Short Reads
Green Line and a Number
The achievement of financial goals is not accomplished by randomly throwing money at investments or just hoping you have enough to retire. You really need a Plan.... or at the very least, a number. The idea of “your number” can be powerful if it is associated with a...
The Changing Picture of Wealth
According to the Small Business Administration 7.8 million of all U.S. private companies are owned by women, which is 29% of all registered businesses. Another interesting consideration that ties into this is that more than one-third (37%) of the affluent population...
The Ethics Dilemma
In today’s complex world, most people need help allocating, protecting and passing on their resources, or managing their financial risks and investments being tagged for retirement. Professional financial advisors play an essential role in helping people do that....
Longer lives demand attention to investment strategy
According to Social Security, the average life expectancy for a male or female having reached the age of sixty-two is 83% and 85% respectively. According to Actuarial Consultants, Inc., sixty-five year olds have greater than a 50% chance of living beyond age 87...
Times Two
At the last hour of 2012, Congress made a decision to make permanent the estate tax exclusion amount to $5.12 million (indexed for inflation) and a gift tax rate of 40 percent. Also made permanent was the “portability” of personal exclusions between spouses introduced...
Keeping Beneficiary Names Fresh
Updating beneficiary information is an important and often overlooked part of Estate Planning and what better time than now to review? Conflicting beneficiary designations can undermine an estate plan, locking it in a Probate Court battle. Case in point: directing...
The Great Awakening
Once upon a time people retired at 65 with a reasonable expectation they could live out their remaining 12 to 15 years comfortably. Not anymore. So many today are anxious about just making ends meet, and they live in pretty nice neighborhoods too. Ask them to think of...
Where’s the Money?
Parents and students find themselves in a pickle once they receive acceptance notices from a university and wonder how they will come up with the difference between what they saved and what they are expected to pay. For incoming freshman, university scholarships may...
Coming up Short
People transitioning into retirement are having to make decisions on Social Security benefits as well as make projections on spending. In 2010, nearly 43% of all Social Security recipients were pulling benefits early at age 62 and 58% pulling before FRA. This...