Fun With Numbers

Occasionally when I am mindlessly perusing Facebook or other social media, I’ll come across a post stating that this year is the first time in 823 years that there are five Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October. Actually, this happens quite often, the last time in 2016 and the next time in 2027. But the posting accomplished its goal—it got me to click.

I did see one recently that made me think. It was comparing the volume of a million with a billion. One million seconds is about 11.5 days while a billion seconds is more than 31.5 years. And since the word trillions is popular given all the recent news about governmental infrastructure spending, one trillion seconds is roughly 31, 500 years.

How easy is it to spend money? To spend a million dollars in a year, one must spend $2,700 a day. To spend a billion dollars in a year, one must spend $2.7 million a day and to spend a trillion it’s $2.7 billion a day. Now we’re talking about real money.

I’ve always been fascinated with numbers, particularly baseball statistics. There is an elegance in them. Maybe I should have been a math major instead of an accounting major, although both deal with numbers.

There are a lot of iconic baseball numbers that will never be approached. Cy Young 511 wins. Joe DiMaggio 56-game hitting streak. Cal Ripken 2,632 consecutive games played.

What does all of this mean as it relates to financial planning? We are all surrounded by numbers. There are large numbers like trillions and relatively small numbers like your age. Each of us has a number, it may be iconic just for you. It could be your retirement age. It could be an amount of money that will make you confident it won’t run out during your lifetime. It may be the number of times you want to take your grandkids to a ball game.

Whatever your number, make it part of your plan.

Thanks for reading.

James J. Denora, CPA, CFP^®