Everybody's selling? Buy!

We met with a financial planner today, whom we recruited to help determine how to manage our vast hoard of assets between the U.S. and Switzerland. We hadn't worked with financial planners before, but of course there are different types. Some you just dump your millions to and they handle everything on retainer; Steph was referred to one of those type first, who politely said, "You can't afford me." But she recommended another, who charges hourly and simply analyzes your situation and makes recommendations that WE actually implement. More our speed.

After providing our financial documents last week, we were informed that our retirement account profile looked like someone had sneezed on the Money section of the Wall Street Journal. That's because Steph and I have had 8 jobs total (not each, thank you) in the past 14 years, all with different 401(k) plans, and there have been rollovers and partial rollovers and forgotten rollovers and ESOP's and spin-offs and stock certificates and jailed fund managers--all very sordid Wall Street-type stuff (I was simply shocked at the value of my Enron shares). So that needed some "tweaking".

Task #2 was to calculate our version of what dot-com entrepreneurs call their "cash burn rate." That is: after selling the car, TV, dog, etc., how long can Todd ride his bike in the Alps, happily jobless, while we live in outrageously expensive Zurich still paying the mortgage on a potentially unsold condo in Chicago? That was referred to as the "doomsday scenario" but I don’t know why, it doesn't sound that bad to me.

So we received our recommendations today, and we're in OK shape. I'll consolidate and reallocate our retirement portfolio online, no problem. And we can "burn" for a while, although if either Todd has a job OR the house sells, we're more or less out of trouble. Interestingly, we were also told--because you never really know, do you?--that we appear on track with our retirement(!) savings in 30 years, although a little more saving wouldn't hurt. We'll try to keep that in mind before spending 10,000 Swiss Francs on new ski equipment.