Kids & Money – Greenlight: A Solution to Help Kids Save, Spend, Give & Invest
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Kids & Money – Greenlight: A Solution to Help Kids Save, Spend, Give & Invest

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post about how my wife and I are teaching our three kids about money. I covered the basic principles we’re trying to instill (Simplicity, Giving, Discipline, Compounding, Enjoyment, Responsibility, and Hard Work) and how those show up practically.  While we have loved teaching these principles, the…

Should I Refinance My Home?
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Should I Refinance My Home?

In case you haven’t heard, mortgage rates are the lowest they have ever been. The chart below shows average mortgage rates over the past 49 years, from 1971 to 2020. Currently, the 30-year mortgage has an average rate of 3.17%. You can view the chart above and edit the timeline yourself in order to see…

Do I Belong Here? – All-Time Market Highs and The Good Place
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Do I Belong Here? – All-Time Market Highs and The Good Place

“On December 31st, the S&P 500 Closed at 3227.57, Within 0.35% of its All-Time High…” I would bet that reading the above headline tells you something. Maybe “Finally, I made it” or “How long can we keep this up?” or maybe even “There’s nowhere to go but down.” When my wife suggested that we start…

Quarter In Charts – Q4 2019
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Quarter In Charts – Q4 2019

It’s interesting to think about what an impact Julius Caesar had on the calendar and from that, our lives. I remember when I started at Smith Partners Wealth Management (then Jonathan Smith & Co.) in 2005. The great Legg Mason Value Trust mutual fund manager Bill Miller was in the middle of his 15th consecutive…

The SECURE Act
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The SECURE Act

President Trump signed The SECURE Act of 2019 (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement of 2019), into law on December 20, 2019. While it has a far-reaching scope (see the chart below from Michael Kitces’ in-depth summary,) in this post, I’ll focus on a few provisions likely to affect most workers, retirees, and 401k…