“With tears in their eyes, they said they had cut their expenses to the bone,” said Evensky. Then he added, with a slight smirk, “The only things remaining were their club dues, golf fees and car leases.”
Still, they were his clients and they were in distress. So Evensky compiled a comprehensive financial plan that incorporated their new reality. They could afford a lifestyle that was “just over half of what they considered their minimum,” he determined.
Telling them this, however, was not easy.
“They did not accept my analysis,” he recalled. “They said, ‘But we need to earn more!’ I tried to explain as tactfully as I could that the market didn’t give a damn what they needed. They were in massive denial.”
Finally, in frustration, he offered to refer the couple to “a broker who would tell them what they wanted to hear.” And that was the end of the advisory relationship.
Evensky’s conclusion: “The moral is, sometimes you just need to walk away.”