One of the big discussions in the profession is choosing the age retirement should be planned to. Should it be age 95? Age 100? Some other age? Here’s a good brief discussion on the implications of choosing an age: “How Life Expectancy Affects Retirement Planning” by Mark Miller at Morningstar. Assuming you’re younger than in […]
You’ve probably got a dinner invitation in your mail. Free dinners are popular marketing ploys. “The hook” is the free meal. You bite. The salesperson reels you in with a compelling presentation. They land you when you buy what they’re pitching. No surprise – typically it’s an annuity. Why typically? Because they have high commissions, […]
What can you do if you start your Social Security benefit and later change your mind? Why would you do that? Say you go back to work and no longer need the Social Security income, or you have other sources of income to draw from and wants your Social Security benefit to build delayed credits […]
What is the true source for the cost of delayed savings, or the cost of waiting? Most articles focus on the lost dollars, which is true. But why are those dollars lost? Please read the insert below (and a link to the post in case those who get these by email can’t access the embedded […]
Most people have the illusion that they have steady income. This is another example of recency bias (as it relates to income in this post) where people have become accustomed to their current income and forget it wasn’t always as it is now. It may have been lower, or even higher for some. Want to prove […]
“Tariffs are one of the oldest trade policy instruments, with their use dating back to at least the 18th century. Historically, the main objective of a tariff was to raise revenue (my emphasis). In fact, before ratifying the 16th Amendment in 1913 and formally creating the income tax, the U.S. government raised most of its revenue (taxes) from tariffs. Even so, […]
The Happiness Equation, as it relates to investing, is an interrelationship between your perceptions and expectations of investing and events. How do you manage happiness when you can’t manage the markets or the events that influence the markets? The inserted article below explains. The happiness equation from Better Financial Education Note: Your […]
When it comes to debt, there are many different kinds. There is mortgage debt (primary mortgages, second mortgages, lines of credit, etc.), vacation home or secondary residences, credit cards, education loans (both owed by students, or by parents and/or grandparents), vehicle debt, and other miscellaneous debts (e.g., loans against pensions or life insurance). I’ve written […]
WOW! The DOW “plunged*” 602.12 points on the 12th of Nov 2018! (at the time I write this) That translates to JUST 2.32% down from the previous market close. So … not so wow after all. Here’s what I mean … you need to begin thinking in terms of percentages, not points, when the DOW […]
You may hear, when markets get “volatile,” that there are more sellers than buyers. Can that even happen? What does that phrase even mean? BTW, you hear it too in any market, including the real estate market. The article below, “A Question of Equilibrium,” explains the basics of how buyers and sellers always agree […]
