Financial Planning – Investments – Insurance & Risk Management
Recently friends have been asking me to help them with their 401k selections at their workplace. Most of them are pretty standard, a list of mutual funds, roughly 30-50 investment choices with percentage drop-down boxes and rebalancing options. While reading into some of the investment choices, I noticed that many mutual funds have what are [...]
QE1, then QE2 and now QE3. Here’s a brief video that discusses this topic. http://bloom.bg/RNklXc I would like to just add a few things. First, I agree in that equities is where it is at. With bond prices driven to what they are now, the yields are so small and when, not if, [...]
There has been many articles and news about how great ETFs are and how they provide great ways for people to get exposures to specific markets or sectors. This is true and can be seen by the flood of money that has entered ETFs in the past 5-10 years. You may wonder what an ETF [...]
So we all know when people buy a home, they generally put 20-40% down and get a loan from their local bank in the form of a mortgage. This mortgage takes the form of a monthly payment coming out of our wallets. We also know that we get a tax deduction for property taxes and the [...]
College can be very hard to afford for your children. We wont’ go into whether it is worthwhile or the details of the planning/savings for it, but one investment vehicle that may be helpful is the 529 plan. There are quite a few articles out there, but I wanted to cut it down to the [...]
A few years ago we all received a Social Security Statement in the mail every year without fail. Normally we would just take a quick look and then toss it into the trash. But as you get older, you start paying more attention to this statement. For those in their late 50′s and early 60′s [...]
Sometimes when we meet with potential clients for consultations they wonder how much they will benefit from a financial plan and if it is worth it. Normally I would provide some statistics or numbers, but I am unable to do so. If I took a survey of all my clients, the sample size would be too small. As [...]
Should I convert my 401k/Traditional IRA into a Roth? When is it worthwhile? There is a very easy way to answer this question assuming you do not take into account the fact that many company sponsored 401k’s are more limited in investment choice. If we just compare a Traditional IRA vs a Roth IRA, we [...]
Just a quick note. With cost of living adjustments, the 2012 contributions for 401ks, 403bs and 457′s has increased from 16,500 to 17,000 this year. Make sure you contribute 17,000 instead of 16,500 for this 2012 year.
It’s always pretty important to know what and how you’re paying for, especially with investments and advice. We mentioned this in our mutual fund fee analysis post. Advisors come in all sorts of shapes and sizes but there are 3 main methods of charging. Fee only, Fee based and commission. Fee only means the advisor [...]