Mind your decisions
I've been goaded to think about our decision to move here from Nashville. At the same time, we have an upcoming meeting with a financial planner to discuss retirement planning (we just opted out of Schwab's Intelligent Portfolios in favor of making our own decisions). This has me feeling feelings about all the thinking and planning I've been doing.
In my day job, software architecture, we have a practice called Architecture Decision Records (ADR). It's a way of making sure you're not making decisions on a whim or based on one person's preferences.
You write out the following:
Context This section describes the forces at play, including technological, political, social, and project local. These forces are probably in tension, and should be called out as such. The language in this section is value-neutral. It is simply describing facts.
Decision This section describes our response to these forces. It is stated in full sentences, with active voice. "We will …"
Status A decision may be "proposed" if the project stakeholders haven't agreed with it yet, or "accepted" once it is agreed. If a later ADR changes or reverses a decision, it may be marked as "deprecated" or "superseded" with a reference to its replacement.
Consequences This section describes the resulting context, after applying the decision. All consequences should be listed here, not just the "positive" ones. A particular decision may have positive, negative, and neutral consequences, but all of them affect the team and project in the future.
This is asking for a taller, colder glass of logic than most can pour. And for what it's worth it's not exactly how we made our decision to move.
The what and when of our decision was powered by Ginnie's instincts; the where was me, the how was her again, and the why was us together. 🥰🤣
We were closer to "Make the decision, then make the decision right." This is a Ginnie mantra, and one the kids sure hear often. The essence, don't second guess yourself.
We described our reasons here.
Chris Gemignani
It's gratifying to see all those initial reasons hold up. There were a few things we didn't anticipate:
Cons: Being away from our Nashville family (biological and found) is something we haven't been able to replace. Last winter dragged on and on and on.
Pros: We'd discover a wonderful path to higher education for our kids. The State of New York's support systems are so much stronger than Tennessee. We found a Crossfit that's one of the two best we've ever been at. We can go days without using a car. The summer is even better than we expected. Our leafy street and the shady porch that I'm writing this on. The pace of life feels more suited to the life we like to lead. We're surrounded by people who view each other with more openness and acceptance, based on voting records.
Back to planning for this meeting with a CFP (Certified Financial Planner). I'm feeling defensive and churlish, as I often do when anticipating conflict. It's a struggle to articulate and document what I feel is important. I'm trying to work it out here in front of you all and my future self.
Is financial planning a choice like where to live? Can I define Context, Decision, and Consequences? Or is it a pure process of optimization and efficiency?
Economists often say there's no such thing as a free lunch, but even they know that's not true. In cities, density and walkability are unambiguous goods. I'm slipping into economist speak here, but the benefit to society is going to exceed the opportunity cost of doing something different.
In personal finance, diversification, spending flexibility and commitment to a plan are the free lunches. Diversification lets you get the same returns for less risk. Spending flexibility lets you buffer change and commitment stops you from pulling out of investments when times are tough (the way to guarantee a loss is to panic sell).
If you're interested in how we're diversifying, here's a video.
If you're interested in spending flexibility, stay tuned, more posts coming. And as for commitment, well that's what this post is for. Stay tuned for an update in 10 years.
