Highs and Lows of Love and Life

Today is Valentine’s Day and hopefully reservations have been made, chocolates bought, and a thoughtful card already signed and in the envelope. One of my favorite Valentine’s memories was in 2016, when over a nice dinner date I asked Neil what he would think about having another baby together (our oldest was nearly 5 years old at the time). To say he was excited would be an understatement! That moment stands as one of the highest highs in our marriage. We’ve experienced incredible peaks but we’ve also navigated our share of valleys together too.

Throughout our nearly 16 years of marriage we’ve had to reach out a handful of times to ask for help and guidance. It will come as no surprise, but the majority of those times we needed wise counsel were during the hard times, the low times.

Our counselors were professionally trained to listen to us, to ask about our goals, and to guide our conversations to help us find our way back on that upward path. This has led to so many wonderful days, weeks, and years together with positive memories bubbling to the top.

Many of you may relate to this in your own personal relationships. Comments about listening, goals, and upward paths might sound familiar based on the conversations we have when you come visit with us at Rather & Kittrell. Like personal relationships, money can be emotional. Money can elicit memories of exciting times such as reaching an earnings milestones, hitting that savings goal, or having a performance report show double digit returns. On the other hand, it likely wouldn’t take long to dredge up a memory where you felt the low of the lows around finances, be it from market declines or other personal money challenges.

We will never shy away from the fact that money can cause emotional swings and be challenging. Our goal in providing guidance and counseling with your finances is to help you during those highs and lows. Often times, we communicate more during the low times so we can understand from you what is hard or worrisome. We listen during those times so that we can work together to remain on that upward path, pushing toward your most exciting goals.

When you do reach those goals, we celebrate! We stack them alongside the other positive money memories. We encourage you to go out and live out those goals and cherish the moments. But don’t worry, just because you are enjoying the highest of the highs, we will still reach out and check on you. It is an honor to be trusted to guide through the worries and also an honor to be trusted with the joys!

As for Neil and I, this Valentine’s weekend we will be watching our 8 year old play her heart out in basketball, then hosting a gaggle of 13 year old girls having a weekend “Galentine’s party”.

Hopefully we will sneak in a dinner date somewhere, but if not, our hearts are full of love and we are cherishing this phase of life together.

Amanda Howerton, CFP® , CDFA® is a Senior Advisor with Rather & Kittrell.