How New Online Tools Will Save One Woman Tens of Thousands of Dollars Per Year

April 30, 2015

Last week, I wrote about my three favorite online investment services. This week, I’ll show you an example of how a couple of those tools saved a friend’s mother tens of thousands of dollars. When I spoke to my friend, his mother had just retired with a $1 million portfolio and he wanted to know how she should invest it for retirement. Since we can’t provide specific investment advice at Financial Finesse, this was a rare opportunity for me to be more hands-on. Here’s what we did: Continue reading “How New Online Tools Will Save One Woman Tens of Thousands of Dollars Per Year”

How to Invest for Income When Rates Are Rising

September 19, 2013

One of the biggest challenges facing current and future retirees is shifting from investing for growth to investing for income. This is especially difficult in today’s environment of low and possibly rising interest rates. Let’s start by taking a look at some options for getting investment income in retirement: Continue reading “How to Invest for Income When Rates Are Rising”

When Enough is Enough

March 07, 2012

After my stepfather passed away, my mom started working with a local bank to manage her investments.  At the time, I was living in California and it was difficult for me to help her with investment decisions.  Plus, I had always warned my clients that allowing family members to get involved in your investments was a bad idea because you could always fire a stranger but you can never fire a member of the family.  It was with this in mind that I allowed her to continue this relationship despite my occupation as a financial planner. Continue reading “When Enough is Enough”

Searching for the “Holy Grail” of Mutual Funds: Less Risk and Higher Returns

October 13, 2011

In the last few blog posts, we discussed the danger of the “greed, hope, and fear cycle” (in which people tend to earn below average returns by buying high and selling low) and some ways to overcome it by diversifying and rebalancing your portfolio to earn the average return. But what if you were to actually buy low and sell high?  Could you actually earn the “holy grail” of higher returns and lower risk that way? Continue reading “Searching for the “Holy Grail” of Mutual Funds: Less Risk and Higher Returns”

Dividends Aren’t Enough

April 18, 2011

Dividends are a beautiful thing.  Last week I wrote about my mother-in-law’s bond fund that paid her a steady stream of dividends over the years – twenty five years to be exact.  Every month, the dividend came like clockwork and she spent it.  Now she is using the funds to pay for her care – she is 97.  This strategy worked for her because she has other funds invested in other types of vehicles.  Here is the problem with using the dividend strategy as the only strategy—even if the dividend doesn’t increase, the cost of goods and services do.  So the dollar buys less and less each year. Continue reading “Dividends Aren’t Enough”

Dividends Matter

April 11, 2011

I thought about the power of dividends when I worked on my mother-in-law’s taxes.  She has been selling off an investment to help pay for her care and as the one who helps her with her taxes, I had to find her basis (what she originally paid for it) to report it on her tax return.  She’d owned this mutual fund as long as I’ve known her and that means she has been taking a dividend from it for almost 20 years.  When I dug into it, what I found was that she had a loss – her initial investment not only hadn’t grown but was less than she put in.  What a disappointment! Continue reading “Dividends Matter”