Helping pave the way towards financial freedom
Do you remember when a million dollars used to be the gold standard for the amount to have saved at retirement? Well, as we all know, a million dollars is not what it used to be! Knowing how much you need to save is certainly important, but your target should not be arbitrary. It could…
The average American checks their phone 96 times a day. While phones may have become a central piece of our lives, this is once every 10 minutes! Entirely too much, wouldn’t you agree? This has also made it easier for people to check on their portfolios. Whether it’s pulling up news and quotes on Yahoo…
Even though we know it was just dumb luck, can we get a round of applause for seeming to forecast last month’s surprisingly strong market returns? It’s almost (but not really) as if the market were reading our mind when three broad U.S. stock indexes ended July 2022 with their best returns since 2020—up 9.1%,…
Often, all you need to be an excellent investor is a healthy dose of common sense: A penny saved is a penny earned. Buy low, sell high. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. That said, the best way to achieve these simple goals isn’t always as obvious. In fact, many of our favorite…
The yield curve is flattening (or growing steeper)! … Yield curve spreads are widening (or narrowing)! … The yield curve has inverted (or normalized)! Headline-grabbing yield curve commentary somehow sounds important, doesn’t it? Specifically, the media has recently talked about an INVERTED yield curve. But what is a yield curve to begin with, and what…
How often do you think about retirement? According to studies, most of us think about it a lot — at least four times a week! We think about when we’ll retire and how we’ll spend our time in retirement. And as exciting as that can be, it can also be nerve-racking to think about trying to…
My post today was inspired by some recent conversations with clients about using an appropriate time horizon for their retirement plan. With financial planning, we often have to input certain data assumptions into a software program. Amongst the assumptions are the expected age my clients will live. This not an easy discussion to have, and…
Whew… What a month this has been. What a year this has been! I feel like I’ve got many more gray hairs than I did in September. How about you? How are you feeling? I have done a decent job managing the amount of media content I absorb in 2020. I used to be addicted…
Let’s talk about climate change. The wildfires, hurricanes, and floods we’ve seen in 2020 (on top of an already-awful global pandemic) make this an important conversation to have. We all know what “weather” is. It’s what we feel outside, day to day. Climate is defined as the “usual weather” of a place. So “climate change”…
Since 1997 I have been helping people with their money. Thousands of conversations later, with people from all walks of life, I think I’ve seen every possible mistake made. Don’t get me wrong. We all make mistakes. But as the old saying goes, “Only a fool keeps making the same one”. Humans by nature are…