Blog | Podcast Appearances
Are you worried about Evergrande?
As many clients have noticed, the stock market, measured by the S&P 500 Index, has dropped for 9 of the last 12 trading days. This has caused a few worried clients to reach out, particularly after the stock market fell another 1.7% on Monday, Sept. 20th.
Don’t Buy a Home for Financial Reasons: Your Home is Not an Investment
The “American Dream” is different for each of us, but there is one common thread. It has been drilled into our heads for decades that a part of the “American Dream” is to own your own home. Add in HGTV home remodel shows, Youtube videos about making money in Real Estate and historically low interest rates (driving up home prices while keeping mortgage payments down), and you have a recipe for irrational excitement around home ownership.
3 Big Things About Snowflake Open Enrollment
Open Enrollment, that time when you get a bunch of emails from HR but never seem to find the time to look into it. Then, on the last day, you just keep things the same as last year…
Give More To Your Heirs, Not the Government
Since 1997, the estate tax exemption has been increasing with the tax rates dropping. This means that estate tax planning has not been a factor for many people. Looking ahead, there are a few things to look out for, and, depending on your current and projected estate size, you may want to begin taking steps here in 2020.
Another Way to Think About Spending: Taxes, Fixed Expenses and Variable Spending
In our first two posts on financial independence, we focused on saving instead of spending and on increasing your savings rate. But, what if you’re trying to find more room in your “budget” to save more money? How should you think about approaching your spending?
The Power of a High Savings Rate
In the first post of this series (“Making A Game Out Of Budgeting”), we talked about focusing on Savings Rate. Today, I want to dive a little deeper into the Power of a High Savings Rate.
Making a Game out of Budgeting
I have former clients who could never get their spending under control and spent every dollar they earned, even though they were making close to $500k per year. At the same time, I have a few clients that have never made anything close to 6-figure salaries and yet have retired when they wanted to, living a better lifestyle now than when they were earning a paycheck! So what’s the secret? It’s all about Savings Rates, not income.