown and unexpected, as it’s common to imagine worse-case scenarios and be afraid of things that may not even exist. If these feelings sound familiar, how can you chase away the fear and become financially confident?

The terror of the unknown

Just like in a horror flick, the unknown can bring a sense of dread. It can be fun to peek through your fingers as you wonder if there’s a vampire lurking around the corner. Much less fun is wondering if you’re prepared for retirement. Fortunately, unlike the protagonist who wanders down a dimly-lit hallway, you are not alone.

Financial professionals can help you face your fears, and even help to prevent a few shocks along the way. By working with a professional, you’ll be better able to perceive whether your fears are real ghosts, or just sheets blowing in the wind. Together you can create a written financial plan, and prioritize the behaviors that help to enable financial confidence. The result: ghosts, busted.

These behaviors include learning about financial principles and solutions, having a written financial plan, owning growth and protection solutions and maintaining a long-term focus. Your go-to finance wizard can also help adjust your plan as your life goals shift, and help to keep you on track for the long-term.

The shock of the unexpected

Sometimes the hero walks into an eerie room — and suddenly — a monster jumps out. The audience screams in surprise. It’s shocking because we don’t expect it. Unfortunately, real life can deliver frightening surprises, too. For instance, approximately one in four workers in their twenties will experience a loss of income, due to disability, at some point in their career. With this in mind, income protection in the form of disability insurance replaces your income in the event of an illness or accident.

Whole life insurance is another important guard against the unexpected. If you die prematurely (hopefully, not at the hands of a horror-movie ax murderer!), whole life provides financial security to your loved ones. Hopefully this unforeseen event will never happen, but in the meantime, you can use whole life to make improvements today, such as by funding higher education or a business.

The mystery of the illusion

Effects teams work hard to create terrifying haunted houses on film. But once the movie wraps, and the lights come on, we see that the set is made of tricks to deceive us. The flickering lights, the fog machine and the recording of ghostly sounds are all gimmicks intended to send chills down our spine.

Often our financial fears are the same — what we’re afraid of isn’t real. We might think we can’t recover from a poor credit score, but that’s not true. Likewise, it’s never too early, or too late, to begin to save, live within our means or plan our retirement. When we sit down with a financial professional, we see that the worries were just our minds playing tricks on us. There is nothing to fear, and only financial confidence to gain.