By: Jeff Bullock
A Bucket Approach For Your Money
During my decade-long tenure at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, I was fortunate enough to interact with many of the industry’s top professionals. One of these great professionals, a former colleague of mine, is Michael Liersch, who at the time was our Global Head of Wealth Planning & Advice. With a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and a knack for wealth management, Michael led the behavioral finance and wealth planning strategy for the bank.
Michael’s research focused on the psychology of money to better understand how and why people make the decisions they do with their money. Michael published a piece a few years ago titled The Bucket List: How to organize your money with intent. In this piece, he lays out a framework for how to use ‘buckets’ to better organize your money. I’ve personally modified his buckets just slightly, but he suggests we should organize our money into four different buckets, as follows:
- Liquidity Bucket: Cash reserves and sleep-well-at-night money.
- Lifestyle Bucket: How you fund your day-to-day life, such as your paycheck or income from investments.
- Growth Bucket: Long-term savings and retirement assets.
- Legacy Bucket: Wealth to benefit future generations or philanthropy.
This framework is powerful because once your assets are mentally (and physically) placed in each bucket, the investment discussion becomes ‘bucket specific’, which almost always leads to better decisions. Furthermore, by organizing your wealth into buckets, you can better balance the amount of risk that should be taken with your assets.
Ultimately, an approach like this is intended to give you peace of mind with your money. As Michael wrote, “People across the globe can find it empowering to physically place their money in [these] four buckets…. In this way, they discover whether their money is organized – and utilized – in a way that supports their intentions.”
What is your framework for organizing your money? Could it be more intentional? Could you benefit from a better process?
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