Nate Willardson, CFP®, Managing Partner at Currents Wealth Strategies, authored this thought leadership piece on Connectively, sharing one of the most important lessons in retirement planning.
The story: In 2024, a client in his early sixties asked Nate how he should pay for a new home two years before retirement. The math said to stay invested and use leverage. But when Nate asked him how he’d feel carrying debt into retirement if the market dropped 20%, the answer was immediate: it would keep him up at night. Nate recommended the client purchase the bought the home in cash.
A year later, that decision had “cost” him roughly $500,000 in missed market gains. But, the client hadn’t lost a single night of sleep.
The takeaway: “The best financial advice is both an art and a science. A plan must be financially sound, but it also has to account for a category of risk that doesn’t appear in a Monte Carlo simulation. It’s the risk of not being able to stay the course.”
His bottom line: “The best financial outcomes don’t always come from the smartest strategies. They come from the right strategies, executed with confidence by people who are genuinely excited about what comes next — and who can sleep soundly getting there.”
