Planning Within Reach, LLC

06/02/2026

A carnival came to town last weekend...

It was fascinating to watch my four girls approach the rides completely differently.

- My 7-year-old made a beeline for one of the biggest rides and loved it. No fear.

- My 10-year-old spent the entire first night on "small rides" (not "baby rides," as her sisters kept teasing) before deciding she was ready for the same ride her younger sister had conquered right out of the gate.

- My 13-year-old used to love rides, but had one bad experience in Japan that scared her so much she hadn't been on a major ride in five years. It took some encouragement from friends to finally get her back on one.

- My 15-year-old has been on so many roller coasters at this point that she was more interested in the food and social scene than the rides themselves. They were just background noise.

Of course, I couldn't help but see the parallels with investing. We all have natural tendencies, but our experiences, the amount of information we need to move forward, and the people around us influence our decisions too.

Someone who lived through a painful market decline may become far more cautious than their natural temperament would suggest. Others become more comfortable taking risks because previous risks worked out well.

One of the most valuable parts of financial planning isn't trying to change who you are. It's understanding your tendencies, recognizing how your experiences have shaped you, and building a plan that works with your behavior instead of against it.

As for me this weekend, I would consider myself in the "paralyzed by too much information" category - at least when it comes to carnivals, not investing. No way I'm getting on a ride that was assembled in a parking lot 24 hours ago and is being operated and inspected by people I've never met. That's just me!

What about you - are you a carnival ride person?

05/28/2026

Most people I talk to don’t actually want to “retire” early...

They want more "freedom" earlier. More control over how they spend their time. There can be plenty of ways to create that before a traditional retirement age.

🏓 Part-time work

Some people are open to working longer if they can just work less hours in a week. A three-day workweek, seasonal work, consulting, or reduced hours leaves room for working out, volunteering, travel, and hobbies.

🚲 Sabbaticals

I’ve helped clients plan for unpaid time off, not because they’re burned out, but because there are things they want to experience now while they still have the health and energy for them.

📽️ Career pivots

These can be more complicated financially because they may involve school, a lower starting salary, and additional risk - especially if someone wants to start a business. But it's a good option to consider because many people don’t necessarily want to stop working. They just want their work to feel different. And is it really that surprising? Most of us chose what we wanted to be "when we grew up" when we were twenty years old!

Don't think of your only two options as grinding until traditional retirement age or quitting work now. There's a whole lot in the middle that can be analyzed once you've nailed down some appealing options.

05/21/2026

“I kept putting this off because I didn’t know where to start.”

When it comes to employer stock, I completely understand why people do nothing. Selling company stock doesn’t feel like one decision. It feels like ten.

- How much should I sell?
- Which lot should I sell?
- What will the taxes look like?
- What should I do with the money after I sell?
- What if I sell and the stock keeps going up?

So people wait.

But doing nothing is still a decision. It’s effectively the decision to:

- Take your bonus and invest it in your employer stock (for RSUs).
- Tie both your income and investments to the same company.
- Hope the concentration risk works in your favor.

If you’re putting off figuring out your employer stock, you’re not alone.
It’s one of the most common “complexity spikes” I see - the moment when someone realizes a financial decision has become too important and too complex to keep guessing through it on their own.

Counterintuitively, I’ve found that zooming out often helps reduce employer stock decision fatigue.

When you understand where you are, where you’re trying to go, and what role this money actually plays in your future, the decisions around your employer stock often become much clearer.

04/20/2026

“Why am I doing this?”...

I had that thought for hours while climbing Mount Fuji when we were living in Japan. So many people from the military base had done it and talked about it like it was a Sunday stroll. Some had even done it multiple times.

It took us 5 hours to get to the top… where we saw absolutely nothing but clouds. We thought the worst was over, but then we had to go down.

The descent took 3 hours, much of it walking sideways because our toes kept slamming into the front of our boots. Mount Fuji is a volcano, so you are basically skiing down loose gravel and ash while people slip all around you.

“Why am I doing this?” kept running through my head.

Thankfully, my husband was there reminding me of things like:

- you're the one that wanted to do this :)
- it's a unique experience
- challenges are good for you
- we get to fill up these cool hiking sticks with stamps (every station you stop at has a different stamp)

We laugh about the story now, but this happens ALL THE TIME. I am in conversations with people who find themselves wondering why they took a certain job, accepted that promotion, picked a certain career, are living where they are. The list goes on…

It’s human nature. We often follow the path in front of us - influenced by family, peers, or the thing we perceive to be “next”. It can be easy to lose focus of what you really want.

Sometimes things work out. Other times, they don't. Coming up with an alternative plan is hard – especially when it feels you are too far up the mountain to turn around. And sometimes going down is the hardest part, even though it is essential to get you where you need to be.

Have you ever found yourself in a position asking yourself, "Why am I doing this?"

For the record - I can now say (5 years later) I am glad I hiked Mount Fuji. But it took a while to be able to say that.

04/15/2026

Things are not always as they seem.

I am still bitter that The Proposal, one of my favorite rom-coms of all time (set in Sitka, Alaska), was actually filmed in Massachusetts. I begged my husband for years to visit Sitka because of that movie. 🤣

Virgin River? Filmed in Vancouver, not Northern California. So much for retiring down the street from Jack's Bar.

But it’s a reminder that what we imagine and what we experience aren’t always the same. And that's okay.

Over the years, I’ve seen:

▪️ Couples who dreamed of RV travel but realized they greatly preferred hotels.

▪️ Clients who bought boats and sold them a couple of years later - too much maintenance.

▪️ Second homes that sounded ideal on paper, but in reality, the kids were too busy to visit, it was expensive, and overall just not what they expected.

▪️ A client who moved to a beautiful mountain town, bought her "dream home" (her words), and realized two years later it wasn’t what she thought it would be. She recently moved elsewhere.

Having a financial plan isn’t about creating a perfectly paved path into the future. It’s about building flexibility into your life so you can pivot when needed (because you probably will need to) and still meet your financial goals.

BTW, sorry if I ruined The Proposal or Virgin River for you.

This picture is of Sitka (or Massachusetts). Either one.

04/01/2026

In this clip from my interview with college counselor Heidi King of College Inside Track, we discuss the emotional and economic impact of not finding a "right fit" school the first time.

You can watch the full conversation on my YouTube channel.

03/30/2026

Community college can be a more affordable path to a four-year degree, but it’s important to have a clear transfer plan in place.

In this clip from my interview with college counselor Heidi King of College Inside Track, we discuss what families should consider before choosing this route.

You can watch the full conversation on my YouTube channel.

College Inside Track
https://collegeinsidetrack.com/

Planning Within Reach
https://www.planningwithinreach.com/

03/27/2026

This WSJ article is worth the read: "Retirees Are More Vulnerable to Cyber Scams—but Not for the Reasons You Think"

In short, the reasons are:

1) When people retire, they lose the informal and formal support they had around cybersecurity (work trainings, colleagues sharing stories)

2) Their confidence drops. They are worried they will break something if they even just install a security update, so they tend to do nothing.

How to help:

1) Don't just fix an issue with a loved one's phone or computer. It creates dependency and a feeling of inadequacy. Instead, give them a step-by-step explanation of what you are doing and why.

2) While expensive, buying new devices periodically, having them set up in the shop, and purchasing the support package can help.

Frailty and digital illiteracy are the stereotypical reasons older people are vulnerable. But it’s more complicated than that.

02/17/2026

Two potential life-insurance planning ideas that most people don’t think about...

1) Consider getting a Term Life Policy before starting a family

Most people wait until after the baby is born, but why not get it a year or so earlier? If you develop a heart condition, an autoimmune disorder, or cancer (things we are seeing more and more at younger ages) affordable life insurance may no longer be an option. Now you have a newborn and no way to protect your family.

2) Don’t rely only on your employer's Group Life Policy

Group insurance at work is convenient and cheap, but it is very fragile. Many times people lose this policy if they leave or get laid off. While some policies are 'portable', meaning you can take it with you, many are not. If the lay off happens in your 40s or 50s, as they often do, you likely have a family, a mortgage, and are not financially independent yet. It is a bad spot to be in.

* If insurance isn’t an option:

I do have some clients than cannot qualify for coverage due to their health history. When that happens, the plan shifts. We aggressively reduce debt and increase savings to get the client's family into the best position possible if something happens to them.

Personally, I did not get life insurance before the baby came. I honestly just didn't think about it! If I were to do it over again, I would have. What about you? Am I missing anything?

02/10/2026

“The [insert investment firm] portal said I could contribute to a Roth IRA for 2025 - can I?”

Answer: Maybe.

The portal doesn’t know enough about your situation to be able to answer that.

Two common examples that I see:

➡️ Roth IRAs

The portal implies they can make a contribution without knowing their income for the prior year. Many of my clients earn too much to contribute to a Roth IRA directly. I often recommend waiting until the year is over to confirm eligibility before making a prior-year contribution because it can save you the headache of having to undo the ineligible contribution later.

While I mostly deal with the “income is too high” issue, the opposite happens as well. If you are a minor (like my daughter) who made few hundred dollars in 2025, the portal will say she can contribute $7k. That is not the case - contributions can’t exceed earned income.

➡️ HSAs

I’ve also heard portals prompt clients on Medicare to contribute to an HSA. Once you’re on Medicare, you’re no longer eligible because it’s not considered a high-deductible health plan.

To be clear – I am not inside these portals - clients are. I’m guessing there must be verbiage saying “here are the requirements” or “check with your tax professional”, but these misunderstandings happen all the time, which tells me the messaging isn’t always as clear as it could be.

So before acting on a marketing email you get saying “contribute,” take a minute to confirm eligibility with your tax or financial professional.

What’s something your investment portal has confused you about?