Don Blandin Quotations

If you're doing retirement planning you realize it's a long-term venture. If you have some extra money, now is the time to buy something for 20 years form now.

People have to balance their consumption with their formation of their nest egg. They have to not sacrifice tomorrow for being able to spend all they possibly can today.

We all recognize that investors need to know certain key facts and concepts. But it may be even more important to their long-term financial security that investors learn the behavioral process of investing.

Any way you cut it, we are still not really good at saving. In addition to 401(k) programs and others, we should be saving separately for the future and building up slowly a contingency fund for the future.

Everyone recognizes that investors need to know certain key facts and concepts, but it is important that they learn the behavioral process of investing -- such as checking the background of a stockbroker or investment adviser -- that may prove to be just as critical to their success in the long run.

Some people think that we're kind of headed toward a train wreck when it comes to baby boomers' saving. They're saving, but not enough. Their money could retire before they're done retiring, which could cause a strain on our national fabric.

So we look at these findings and see some areas of improvement and a bigger, overarching indication of how much work remains to be done.

After you've done the numbers, and it's not rocket science to do that, you may have a gap. The earlier you know that, the better. The time to discover that is not when you're retiring.

With what's happening in the market, we see that confidence is going down in terms of older Americans feeling comfortable with their nest eggs. We got ourselves into a period of false confidence, expecting double-digit returns on all our investments. Now, we are seeing people reassessing where they are with respect to what the market is doing and what the economy is doing as they see their 401(k) funds and IRA accounts go south.

Marketing to students is definitely working, as many of them end up signing for as many as five to six credit cards.