Every parent I know struggles with how to teach their kids about money. And even though I’m a financial planner, I’m no different. Below, I’ll walk you through how my wife and I are giving it our best shot. I’ll cover how we address saving, giving, investing and how allowances fit into it. As I…
If a student isn’t going the military, technical school, or community college route, then I would suggest that now is a good time to plan for upcoming college costs. Whether we are using scholarships, loans, or financial aid, there’s typically money hiding somewhere, if we look hard enough. Higher learning expenses go far beyond tuition…
(Updated: In an earlier version of this post, I couldn’t recall the name of the children’s book I reference throughout. I offered a $25 reward, payable to the sleuth’s charity of choice, for anyone who could help me. In less than a day, one of our readers emailed me the title “The Creature Department”. I happily…
Currently, 1 out of 4 Americans over age 65 count on Social Security (SS) for 90% or more of their income. And since an individual’s lifetime Social Security benefit can often total more than $1 million, it is worth considering variables that can alter this value. Beyond the obvious (make more money), individuals can delay…
Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) accounts are meant to provide tax savings when covering certain living expenses for people who are mentally or physically disabled prior to age 26. ABLE accounts began late in 2014 and have not yet become well known in the community or among many advisers I talk with. In an ABLE…
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Below are some pictures that help illustrate the current investment landscape. All of these charts show us where we’ve been, but none guarantees to show us what will happen in the future. Even though valuations tend to “revert to the mean” and certain data points can be leading indicators, nothing is guaranteed. In fact, that’s…
One benefit to being a small business owner is access to more retirement accounts than the typical 401k, IRA, and Roth IRA. While there are many options the three most attractive are the SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA and Solo 401k. These three plans provide business owners a way to save more while providing a valuable…
Playing a 3,000 Year-Old Board Game in Front of 200 Million People I’m a sucker for board games and Netflix documentaries, so when I stumbled on AlphaGo, I was sucked in. It chronicles the story of how a research group, DeepMind, developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based computer program (AlphaGo) so advanced it took on…
If you’re not already there, it’ll happen to you soon. You’ll need to have a Family Money Talk. Maybe you’re in your 20s asking your parents how much they could pay for a wedding. Or you could be in your 40s talking to your kids about their college choices. Our most frequent case, the one…
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