Making Cents: Selling Your Small Business
In today’s financial markets, hardly a day passes without news of one major acquisition or another. Selling a business is easy when the economy is good, interest rates are low and companies are looking for a way to deploy capital. But what about your small business? According to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, firms…
Making Cents: Five Strategies For Tax-Efficient Investing
Once upon a time, retirement was defined as sipping lemonade on the front porch waiting for the grandchildren to visit. Today, however, things are different. The grandchildren may be visiting the house to feed the cat or walk the dog because the grandparents are busy. They are traveling, going out to dinner, and working. Some…
Making Cents: Spending Your Retirement Wisely
In today’s world of people living and working longer, the old vision of retiring and sitting on the front porch with a glass of lemonade just doesn’t cut it. Some people may continue to work because they have to, but for others it is often because they really don’t know what else they’d do with their…
Making Cents: Financial Guidance for Elders
One of the signs that someone is aging is that they simply can’t do some of the things that they used to do. When that comes to their financial decisions, it may manifest itself in their investment choices, bill paying or some sort of financial deal or scam that may not have been in their…
Making Cents: How Are Your Buckets Filled?
One strategy utilized to allocate assets and generate retirement income is commonly called the bucket strategy. In the bucket strategy, a retiree would consider setting up different buckets of money with a different investment strategy for each bucket. The buckets are established utilizing a time horizon. The first bucket should be designed to hold money…
Cast your Vote! All-time Favorite Holiday Tune
By the time the end of December rolls around many people have had enough of Holiday Music. I can see why, especially if you work in retail or some other venue where the music rolls on 24/7 with playlists that repeat songs regularly. Not me, in fact, I used to get a little sad when…
Making Cents: Thinking Of Large Holiday Gifts
One of the common questions this time of year is “How much can I gift to family members without tax consequences”? It’s certainly a loaded question, and the answer is, it depends. Let me explain. The Federal annual gift limit is $16,000 per donor to anyone and is increasing to $17,000 in 2023. For a…
Making Cents: Professional Skepticism
When I was trained as a rookie CPA candidate in the late 70’s, the term professional skepticism was first introduced to me. What it means is that we should not accept all stories at face value. In the accounting world, it goes even further to mean that one should corroborate or validate through examination and…
Making Cents: Getting Your Business to the Next Generation
Most businesses in America are small businesses. A large portion of those small business are classified as family business. Family businesses can range from those run by siblings, cousins or other relatives and those that may have a multi-generational situation. A common goal is to keep the business in the family. The odds are against…
MAKING CENTS: Roth IRAs – A Gift to Last a Lifetime
With holiday shopping nearing its peak, maybe you can skip the lines and set your sights on a gift that will last a lifetime. Of course, I’m talking financial gifts that go beyond an envelope with a little hole in it to show the face of one of our past presidents. A gift to a child…