From Secret Agents to Secret Ingredients
The CIA is an entity of great respect and secrecy. America’s top minds spend their days hard at work, homing in their craft for the benefit of our nation’s peace of mind, united pride and ……. full bellies? Yes, the Culinary Institute of America is the premier training grounds of our country’s best chefs. Over…
Fully Integrated vs. Comprehensive Planning
By: Thomas Schulte | Director of Financial Planning A lot of people come to us familiar with the term “comprehensive financial planning.” They might say, “I’m working with a comprehensive financial planner right now.” However, we use the term “fully integrated financial planning.” The best and worst part about fully integrated financial plans is…
Allow me a moment to put my Jane Austen hat on….
Nearly eleven years ago to this day, a gangly boy from Syracuse met a beautiful girl from Los Angeles by an odd stroke of luck, as they both went to the wrong hotel upon orientation of a study abroad program in Sevilla, Spain. Without much dating experience, he asked her to dinner that very same…
Integrated Decisions: Merging Business and Personal Finances
Do you know the #1 reason small businesses eventually fail? Up to 82% of failures directly result from owner-related cash flow problems. When you drill down into this group, a common trend emerges. It reads like this: Owner invests in growth, despite risk. Risk turns out to be riskier than thought. The owner’s personal finances…
Using Roth IRAs to Teach Financial Literacy
It’s no secret that Roth IRAs are one of the best, if not the best, financial vehicles for young savers to start saving in. The earlier you begin, the more time you have for tax-free compounding. That’s only magnified when our kids or grandkids can begin saving as early as their teenage years. We have…
Westside Pickler
A few weeks ago, at the family dinner table, my father-in-law dubbed me ‘Ilocano,’ which is the Tagalog (language spoken in the Philippines) word for ‘frugal’. He claims it’s a term of endearment, though Google searches beg to differ. This stemmed from a conversation about my love and constant search for great deals of any…
How to Prepare Successful Inheritors
By: Thomas Schulte | Director of Financial Planning One of the most common concerns we hear affluent clients express: “I’m fearful that passing too much wealth to my inheritors will do more harm than good.” It’s a well-founded concern. Far too many examples of wealth are those passed carelessly between generations, bringing out the worst…
West Coast Eats
Most Monday mornings when catching up with my fellow Napier team members, I find myself stealing the phrase ‘I spent the weekend eating as if I were going to the electric chair.’ It’s shameful, since I value healthy practices of all kinds, but I also give myself some slack since visiting different areas and their…
Fridays on the 405
At the end of a trying week of elementary school, us kids deserved a release, an exclamation point crossing the threshold from learning minds to wacky-weekend-warriors. After years of observation and experimentation, our beautiful brains learned that we could clip in seatbelts from across the aisle to create a makeshift swing. Parlay that with ‘the…
Fishing With Dynamite
As I alluded to in a previous article, I was very much looking forward to the Genesis Invitational PGA event being held down the street from me. There are so many reasons to love PGA events, even for the non-golf nuts; beautiful landscapes, house snooping, food, drink and lounge areas to name a few, but…