Our future selves

I read an article last week about the benefits of thinking about yourself in future terms. The idea being that many of us feel little connection to the person we will be years from now, and that leads to a shortsighted behavior that actually hurts us in the long run. It is an interesting hypothesis. In one study the article [...]

By |2023-06-22T18:34:37+00:00June 22, 2023|Uncategorized|

What does it actually mean?

We often hear the phrase “The market is up” or “The market is down” and we think we have either made money [or lost out on making money] or we have lost money. The problem is the phrase is rarely connected to anything that has real meaning to us personally. Why is that? Because ‘up’ and ‘down’ are relative only [...]

By |2023-06-15T18:53:21+00:00June 15, 2023|Uncategorized|

Most vulnerable

There has been an uptick in what regulators call Romance Fraud schemes and studies have been done to try to pinpoint when seniors are most vulnerable. Not surprisingly it is between twelve and twenty-four months after losing a loved one, moving or becoming less mobile and less able to get out and about to visit friends.  We all need to [...]

By |2023-06-08T17:09:21+00:00June 8, 2023|Uncategorized|

You cannot have your cake and eat it too

Perhaps there is more truth to this saying than we want to admit. This year has been tumultuous, with markets declining and interest rates increasing. Were we all soothsayers we would be rich beyond our dreams. But we aren’t and it is disingenuous to think about the money we ‘could have made’ when interest rates increase, and to forget what [...]

By |2023-06-01T17:07:13+00:00June 1, 2023|Uncategorized|

Did you forget and leave it behind?

We’ve spoken in the past about the benefits of saving money for retirement by having automatic transfers from your checking account into a savings account, but what is often forgotten is that workplace retirement account when you leave one job and move on to another. If you leave a job, consider rolling that money from the former employer’s plan into [...]

By |2023-05-17T17:16:20+00:00May 17, 2023|Uncategorized|

Recycling RMDs

I read an article the other day that suggested one way to save money consistently is to arrange automatic transfers from your checking to your savings account on payday. That idea can be applied to RMDs as we get older. While we may be forced to take required minimum distributions out of qualified accounts, there are no restrictions on how [...]

By |2023-05-11T17:12:26+00:00May 11, 2023|Uncategorized|

Getting it Right

Sometimes it is best to start with the basics. If you are planning for retirement, are you contributing enough to your 401(k) to get your company’s full employee match? Think of it as free money. Have you paid off high-interest rate debt you may be carrying? Eliminating a monthly credit card or auto loan with a high interest payment may [...]

By |2023-05-04T17:59:16+00:00May 4, 2023|Uncategorized|

Dangerous Decade

I read an article the other day that referred to the five years before and after retirement as among the most important and vulnerable for a retiree’s savings. The reasoning is that as you approach retirement there are far fewer years left to correct any misstep, and the consequence of a misstep can involve your quality of life in retirement [...]

By |2023-04-27T18:01:35+00:00April 27, 2023|Uncategorized|

Is it premature to factor it in?

In the past we have noted that in planning your retirement finances you need to factor in health care costs, and the need to anticipate increases. Not doing that may cause a depletion of your retirement savings that you did not anticipate. There has been some discussion about the Affordable Care Act and the indication that for the first time [...]

By |2023-04-19T17:44:08+00:00April 19, 2023|Uncategorized|

Is Fair typically Equal?

We frequently receive inquiries regarding who should be the beneficiaries of the financial products we sell, and if the division among multiple beneficiaries should be equal. This brings up an interesting point. When making this decision people sometimes place descriptions on offspring that relate to their ‘current’ needs or proclivities. What we sometimes forget to think about is that time [...]

By |2023-04-12T17:09:31+00:00April 12, 2023|Uncategorized|
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