Plan Your Post-Pandemic Expenses

After nearly a year of upheaval in our investments and our lives—markets crashing, then soaring; travel plans canceled, weddings postponed—we’ve all started to look toward brighter days. But remember, greater freedom to travel and entertain can come with a higher price tag.

Take the time now to consider future expenses to help you make the most of the new normal when it arrives. Here are three strategies to get you started:

1. Maintain your moat. As many of us learned last year, cash reserves provide a welcome buffer in times of prolonged uncertainty. Before you leap back into old spending habits, make sure you have cash set aside in your emergency fund—enough to tide you over and pay your expenses for a time if you can’t work. The rule of thumb is to save up six months’ worth of expenses. If someone in your house has a chronic medical condition, or if you are a high-spending household, you might need to set aside significantly more.
2. Update your battle plan. While large numbers of people were forced to tighten their belts during the pandemic due to unemployment, others were lucky enough to improve their bottom line. In fact, Americans’ personal savings rate quadrupled last year. If your situation has changed (for better or worse), take the time to revisit your budget to make sure it meets your needs going forward. If you don’t have a budget, create one. Use our budget worksheet to track your monthly expenses and income to get a picture of your savings, spending and overall cash flow going forward. You can budget for upcoming expenses or compare how changes in income will impact your lifestyle.
3. Prioritize some pleasure. We know we’re looking forward to seeing friends and relatives—and palm trees—again this year. Now’s a good time to consider the travel expenses you’ll incur in the latter half of 2021. (Lock in your itinerary while there are still bargains to be found on flights and hotels.) If your lockdown routine helped you cut down on debt, make sure you can keep your finances on track while still accommodating your desire to live life to the fullest again.

If you have questions about what your budget should look like post-pandemic, don’t hesitate to contact your wealth management team. We have a variety of tools we can show you to help you track your money better, and we’re happy to lend a hand.

About Adviser Investments

Adviser is a full-service wealth management firm, offering investment management, financial and tax planning, managed individual bond portfolios, and 401(k) advisory services. We’ve been helping individuals, trustsA legal document that functions as an instruction manual to how you want your money managed and spent in your later years as well as how your assets should be distributed after your death. Assets placed in a trust are generally safe from creditors and can be sold by the trustee in short order, avoiding the lengthy and costly probate process., institutions and foundations since 1994. Adviser Investments and its subsidiaries have over 5,000 clients across the country and over $8 billion in assets under management. Our portfolios encompass actively managed funds, ETFsA type of security which allows investors to indirectly invest in an underlying basket of financial instruments (these may include stocks, bonds, commodities or other types of instruments). Shares in an ETF are publicly traded on an exchange, and the price of an ETF’s shares will fluctuate throughout the trading day (traditional mutual funds trade only once a day). For example, one popular ETF tracks the companies in the S&P 500, so buying a share of the ETF gets an investor exposure to all 500 companies in the index., socially responsible investments and tactical asset allocation strategies, and we’re experts on Fidelity and Vanguard mutual funds. We take pride in being The Adviser You Can Talk To. To see a full list of our awards and recognitions, click here, and for more information, please visit www.adviserinvestments.com or call 800-492-6868.