| Everyone should have a financial plan, but, if you ask me, nobody needs a financial plan more than a woman. Why? Here are five good reasons: READ MORE |
Category Archives: Newsletter – “Tips & Strategies to Steer By”
When is a financial planner not a financial planner? More often than you might think.
You’ve decided to hire a “Financial Planner.” That’s the easy part. Now comes the hard part — should that person be an investment advisor, realtor, CPA, or insurance sales person?Frankly, it’s not immediately obvious who you should choose. READ MORE
When’s the right time to refinance your mortgage?
That seems like a question with an obvious answer, right? You refinance when the interest rate on the new loan is lower than your rate on the current loan. But how much lower? And is it really as simple as subtracting one rate from another and signing on the dotted line? READ MORE
What a difference a retirement plan and a reverse mortgage can make!
“I can’t afford to retire!” That’s the fear expressed by many of my new clients. In fact, it’s often the reason that my clients come to me in the first place.
While I can’t wave a magic wand to create the necessary retirement savings, I can help you to stretch the savings you already have.
Let me give you an example. READ MORE
Monitoring the “speedometer” of your financial plan
You receive a late night call from your son or daughter. They’ve taken a short cut on the way to visiting you, but they’ve run out of gas and they’re lost. You want to help them, but first, you’ve got to figure out where they are.
It’s a situation that reminds me of how a lot of my financial planning engagements begin. Simply by seeing a financial planner, my clients have started on the right road to meet their financial goals. READ MORE
HARP 2.0 to the rescue
If watching home values fall and gas prices go up leaves you feeling like you’re caught in the middle and being squeezed real hard, it may be time to make some changes in the financial areas that you can control. For most people, the place to start is with housing expenses.
If your housing expense is your largest expense, you may want to downsize or refinance. Can’t refinance because your home is underwater? Now you may be able to — thanks to HARP 2.0. READ MORE
Checking the health of your pension – mandatory or optional?
Checking the Health of Your Pension – Mandatory or Optional?
I don’t mean to spoil your sleep, but while you slumber peacefully in the early dawn, the United States Senate is proposing a change that could affect the required contributions to your pension. Should you be concerned? Ask the American Airline employees who found their plans underfunded when their employer declared bankruptcy. READ MORE
Student debt – the monster in the closet
The rising costs of education continue to put the “squeeze” on my clients’ retirement plans. The truth is that paying for your children’s college educations can cause real strains on vital retirement assets.
Sometimes, it’s too late for clients to re-establish their own retirement savings if paying the college expenses for their children has drained their financial resources. That’s something we may have been able to manage, and to prepare for, if these well-meaning people had met with me five or ten years earlier. READ MORE
When small change is hardly chump change
Since budgeting counseling is an important part of my financial planning practice, I get a kick out of finding easy ways to save money. So, when I read that there was an update on the Department of Labor’s progress toward their 401(k) fee disclosure laws, I was curious. After all, with better disclosure more transparency, and increased competition, it should be easier for every 401(k) participant to save on the fees that they pay for the administration and management of their accounts.
So far, Wall Street has claimed that disclosure is “too complicated,” READ MORE
‘Tis the season to shop and be merry
This is the time of year when I say that it’s not always better to give than receive. Don’t call me Scrooge. I want you to give only as much as you decided you would when you made your budget. (Don’t have a budget? That’s a different subject for a different day.) In other words, I am asking you to keep the promises you made to yourself. READ MORE