Category: Financial Planning
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Investors should be scared (from a former Registered Investment Adviser)
The stock market hit another performance record yesterday. That is not news because we’ve hit plenty of performance records lately as the stock market continues its five+ year record-making accent that started in March 2009. A glimpse of the five-year performance of any sector of the stock market chart (the S&P 500 in this case)…
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Busy week for financial planning news
It has been a busy week for financial planners who are trying to keep clients up to date with news affecting their wallets. Here are just four issues that are in the news: 1) A new US Supreme Court ruling calls into question the protections offered to IRAs and traditional planning for these assets. IRA…
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An Overview of Financial Planning Checklists
I’ve spent some time this past week investigating the topic of financial planning checklists. These are my rough notes: 1) I completely agree with Michael Kitces’ 2013 article on the topic where he notes that checklists should be – but are not yet – implemented as the workhorse of professional practice standards in the financial planning…
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Whole life insurance revisited
One of the most maddening topics for me as an adviser has been whole life insurance for working class clients. It is clear that whole life insurance is the #1 financial vehicle of choice for the “top 5 percenters” in the wealth scale, often through the corporate entities that they control, but what about the…
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Tax accountants: cheats vs. variance vs. incompetence
Yesterday I attended an IRS webinar on the topic of avoiding tax trouble. The topic of being diligent in choosing a tax preparer was discussed. The IRS is focused on having us avoid preparers who promote illegal tax schemes. The service says that a taxpayer should be able to recognize that if it sounds to good…
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A letter to my mortgage loan officer
I was unaware until this past week that residential mortgage lending rules had changed so sharply in recent months to now essentially preclude many self-employed people with a good credit history from qualifying for a mortgage loan. Fortunately, it seems like the impact of the adverse rules will be short-lived, according to the latest coverage in…
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The worst personal finance mistakes
The worst financial mistakes in each decade of life: 20s – over-spending and not saving 30s – combining finances, delaying life and disability insurance 40s – over-emphasizing college financing at the expense of retirement 50s – co-signing a loan 60s – underestimating the cost of future health care I’ve made the first three mistakes. Given…
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The problem with private scholarships
The burdensome application process combined with the financial aid ‘offset’ policy used by many universities undermines the value of small private scholarships. A number of small privately offered scholarships go unclaimed each year because of lack of qualified applicants. Students tell me it’s just not worth the effort to apply for them. I used to think…