IN THE KNOW
Monthly Newsletter
June 2021
At ML&R Wealth Management, we want to ensure our clients are In The Know.

In this month's newsletter, we have a helpful article about long-term disability and long-term care insurance. We also take a look at the best options for investing your cash savings. We are continuing our employee spotlight and introducing you to our newest advisor associate, Stan McShurley. And in case you missed our announcement earlier this month, we have welcomed a new advisor to our team. You can read more about her below! As usual, we are sharing helpful COVID-19 resources from our parent company, Maxwell, Locke & Ritter, and relevant investment articles and videos from Dimensional.

We are a firm that understands that managing your assets is about more than money. It is about empowering your future. At ML&R Wealth Management, we focus on you.

sadair@mlrpc.com | (512) 275-2737

When I meet people and tell them I am a financial advisor, the first thing they always want to talk about is the stock market. As a lifelong student of stock market history and behavioral finance, I am always happy to engage with people on these topics. However, as we always remind our clients, there is so much more to financial well-being than simply how the stock market is performing. One area that often gets neglected is insurance planning. People do not enjoy imagining bad things happening to them, but it is important to be prepared for the worst by being properly insured. While insurance can be expensive, the cost of not being insured can be far greater. It is worth taking the time to evaluate your insurance needs and find the right policy, and then hope you never have to use it. Two types of insurance to consider as part of your overall financial plan are long-term disability insurance and long-term care insurance. Below are brief summaries of each to provide you with an overview. For a more in-depth analysis based on your specific circumstances, we recommend you contact a financial professional. We are happy to help you or anyone you know with this, so please reach out.

Long-Term Disability Insurance

According to the Council for Disability Awareness, 1 in 4 of today’s 20-year-olds will become disabled before they retire, and 1 in 8 workers will be disabled for five or more years during their careers. These statistics serve as a good reminder of the importance of having long-term disability insurance, especially since a disability could prevent you from earning a living for a significant period of time. Sometimes people think only workers in high-risk, dangerous occupations should pay for disability insurance, but many claims are not actually caused by the job itself. Common reasons for disability claims include:


Financial Wellness Q&A
In this section, we will address common personal finance questions. Email wealth@mlrpc.com if you have a question you would like answered.

Question: When I buy a long-term care insurance policy, are the annual premiums I pay locked in?

Answer: No, unfortunately, the premiums are not locked in. In fact, big premium increases are common, especially for older policyholders. Reasons for rising long-term care insurance premiums are an unexpectedly high number of older policyholders who have kept their policies (and filed claims), people living longer lives, and low-interest rates which lowers the return on insurers’ portfolios of fixed income. 

squirico@mlrpc.com | (512) 275-2704

I joined ML&R Wealth Management in April of 2020. Since then, the questions I have heard most often from our clients are: “How much cash should I be holding in my portfolio?” and “Where should I save my cash to minimize the effects of inflation?”
With interest rates at historic lows and inflation rates nearing 5%, it’s no wonder investors are asking these questions. While the answers are complex and contingent on each client’s financial circumstance, we wanted to offer some thoughts that might help you formulate an answer if you too are wondering how to efficiently manage your cash savings.

Emergency Savings and Short-Term Expenses

As a rule of thumb, we recommend that working clients hold 3 to 6 months’ worth of living expenses in cash as emergency savings. Having at least 3 months’ worth of living expenses in savings will enable you to weather unexpected situations with more ease. If you are retired and taking distributions from your portfolio, we advise that you hold at least 12 months’ worth of distributions in cash. Adequate emergency savings minimize the need to sell investments unexpectedly and at a time that could negatively impact your portfolio returns.
In addition to emergency savings, we advise that clients hold sufficient cash to finance any sizable expenditures they anticipate for the next few years. These can be anything from private investments to buying a new home. You should always inform your advisor of major forthcoming projects that may impact your financial plan so they can help you strategize to generate the necessary funds.


Employee Spotlight

We are excited to spotlight new employee, Stan McShurley this month! Below are some fun facts to help you get to know him better!
Stan McShurley | Advisor Associate

Birthday: August 22

Tell us about your family: My parents, brother, and sister live across Texas - from Houston to Nacogdoches to Lubbock. Because my family is so spread out, my girlfriend, Haylee and I love to get together with them in our favorite town, which is more centrally located, Wimberley.

Favorite food or meal? I love Tex-Mex and Matt's El Rancho is at the top of the list!

Favorite sports team? I'm a proud UT graduate and Longhorn fan. I enjoy supporting all UT sports teams, but two of my favorites to attend are Longhorn Football and Baseball games.

Most adventurous thing you've done? I enjoy spending time outdoors and traveling to national parks, and my favorite is Glacier National Park in Montana. We made several adventurous hikes to remote areas in the mountains, and have fortunately not had any bear encounters!

Most unusual/strange job you've ever had? My first job out of college was working in internal audit for a paper and packaging company. I traveled to the company's box plants and paper mills in many locations across the U.S., Mexico, and Puerto Rico that I never thought I'd visit, but it was a great experience.

What was the best concert you ever attended? I'm a big music fan and enjoy visiting the many live music venues in central Texas. My favorite concert though is Braun Brothers Reunion, which is a music festival in the mountains of Idaho that a couple of Texas bands put together every year.

What is your favorite part of working at ML&R? Having the opportunity to work with great people that truly enjoy working together to help our clients.

vmcelwrath@mlrpc.com | (512) 275-2716

The markets seem to be wrestling with the pace of the post-pandemic economic recovery—concerned that it’s actually happening too quickly, resulting in inflation. Advisor, Vanessa McElwrath, spoke with KVUE Midday News to explain what is causing it and how to think about long-term implications.
ML&R Wealth Management Welcomes MaryBeth Meyer as an Advisor

ML&R Wealth Management is excited to announce that MaryBeth Meyer has joined the firm as a Wealth Management Advisor. MaryBeth has over 11 years of experience having come from another Registered Investment Advisor firm in Central TX. She is a graduate of the University of Texas and began her career in the Wealth Management Group at Frost Bank.

We understand that managing your assets is about more than money: it’s about empowering your future. We are committed to building our team in order to provide resources to our clients beyond what we currently have. MaryBeth will bring an abundance of knowledge that will benefit our firm, team, and clients.

MaryBeth Meyer | Wealth Management Advisor

mmeyer@mlrpc.com
(512) 370-3202

With the economy starting to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and investor concerns turning increasingly toward inflation, Dimensional Founder David Booth talked with Nobel laureate Eugene Fama about inflation and how investors should think about it in their portfolios.



Dimensional’s Doug Longo, Joe Kolerich, and Jake DeKinder address frequently asked questions from clients about fixed income investing in the current market. These videos feature select topics in the context of Dimensional’s systematic approach to managing fixed income.

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As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread in the U.S. and across the world, our priority at Maxwell Locke & Ritter is the safety and well-being of our people, clients, families, and community. We are monitoring daily updates and recommendations from the CDC. Additionally, we are minimizing the impact that COVID-19 could have on our services and are staying abreast of all filing deadline adjustments. We understand that in this time of uncertainty you may have growing concerns for the financial health of yourselves and your businesses, employees and families. We have curated some helpful resources for you and will continue to update this page as new information and updates occur.

What's Happening in Austin Next Month
Our Advisors:
Email | (512) 370-3236

Email | (512) 370-3229

Email | (512) 370-3251

Email | (512) 275-2716
MaryBeth Meyer
Email | (512) 370-3202

Email | (512) 275-2734

Email | (512) 370-3254

About ML&R Wealth Management:
At ML&R Wealth Management, we take investing personally. Your ML&R Wealth Management advisor will work to develop a lasting relationship with you, keeping in touch to understand your changing goals and to provide an asset management strategy to help achieve them. Whenever you need sound financial advice, you have a direct line to a trusted advisor.

For over 20 years, we have served individuals, families, businesses, and nonprofits with wealth management services, custom retirement and 401(k) plans, and portfolio management.

We believe in accountability and transparency and operate as a fee-only advisor with fees calculated solely on assets under management.
(512) 275-2700