I recently spoke with a friend who has been talking to advisors about retirement planning. Since I am always curious about the client-advisor experience, I asked her what she was told. After hearing her, I told her that she was not getting advice. She was getting a sales pitch. Continue reading “How To Tell If You Are Getting Advice Or A Sales Pitch”
Spring is a busy time of year here at Financial Finesse. While we are always busy providing financial guidance with passion and objectivity, the tax season and the April 15th deadline provide an extra sense of urgency for many callers reaching out to us on the Financial Helpline. Many of the income tax specific calls we receive can be characterized as information seeking and tend to be reactive discussions. When you think about the tax filing burdens created by a complicated tax code, the IRS can strike fear into hard working taxpayers to try and get things right. Continue reading “Stop Going Through the Motions of Filing a Tax Return”
I recently received a panicked call from a friend of mine who had just graduated from graduate school with $120k of student loan debt. Since she had trouble making the payments, she signed up with the new “Pay As You Earn” student loan forgiveness program. Then she got an ugly surprise… Continue reading “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the New Student Loan Forgiveness Program”
When marital relationships come to a messy end, it can be difficult for the couple to find anything to agree on. One thing that men and women going through divorce generally do agree on is that arguing about money is a top predictor of divorce. Research suggests that arguments about money early during a relationship increase the likelihood of divorce. Many individuals who have gone through a divorce can attest to the fact that money quarrels don’t always end after the divorce proceedings have ended. In today’s blog post, my colleague Paul Wannemacher explores the financial impact of this emotional life transition. Continue reading “Don’t Turn Divorce Into A Costly Donation”
In recent weeks, millions of taxpayers have been realizing the true impact of the Affordable Care Act as they file their tax returns. It’s probably no surprise the individual mandate required most Americans to have health insurance coverage as of January 1, 2014. If you had employer-provided health insurance coverage for most of 2014 or you purchased coverage through a private exchange or directly from an insurance company, the health insurance mandate will not have an impact your taxes. Continue reading “Last Minute Tax Savings With An HSA”
It’s been hard to not pay attention to what is going on in the news business lately.Jon Stewart is leaving the Daily Show. Brian Williams has stopped reporting the news and has become the news. Continue reading “Conflating and Misremembering”
Years ago, I had a brilliant WWII veteran as a client, one of the smartest women I had ever met. She told me that she was so glad that women were finally advisors because it took her almost a decade to find the right advisor when she started looking in the 1950s and I asked her why. Her answer was that her due diligence saved her from many “Bernie Maddoffs” over the years. Her process can be almost a textbook case for how to look for and work with an advisor: Continue reading “A Time Tested Approach to Financial Advisors”
If Christmas is the most wonderful time of year, why does it always have to be followed by its stressy and messy cousin “Tax Time.” Remember that New Year’s resolution to get your financial life in order? Well, it’s not too soon to start organizing the files, papers and “stuff” needed to do your taxes. Continue reading “5 Tips to Make Tax Time Less Taxing”
What does the game of golf have in common with the financial planning profession? According to my colleague Paul Wannemacher, there are many parallels between the two. The financial planning process is all about aligning your money and wealth with your life goals and personal values. As Paul explores below, professional financial advisors have an important role in this process and your financial future should be treated with the highest levels of professionalism and integrity: Continue reading “The Nine Core Values of Financial Advice”
I have never been a big fan of shopping during the busy holiday season, where we are all encouraged to buy, buy, buy no matter where we turn. In fact, I personally prefer to do my shopping in the convenience of my home office and avoid the consumer-driven hustle and bustle as well as the traffic. Click, click, done! Continue reading “Last Minute Moves to Save on Taxes for 2014”
With New Year’s Eve celebrations right around the corner, it is important to know your limits.I don’t mean your limit on glasses of champagne and calorie intake, although those limits are also pretty important while you ring in the new year. Uncle Sam has some changes in store as we head into 2015. Continue reading “Know Your Limits”
Yeah, I know what you’re probably thinking. This is not the most exciting topic to think about and other areas of the financial life planning process such as money management, paying off debt, and investing for retirement tend to get more of our attention. Still, it’s worth a quick review on why life insurance is necessary and who should buy it. In fact, this part of the discussion should come before getting to specific amounts that you should own. Continue reading “Do You Have The Right Life Insurance Coverage?”
My oldest child, Rachel, is a junior in high school, and while we enjoy having her around the house, we know that soon she’ll be looking into college. In case you haven’t looked lately, the average cost for a four-year in-state public institution is $9,139—and that’s just for tuition and fees! Over four years, that’s going to cost upwards of around $40,000. By itself that might not seem so bad, but when you consider that Rachel has three younger brothers, that price tag starts to look awfully daunting. Continue reading “The Do’s and Don’ts of Student Loan Repayments”
What’s really scaring you this Halloween? If you have student loans, getting that bill might rank pretty high on the list. After all, no one likes owing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that will seemingly take forever to pay off. That doesn’t mean paying off your student loans should be your only or even top financial priority though. Here are some other goals that you might want to prioritize first. Continue reading “Are You Afraid of Your Student Loan Debt?”
It seems like every fall I try to take some time to enjoy a few minutes of solitude and reflect on the experiences of the current year. This is also a time where I usually acknowledge that the to-do list that I created earlier in the year still reveals some unfinished business. As a financial planner, I’ll admit that this includes some things on my family’s financial planning checklist that still need some attention. Continue reading “Why Wait Until Next Year to Plan Your Future?”
Football season is an exciting time of year as fall has officially arrived and even the hot and humid southern states get some relief. Personally speaking, I am a college football person. Although I may be an unbiased financial educator, there is admittedly a great deal of bias when it comes to my allegiance to certain colleges and universities on the football field. You will likely hear screams of “Roll Tide,” “Go Tigers” (the orange ones from Clemson in the Palmetto State), and occasionally “Go Wildcats” (K-State- I have to support my grad school) if you are in my neighborhood on a typical college football weekend. (Yes, similar to my investment portfolio, I like to maintain a diversified portfolio of schools to support but also have the documents to prove that I am not a fair-weather fan of the first two programs on my list.) Continue reading “Sometimes It’s Okay to Punt”
Last week, we discussed the dangers of using a commissioned-based financial advisor. One way to avoid those conflicts of interest is to work with a fee-only (not fee-based, which is fees PLUS commissions) advisor. Instead of selling investments for a commission, they typically charge a fee that’s a percentage of the assets they manage for you. You can search for a fee-only advisor through NAPFA, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. Continue reading “Should You Use a Fee-Only Advisor?”
I often like to question much of the conventional wisdom of the financial services industry so I was intrigued when I saw this article titled “The four most useless things financial advisors tell you” by Howard Gold. Instead, I found myself questioning most of the conclusions in the article itself as pretty useless (with one exception). Let’s take a look at each of these “four most useless things:”
Continue reading “The Three Most Useless Things a Financial Columnist Tells You”
Student loans may be viewed as a form of “good debt” because of the many doors a college education can potentially open throughout our lifetime.Still, paying off student loans can become a major headache (especially if you are trying to balance other competing financial priorities like paying off credit card debt or saving for emergencies). Total student loan debt in this country now exceeds $1 trillion and 7 out of every 10 college students graduate with student loan obligations. Continue reading “Student Loan Debt? There’s an App For That”
Occasionally, I’ll be in a conversation with a group of people and will throw out a random phrase and everyone has to give a quick response to it. Recently, the phrase I threw out to the group at happy hour was “Worst Thing Ever.” One of my friends, without hesitation, blurted out “New York Yankees fans!” As the group was made up of lifelong Baltimore Orioles fans, we all agreed that Yankees fans can be obnoxious but they aren’t the worst thing ever…close, but not quite. Continue reading “Worst Thing Ever”
