Making Cents: Money Is The Root Of Many Family Problems
A common goal for most parents and grandparents is family harmony. They hope that the family will stay close and love each other beyond their lifetimes and for generations to come. Unfortunately, these dreams often fail to come true through a combination of their naivety, poor planning and weak communication. The reality is that you don’t…
Making Cents: Protecting Your Assets For The Next Generation
Many people are more concerned about preserving their wealth for the next generation than they are about their own well-being or bucket list. Hat’s off to you paternalistic savers – your next generation would thank you if they only knew how you really feel. Many make gifts that they can’t afford and avoid spending on…
Making Cents: How Close Should You Watch Your Plans?
A financial plan is just that, a plan to help attain the financial freedoms you want while taking precautions so that the unthinkable doesn’t sink your ship. This requires diligent coordination of many moving parts. Those parts are, but not limited to, cash flow, inflation, earnings, investment performance, tax laws, estate plans, insurance plans, family…
Making Cents: Do Your Homeworking When Picking A Financial Advisor
If part of your plan for the New Year is to hire or change financial advisors, it is never too early to start that process. Many people do not ask enough questions when vetting out a new advisor, and simply hope for the best. Ask is what the prospective planner feels is his or her…
Making Cents: Price Inflation May Be Higher Than You Think It Is
Calculating the rate of inflation seems rather simple. If you pay $10 for something today and one year later that item costs $11, you would think that the item has inflated by $1 or 10% over the past year. But when it comes to the rate of inflation, there is yet another variable to factor…
Making Cents: Expanding Your Annual Financial Check Up
As the calendar marches toward the final quarter of the year, there are certain financial rituals that many astute investors embrace. They routinely scour their portfolios for gains or losses to harvest, see that their allocations align with their expectations and they plan for ways to reduce the income taxes that they’ll pay for the…
Making Cents: Managing Risk
Many say that an analysis of risk should be the first step of the financial planning process after you’ve compiled your financial statements and enumerated your dreams, goals and objectives. The reason for starting with risk is because the occurrence of an unplanned risk may prevent your best laid plans from ever having a chance…
Making Cents: Why Get Your Financial House In Order?
Perhaps the most common reason for the gaping holes in one’s financial plan is the lack of focus on what you are trying to accomplish. Why get your financial house in order? During the course of my week as a financial professional, we frequently see people with gaping holes in the financial plans. Some have no…
Making Cents: When It Comes To Money, Treat Family Like Anyone Else
Most people seek out financial guidance to help protect wealth for their lifetime and to preserve it to the extent possible for future generations. But it seems that the more financial independence that you have, the more you begin to feel and look like a target by your friends and family to help them with…
Making Cents: College Grads Face More Challenges Than Ever
This time of year, I always like to say something positive to the new entries into “the real world”. New college grads have always had challenges transitioning from the college world into a world of work, bills and responsibilities. In today’s economy these grads face as many challenges as ever. Many have large amounts of…