Basics Archives - Illuminate Wealth Management

A Brief History of… the Financial Services Industry

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | Jun 6, 2024 | Basics, Investing

What is a financial advisor?

Do they hang out on the floor of the stock exchange?

Do they sell insurance?

Do they need to be plugged into their charging station at the end of the day?

The Financial Services Industry has change A LOT over the last 50 years.

Let’s look at the 3 major shifts in the way that mass affluent and high-net worth consumers have been served, as well as a look ahead to what is likely the 4th major iteration of advice in the coming decade, including the integration of Artificial Intelligence.

Paying for College

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | Oct 24, 2023 | Basics, College Planning

When it comes to saving, sooner is always better than later. But when it comes to planning for higher education, it’s never to late to make a gameplan.

FSA vs HSA – What are the differences and how do I use them?

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | Feb 28, 2023 | Basics, Employee Benefits, Investing

Put company benefits and IRS regulations together, and you’re just asking for complexity masked as an acronym. Many employers provide access to Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) or Health Savings Accounts (HSA) to employees to allow pre-tax payments of various expenses. Let’s dive into the different types and strategies around each.

Compounding Explained in a “Not Boring Way”

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | Aug 10, 2022 | Basics

It sounds like a word they would use on a farm.

As in, “I’ve got some compounding to do down on the back forty so I won’t be able to shuck corn with ya this afternoon”.

In reality, compounding is just one more of those financial terms that many have heard, but few can explain. The first thing you should know about compounding is, obviously, that it is fun to say. The second thing you should know about compounding is that it can be both a force of good and a force of evil in terms of your finances.

Don’t Buy a Home for Financial Reasons: Your Home is Not an Investment

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | Jul 13, 2021 | Basics, Investing

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.

Another Way to Think About Spending: Taxes, Fixed Expenses and Variable Spending

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | Jun 10, 2020 | Basics, Budgets, Financial Independence

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

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | Jun 4, 2020 | Basics, Saving

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

by Ben Hockema, CFP® | May 22, 2020 | Basics

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.

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