Giving Through Endowments
By John P. Napolitano CFP®, CPA, PFS, MST | Founder & Chairman In honor of Giving Tuesday Financial planning is at its best when a client asks us, “Help me find a way to do something that’s deeply important to me.” In that vein, I want to share a recent client story of this sort…
Picking The Winners
By Rob Napolitano When you’re in the world of alternatives, you get asked a lot about who the “winners” are. The first thing I tell people is that the right question is more focused on what your financial objectives are, not who makes headlines for ROI. Alternatives can tiptoe between asset and liability when they’re…
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…
How Are You Using 168 Hours?
By: John P. Napolitano | Founder and Chairman I think quality of life might be the best measure of success when it comes to financial planning. As much as most of us love winning the money game, what is money worth? What good is it if we don’t enjoy it? We meet phenomenally wealthy people…
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…
Opening Financial Conversations with Aging Parents
When it comes to discussing finances with aging parents, it’s often a child, niece, or nephew who broaches the topic. This person is usually comparatively successful, organized, or deeply concerned. More often than not, they also witnessed estate planning or long-term care play out poorly in someone else’s life. Now, their parents are starting to…
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…
Adjusting to Life Post-Income
You might be surprised how often wealthy families experience anxiety when they exit their businesses or careers. It centers around a shift away from income to living off of assets. We have clients who have been earning an income since they were 14 working a paper route. Looking forward to the next paycheck is all…
What We Really Mean When We Ask, “How Am I Doing?”
By: Alex Weiss CFP® | President & Wealth Manager When someone asks their financial advisor, “How am I doing?” They usually mean, “How’s my portfolio doing?” I understand why that’s the case. Financial advisors have put much effort into being known as the investment people. Unfortunately, it also means a disproportionate amount of their conversations…
Making Cents: Joint Ownership Can Create Problems
Let’s start by defining to two most common forms of joint ownership. First is the joint tenants in common form of ownership. Joint tenants in common mean that each individual owner has an undivided ownership interest in the property, be it a coin collection, bank account or real estate. So if you’re a joint tenant…