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How to Use Roth Accounts

How to Use Roth Accounts

I like to call Roth Accounts the “Never Taxed Again” account because you are taxed on the money you put in, but you are not taxed when you take it out nor are you taxed on the earnings.

How to Use Traditional Retirement Accounts

How to Use Traditional Retirement Accounts

Traditional Retirement Accounts are tax-deferred. This means you get a tax deduction when you put money in, and you pay tax when you take money out (usually in retirement). Most typically, these are your Traditional 401k and Traditional IRAs.

Why Diversification Works

Why Diversification Works

It is unfortunate, but to understand why diversification works, we must understand a little math. This mathematical magic is the key to constructing a portfolio that your well-thought-out financial plan deserves: a beautifully diversified investment strategy!

Why Use a Trust?

Why Use a Trust?

A revocable living trust is a legal method of passing assets from one owner to the next without going through probate. Trusts typically provide much greater protection for your wishes.

The Rising Cost of a Good Time

The Rising Cost of a Good Time

How much will you spend in retirement? This is an important question, and we can get nearly there by looking at your current expenses. However, the biggest determinant of your future spending is actually inflation.

Retirement May Not Mean You Actually Retire

Retirement May Not Mean You Actually Retire

How much time do you have left?Knowing the answer to this question would greatly ease your financial planning process. But, of course, this is one of the many variables we don’t know.

The Upside To A Market Crash

The Upside To A Market Crash

If you are in the savings/investing mode, would you rather stock prices today be over or under the true value of the companies you are buying?

The Importance of Having Access to Your Money

The Importance of Having Access to Your Money

Needing access to your investment accounts in an emergency creates enough of a logistical hurdle but holding investments that may take weeks or months to sell can really cause a problem.

Your Investments Should Be Experienced

Your Investments Should Be Experienced

When investing, it is easy to be attracted to the various vehicles, sectors, and strategies that surround us. Wall Street (and other financial agitators) knows this and they invent new angles every day with the primary goal of getting into your pocket.

Use The Markets Like a Tool

Use The Markets Like a Tool

Investing has become a game to most, but it should never be approached this way. From meme stocks to crypto, many of you are being far too cavalier with your investments.

A Guarantee That’s Not Truly Guaranteed

A Guarantee That’s Not Truly Guaranteed

Do you want a guaranteed investment return? If you answered yes, I hope you added the condition that it depends on who is providing the guarantee and what that guarantee actually is.

Don’t Just Do Something!  Stand There!

Don’t Just Do Something! Stand There!

The annual update to DALBAR’s Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior (QAIB) study confirmed once again that when we make moves in our portfolio, we are much more likely to be losers rather than winners.

Guns vs. Butter

Guns vs. Butter

We have limited resources, be they friends, family, money, skills, experience, or whatever. There is nothing we have that is without limit. The key to finding your own financial happiness is allocating your resources appropriately.

You Can Never Go Back

You Can Never Go Back

Our technological progress has only just begun. If you want to participate in this growth financially, the best approach is through company ownership in a diversified fashion among industries, geographies, and sectors.

Rebalance Your Portfolio

Rebalance Your Portfolio

Your Long-Term Portfolio has target percentages for each fund and asset class. We start investing by placing those amounts in each fund so that we are perfectly balanced. The day you initially invest will be the last day you are perfectly balanced.

Structure a Portfolio Whose Behavior in Market Crashes is Acceptable

Structure a Portfolio Whose Behavior in Market Crashes is Acceptable

If you are 40 years old, you will likely experience 5 to 8 more market crashes during the rest of your life. You can try to predict them and trade through them, but history says you won’t be successful as no one has ever done so through more than one or two.

Keep the Same Investment Strategy Regardless of Your Stage in Life

Keep the Same Investment Strategy Regardless of Your Stage in Life

The markets do not care what stage of life you are in. I know that sounds funny, but we can sometimes think we should invest differently because of something going on in our own life.

Have a Long-Term Portfolio Strategy in Place for Your Cash from Selling Company Stock

Have a Long-Term Portfolio Strategy in Place for Your Cash from Selling Company Stock

Once you have a plan in place to sell your Company Stock over time, be sure that money has some place to go. We don’t ever want our money to be without a job and the cash you get from your Company Stock is no exception.

Have a Strategy for Each Block of Vesting Shares

Have a Strategy for Each Block of Vesting Shares

No longer should we simply let these (newly vested shares) drift into our portfolio without a strategy or reason to hold vs. sell. Instead, we are going to develop a strategy for each block of vesting shares.