Life is an ever-evolving journey marked by significant milestones, personal growth, and unexpected changes. As life unfolds, your financial and insurance needs also shift, changing from year to year, decade to decade. A good example of this is life insurance. If you have a life insurance policy that you haven't reviewed recently, it [...]
Forty-two percent of Americans do not own any stocks or stock-related investments, according to a recent Gallup poll.1 Individuals may cite different reasons for not investing, but with important long-term financial goals, such as retirement, in the balance, the reasons may not be good enough. Why Invest? [...]
John and Mary are nearing retirement and they have a lot of items on their bucket list. Longer life expectancies mean John and Mary may need to prepare for two or even three decades of retirement. How should they position their money?1 One approach is to segment [...]
Most children stop being "and-a-half" somewhere around age 12. Kids add "and-a-half" to make sure everyone knows they're closer to the next age than the last. When you are older, "and-a-half" birthdays start making a comeback. In fact, starting at age 50, several birthdays and "half-birthdays" are critical to understand because they have [...]
Some of us share a common experience. You're driving along when a police cruiser pulls up behind you with its lights flashing. You pull over, the officer gets out, and your heart drops. “Are you aware the registration on your car has expired?” You've experienced one of the costs of procrastination. Procrastination can [...]
Traditional Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA), which were created in 1974, are owned by roughly 36.6 million U.S. households. And Roth IRAs, created as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act in 1997, are owned by nearly 27.3 million households.1 Both are IRAs. And yet, each is quite different. [...]
Predicting exactly what your retirement will be like is about as possible as a meteorologist predicting the weather correctly every single time. In fact, few retirees find their financial futures playing out precisely as they assumed. But, understanding some of the more common assumptions about retirement may help you get closer to your [...]
Much is written about the classic financial mistakes that plague start-ups, family businesses, corporations, and charities. Some classic financial missteps have been known to plague retirees, too. Calling them "missteps" may be a bit harsh, as not all of them represent errors in judgment. Either way, becoming aware of these potential pitfalls may [...]
Taking withdrawals from a traditional portfolio exposes fixed-income investors to “sequence of returns” danger. In other words, experiencing negative returns early in retirement can deplete your portfolio more quickly than expected and potentially undermine the sustainability of your assets. So you may want to consider a couple of strategies to help manage this [...]
"If the current annual inflation rate is 3 percent, why do my bills seem like they're 10 percent higher than last year?"1 Many of us ask ourselves that question, and it illustrates the importance of understanding how inflation is reported and how it can affect investments. What [...]
