Your Emergency Fund: How Much is Enough?

Do you remember Veruca Salt, the spoiled rich girl from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? You know, the girl who yells at her father, “I want it now!” And her clueless, abiding father would get her whatever she wanted, which consequently did more harm than good.

Well, we all have one of those fathers. Not the one that we buy a Father’s Day card for every year, but one that we carry in our wallet. One that typically says yes to whatever we want to buy, regardless of how that may spoil our budget, or worse, our credit score. It’s called a credit card.

Please understand, I am not calling you spoiled or demanding. However, in this instantaneous age, it’s very easy to spend impulsively or unconsciously. How many of us have gone to Target to purchase one or two items and ended up walking out with a full cart? How many of us have passed some idle time perusing one of our favorite online vendors, one who may even have our credit card information stored in their system? We may have had no intention to buy when we got on the site, but when we spot a good “deal,” it only takes a few quick clicks to make it ours.

You see, it happens a lot more often than you think. Study after study has shown that people will spend more money when they use credit cards than when they use cash, sometimes as much as twice the average cost for the same item1. Not only does the method of payment affect the quantity, it can also affect quality, with consumers willing to purchase unhealthy or unnecessary items when paying with a credit card as opposed to cash2.

The convenience of clicking or swiping to purchase, rather than handing over tangible cash, has spurred on overspending and racked up national credit card debt to $905 billion3. The truth of the matter is that we have lost sight of the fact that credit cards are essentially a thirty-day loan, which is becoming more and more apparent with the younger generations. Based on Experian’s Millennial Credit and Finance Survey Report Part II, 58 percent of millennial credit card holders polled in 2015 had maxed out a credit card, been charged a late fee, had an increase in the interest rate on a credit card, had a credit card declined or had defaulted on a credit card payment4. Financial behaviors like these can wreak a lot of havoc on a young person’s credit score and financial future. Such a small, seemingly innocent looking piece of plastic can do a lot of damage.

Now I am in no way advocating a credit-free lifestyle. Not only are credit cards a convenient way to build up your credit score, but many cards offer rewards programs where users can earn discounts, airline mileage and cash back. Most importantly, though, there are an increasing amount of vendors that no longer accept cash. This is not simply limited to online purchases. Have you ever tried leaving an airport parking lot or paying to access a toll road with cash? In most places, it is nearly impossible.

What I am saying is we need to start being a bit more mindful with our money, a bit more critical of how we spend. I mentioned the perks of credit cards rewards programs earlier. How many of us, though, have actually stopped to determine how much those perks really cost once you start adding up interest and impulse purchases? If switching over to cash purchases helps us become a bit more mindful with our money, then so be it.

Before you end up with a pile of debt and regret.

1. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/credit-cards-make-you-spend-more/

2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201607/does-it-matter-whether-you-pay-cash-or-credit-card

3. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/average-credit-card-debt-household/

4. https://www.slideshare.net/Experian_US/experian-millennial-credit-finance-survey-report-part-ii

In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted a new rule to supposedly prohibit mutual fund names that may mislead investors about a fund’s investments and risks. The rule required a fund with a name suggesting that the fund focuses on a particular type of investment (e.g., “stocks” or “bonds”) to invest at least 80% of its assets accordingly. Previously, funds were subject to a 65% investment requirement.

This rule resulted in many funds changing their names, changing their investments, or both. In general, things are better now than they were before the 2001 rule. However, today’s mutual fund names and categories can still be confusing and/or misleading.

Blurred Boundaries

For example, let’s look at names that connote where the fund buys its investments. These names usually contain words like “Domestic,” “International,” “Global,” and “World.” Imagine a Domestic Large-Cap fund, whose name suggests it buys large, U.S. companies. But if the fund owns mostly companies in the S&P 500 Index, those companies might be generating up to 50% of their revenues outside of the U.S. The large multinational firm might be based in the U.S. but do business in countries all around the world. The opposite may be true of funds with “Global” or “World” in their name; those companies based in foreign countries may be deriving some or all of their revenue from dealings with the U.S.

Undefined Jargon

Another confusing category of funds is called “smart beta”. Investopedia defines Beta this way1:

“Beta is a measure of the volatility, or systematic risk, of a security or a portfolio in comparison to the market as a whole. Beta is used in the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), which calculates the expected return of an asset based on its beta and expected market returns.”

Got that? Let’s assume you totally understand beta and CAPM. So, what is “smart” beta? If beta is a measure of volatility, then a reasonable person might assume that “smart beta” is a more intelligent measure of volatility, right? Let’s see if the definition of smart beta contains the word “volatility.”

Investopedia defines smart beta this way2:

The goal of smart beta is to obtain alpha, lower risk or increase diversification at a cost lower than traditional active management and marginally higher than straight index investing. It seeks the best construction of an optimally diversified portfolio. In effect, smart beta is a combination of efficient-market hypothesis and value investing. Smart beta defines a set of investment strategies that emphasize the use of alternative index construction rules to traditional market capitalization-based indices. Smart beta emphasizes capturing investment factors or market inefficiencies in a rules-based and transparent way. The increased popularity of smart beta is linked to a desire for portfolio risk management and diversification along factor dimensions, as well as seeking to enhance risk-adjusted returns above cap-weighted indices.

Hmm. Not a single mention of volatility. Are you confused yet?

Growth, Aggressive Growth, Capital Appreciation, Equity Income

Growth sounds good, but how is it different from capital appreciation? Don’t they mean the same thing? Does aggressive mean faster, riskier, meaner, or something else? Equity income funds are supposed to be stocks that pay dividends, right? So, what category do you think the Dividend Growth Small & Mid-Cap Fund3 is? It has both “dividend” and “growth” in its name, but are they separate or together? Does the fund invest in companies whose dividends are growing, or does it invest in growth companies that also pay dividends? An investor would need to read the fund’s prospectus to find out for sure. I’m sure all good investors thoroughly read those prospectuses from cover to cover.

Reporting Problem

The SEC requires mutual funds to report complete lists of their holdings on a quarterly basis. So, the manager of the hypothetical Blah-Blah Domestic Large Cap Fund could buy a bunch of foreign small-cap stocks on January 1 and hold them until March 28. Then, the manager could sell them and replace them with domestic large-cap stocks, and report on March 31 that the fund was properly holding domestic large cap stocks as required. On April 1, the manager could buy back the foreign small cap stocks and repeat that process every quarter.

Conclusion

Mutual fund names and categories are more informative than they used to be, but they can still be quite confusing or misleading. Investors (and advisors) need to do their due diligence, fully read those prospectuses, and closely follow the actions of the fund managers. Is your advisor recommending mutual funds? Are they confident of what’s really in those funds? Are you? If you have any questions about the mutual funds in your portfolio, email me at steve.hartel@trilogyfs.com and I if I can’t answer your question, I will find someone who can.

1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/beta.asp
2. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smart-beta.asp