A recent study by Legg Mason about investor attitudes, concerns and choices yielded this little nugget: the average investor spends about 90 mins/day thinking or worrying about money while the top 10% spend 2-3 hours per day. That means having a financial plan in place and a planner creating/monitoring/adjusting it could save the average person 20 days/yr and as much as 45 days/yr for the top 10%. For a society in which we’re pressed for time this is too important a statistic to overlook.

Other items of note from the study:

    Top worries include inflation, outliving one’s money and catastrophic events to person or property.
    The majority of investors believe to be doing “somewhat well” and are “somewhat confident” they are making progress towards their stated goal to “maintain my current lifestyle in retirement.” The problem?…human nature being what it is behavioral finance tells us “somewhat well” and “somewhat confident” likely translate into most are doing poorly and uncomfortable admitting it.
    Almost half expect to cut back on lifestyle in retirement to try to avoid outliving their assets.
    Almost one-third know they need more money yet won’t take risks necessary to get there. Similarly almost one-third have room in their budgets for increased savings but refuse to do it.
    Almost one-fifth of ‘affluent’ investors would have trouble paying bills after six months is they lost their jobs.
    Hindsight yields lessons such as starting sooner and taking more risk.
    Investor confidence is up. (Six years into a bull market it’s easy to feel good. How confident would they be in their abilities if we were six years into a bear market?!)