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Meet the 529: Your Best New Collegiate Friend

After the shock and joy immediately following the baby’s birth then all the other emotions set in as you mentally fast forward through the sudden expenses to be expected in the future...one of the biggest being the cost of education. Now, more than ever, a bachelor’s or a trade degree is essential for a future. As your baby grows and makes its way past Kindergarten graduation, to the awkward middle school years, high school sports and extracurricular clubs you’ll want to be saving so when that time assuredly comes where you help them set-up their dorm room or apartment that there will be no question how they can receive an education. And, you’re not alone in worrying about how to fund college; according to a Gallup poll, 73% of parents with children under age 18 worry about funding college more than  any other financial concern.

Does Investing Inertia Have You Trapped?

Investors are prone to many behavioral mistakes that can cost them dearly. Trying to time the market, trying to pick the winners, chasing returns, trying to go it alone are among the most common. But the one that can inflict the most damage over a period of time is when they succumb to investing inertia. What is investing inertia? In physics, inertia refers to an object’s “amount of resistance to change in velocity.” Without some other force to affect it, an object will not change course or speed. If at rest, it will remain at rest; if plodding along in a straight line – it will continue to plod along. In a nutshell, inertia is the enemy of change. In personal finance, it’s is a psychological affliction that can prevent people from making critical financial decisions often resulting in lost opportunities or financial stagnation.

Although we are in the business of building wealth for our clients, we are always on the lookout for those “pearls of wisdom” from the ultra-rich that might bring some elucidation to those who wonder why they’re not. Of course, for most of our clients, wealth is a state of mind not necessarily contingent upon a net worth statement but more about fulfilling their ambition of a good life today and for the rest of their lives. But, as Steve Siebold, author of “How Rich People Think,” found after interviewing multi-millionaires from across the globe, those who seek to be among ultra-rich are of a different mind all together with a clear demarcation in attitude about what it takes and what it means to be rich.

Leave your Legacy through Planned Giving

There comes a point in life where you want to begin sharing or gifting all the things you’ve collected over the years—stories, wisdom, financial wealth. And unlike the Ancient Egyptians believed, you cannot take your worldly goods with you when your light goes out. You can share your stories wisdom in a manifesto or through funny tales to your family, but what about the money? Like most, you have (or should have) a will and most of your assets are likely going to friends and family. But, what about the causes and organizations you care about the 501(c)(3)s that depend on kind donations to continue doing the greatest good than you could do as an individual? Who is going to make your annual donation when you’re gone?

Finance 101: A Lesson in Helping your Student Pay for College

You think back fondly on those halcyon collegiate days--studying in the quad, late-night pizza, tailgating for the big tailgating game, dorm living, tossing your graduation cap in the air...beyond the lifelong friends and the parties and fun, college helped you get to where you are today. Looking ahead, your student is planning on following in your footsteps and will be receiving that admissions letter of acceptance sooner than you think.

In the realm of financial planning, time is our most valuable asset.  It’s available to all of us, providing each individual with the same opportunity to optimize its value in building wealth. It’s the only resource we all have over which we have some degree of control. However, it is a wasting resource if it is not optimally utilized.  Each day that passes, without some contribution of money, either in savings or interest, the cost of our financial goals increases. As time marches on, the obstacles to achieving goals of any time horizon become increasingly insurmountable. 

Here’s a thought: retirement doesn’t mean the end. It doesn’t mean an end of self-importance or purpose, it just means a new chapter—a paradigm shift of what life is beyond long days and meetings and bosses. Unless you own your own business, and even then, you are not your business.

Answer this riddle: what’s the one thing that will eventually happen to everyone, but generally, no one wants to discuss? Death is a subject that immediately conjures up all sorts of emotions because, let’s be honest, the absence of being IS emotional. But, death is also cause for practicality.

Although the stock prices are trading near their all-time highs, it hasn’t exactly been a joy ride for retirees who are counting on their retirement plans for a lifetime of income.  The type of unruly market action that we have seen over the last few months always unleashes a flurry of “expert” commentary that seems to be directed at those who are most vulnerable to flash

No one could have foreseen the convergence of two of the most consequential economic events in our history – the mass migration of the Baby Boom generation into their final life stage and the tectonic shift of a declining global economy.  Unhinged stock market volatility, rising health care costs and historically low interest rates on savings have caused millions of pre-retirees to r