This post is for an advisor just starting out in their career. Their work could range from working for a large broker-dealer, to a small financial planning firm with a few employees. The main point of this post is to give the advisor reading it some hope and inspiration. Having had experience working for both a large broker-dealer and a small firm (here at BFP) my hope is to give some advice thoughts as the advisor shapes their career. First, you are in one of the greatest positions in your career. You have the choice of determining how you want your career path to look. Determine the path and what type of financial professional you want to be moving forward. Identify if you are a hunter or a farmer. If you decide to be a hunter, you will spend the rest of your career “going for the kill”. This means […]
fiduciary
A Risk Management Checklist
Although many individuals have various risk management policies in place, sometimes those policies get brushed aside and every once in a while the dust needs to be wiped off of them and perhaps some updating needed. Here’s a checklist to consider the next time you review your risk management strategies. Auto Insurance – Review your coverage to make sure it’s still adequate. Liability limits of at least $250,000 should be the norm. Limits of $500,000 up to $1 million are better. If you drive an older car, consider raising your comp and collision deductibles or eliminating them altogether to save on premiums. Upside down on your car loan? Consider gap insurance. Better yet, don’t have a car loan. Home Insurance – Make sure your home is insured to its reconstruction cost. This is the cost to rebuild your home using today’s prices for materials, labor, etc. It is NOT the […]
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5 Ways to Handle a Falling Market
Given the recent market volatility and the uncertainty that comes with it here are a few things to consider to reduce potential stress. Some individuals can perhaps make the best of a rocky situation. Do nothing. Before reacting or making a decision that could affect your returns and income in the future, take a moment to think about the situation. Is it as bad as it seems? Is it just like the previous market dips? What happened afterwards? If you’ve decided on the correct asset allocation for your portfolio then expecting market dips should be the norm, not the exception. Revisit your goals. Remember the reason why you’re investing in the first place. Is it for retirement and you’re in your 30s? Is it for a college education and you have a 6 month old? Is it for retirement income and you have a family history of longevity? This point […]
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Tips for Tax Time
Given that it the start of tax season and individuals will be gathering and preparing their 2015 tax return information, I’d thought I’d put together some basic tax tips. Individuals may consider thinking about these items in order to have a smooth and (hopefully) stress-free 2015 tax season. Additionally, I’ve included a link to our 2015 Tax organizer. Please feel free to use it at your convenience to get your “tax ducks in a row”. Furthermore, please let us know if you’d like us to prepare and file your taxes for you. Many current clients have found Blankenship Financial to be cost effective and efficient compared to other big-named tax preparation services. As Enrolled Agents both Jim and I are well qualified to handle most tax matters and returns. And now with the tax tips… Beware the non-tax man cometh! Each year we field calls from clients and prospective clients […]
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Why People Don’t Trust Financial Advisers (and Used Car Salesmen)
Based on some recent experience I’ve had in trying to purchase a vehicle, I thought I’d spend some time on helping advisers new to the industry trying to build their businesses the right way. Additionally, it may help some advisors who are or were being taught the wrong way to deal with clients and prospective clients. Perhaps this post will be better understood if I share my recent (and unsuccessful) experience trying to purchase a different vehicle. Over the last month I’ve inquired both private sellers and dealerships regarding certain vehicles they had for sale. Of the many features and benefits available, I’ve made clear (at least to the dealers) what features and benefits are important to me. Like many car buyers, I am looking for good gas mileage, reliability, and affordability. What I am not looking for is pushy salespeople, sales pitches and closing techniques. Nevertheless, it’s what I’ve […]
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Without Action, Resolutions Don’t Matter
Given the start of the New Year it seems almost cliché to write a blog post about resolutions to make for 2016. While making resolutions is not a bad thing, I thought I’d spend some time talking about an arguably more important aspect to resolutions; and that is taking action. To help make some sense with the article I thought I’d share a personal experience. When I was in college I was considerably overweight. Between my junior and senior year I lost quite a bit of weight – about 75 pounds. I was never overweight growing up; I had just let poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle get the best of me. After the weight came off, several friends and family members asked me what I did and what my secret was. Really, there was no secret. It was simply eating less and exercising more. However, I became infatuated […]
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Your Year End Financial Checklist
As 2015 winds down it may be an ideal time to consider wrapping up (pun intended) some loose ends regarding your finances and getting ready to welcome 2016 financially prepared. Here’s a list of things to consider as 2015 comes to an end. Have you made your maximum IRA contribution for 2015? If you have yet to contribute the maximum to your IRA there’s still time. Individuals under age 50 can contribute $5,500 while those 50 and over can contribute $6,500. Individuals have until they file their 2015 taxes or the 2015 tax deadline (whichever comes first) to make their 2015 IRA contributions. Expecting a Christmas bonus? Your IRA is a good place to put it. Consider increasing the amount you contribute to your 401(k). If you’re not already maxing out your employer plan contributions ($18,000 if you’re under 50 and $24,000 if you’re 50 or older) consider increasing the […]
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Are You Biased? (Hint: Yes, You Are!)
There are several behavioral heuristics and biases that can lead to poor financial decisions. For brevity, we will focus on a few; mental accounting, the endowment effect, loss aversion and status quo bias. For each bias, we will provide a definition and then provide examples of how the biases can lead to poor financial decisions. Mental accounting is the way individuals code and evaluate transactions, investments and other financial outcomes. An example is when employees with access to company stock have 50 percent of company stock in their retirement plan and the remaining money split evenly between stock and bond funds. These employees make the mistake of owning too much company stock (not enough diversification). Mental accounting puts company stock into its own “asset class.” The endowment effect, developed by Richard Thaler is the tendency to place more value on an object once an individual owns it; especially if it’s […]
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Advice to the Masses May Not Apply to Individuals
Last week on my ride home from a meeting I had the opportunity to tune into a nationally syndicated talk show regarding personal finance. The host is very popular among listeners and has written several best sellers. Many churches and schools follow the financial program designed to educate individuals on how to set a budget, get out of debt and save for retirement. Generally, the advice given is applicable to many individuals. Sometimes it’s not. A listener called into the show and explained that she had approximately $100,000 in an annuity in an IRA. The annuity paid an interest rate of 2% and had a current surrender charge of 4% – just over $4,000. The caller was asking the host whether or not she should surrender the annuity and roll it over to a non-annuity IRA invested in mutual funds. In a matter of seconds the recommendation was to surrender […]
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Personality Influences Financial Decisions
The recent volatility in the stock market has everyone a bit uneasy – even folks who have worked with a trusted financial adviser for years. But if you’ve never worked with an adviser before, you may be surprised to find that one of the first things he or she will do is ask you to fill out a risk analysis questionnaire. This questionnaire is designed to help you understand your financial decisions and the process of making decisions. It’s all tied to your personality, your own unique world-view. Why is risk analysis important before you make decisions with your money? Risk tolerance is an important part of investing – that should be understood at the outset. But the real value of answering a lot of questions about your risk tolerance is to tell you what you don’t know – how the sources of your money, the way you made it, how outside forces […]
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How to Interview Your (Potential) Financial Adviser
As individuals need help with their finances and investments they will likely turn to the help of a qualified professional. Their future financial adviser may come via referral from a trusted friend or family member, or through an extensive Internet search. The following is a list of questions (and answers to look for) that individuals can ask their potential adviser to see if he or she is likely to be a good fit and more importantly, act in the client’s best interest. Are you a fiduciary? If yes, move to question 2. If no, thank them for their time and move to the next adviser on your list. Advisers that are fiduciaries are legally bound to put their clients’ best interests first. In other words, regardless of compensation, products offered or company affiliation, fiduciary advisers must act in the best interest of their clients. Everything else is secondary. How do […]
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How to Prioritize Your Time and Money
Sometime ago I wrote about needs versus wants. Along those lines I’d like to talk about priorities. It’s pretty common that we heard our friends or family say “I don’t have the time” or “I don’t have the money” (of course, we’ve never said these words). And periodically, I’ll hear these words uttered by my students (no time to study), generally after a not-so-good exam score. But what these folks are really saying is “It’s not a priority right now.” For many of us, it’s not about having more time or more money. It’s really about prioritizing the time and money we have. When we reprioritize what’s important to us, it’s amazing the things we can accomplish and the money we can save. Here are some tips to prioritize your time and money. In fact, for many folks time is money. Prioritize your savings. This can be done by paying […]
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Have You Saved Enough for Retirement?
One of the reasons that retirement funding is a mystery to most folks is the uncertainty that comes with trying to determine how much is enough – enough savings set aside so that we don’t run out of money during retirement. The answer to this question begins with an understanding of your day-to-day living expenses, and how those expenses may change in retirement. This is a simple enough process, although it does take some effort. The difficult part is to determine what the funding requirement is in order to provide the income you’ll need to cover your living expenses – for as much as forty years or more! There is a rule of thumb (more on this later) that you can use to come up with a rough guess – but without using sophisticated computer modeling and analysis, your level of assuredness is limited. According to a recent survey by […]
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How to Invest
Occasionally, someone will ask me a question in the following different ways: “Did you see what the market did today?” or “How did the market do today?” To be honest, I’d love to use the line that Charley Ellis has used from the movie Gone with the Wind; “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Professionally, my response is more in line with “I couldn’t tell you.” or “I don’t follow the market really.” The response is not meant to be rude or abrupt, but more to simply say that for most investors (myself included); they shouldn’t be worried about what the market is doing on a day to day basis. This is especially true for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. A price weighted index of 30 stocks is hardly representative of the market, yet it’s what most people think and refer to as “the market” when they ask […]
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Perspective
A number of years ago while in my garden I was tending to my raspberry patch. It had been a long winter and I feared that many had not survived the cold Wisconsin winter. In the spring, the vigorous plants shot through the soil and in just a few months I had a glorious stand of robust plants. To my chagrin, the tall, leafy canes were lacking berries. I didn’t even see any flowers blossoming. For two weeks I would go out and check the patch to see if there were any signs of blossoms or berries and each time I went out, I can back in to the house disappointed. Had something happened? I began to question what the winter had done to them or if I had prevented their fruiting in any way. After all, this was a pretty easy variety to grow and ever-bearing nonetheless. Just as […]
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There is No Free Lunch (or Dinner)
A few days ago my mailbox was graced with the postcard you see at the top of this post. In case the print is too small it’s essentially an offering for a free dinner at a local restaurant while the dinner’s hosts plan to offer a seminar on achieving more retirement income. My initial reaction was to laugh at the card, and then my laughter changed to concern. How many individuals were sent this malarkey? Here are some of the “finer” bullet points from the list of discussion topics: Avoid the long delays and costs of probate Opportunities and solutions to help protect your assets for the future Avoid significant tax losses when passing on your assets It became apparent that this free dinner seminar was nothing more than a sales pitch for a company to sell life insurance and annuities to unsuspecting individuals. A search on the Internet provided […]
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Why Financial Planning?
I am always advocating creating a plan for your financial life – but why plan? Maybe we can identify some factors which may motivate you to develop plans for your life, incorporating financial factors with the rest of your life. Following are some of the more important factors that you may want to think about: It is a way to prepare for the inevitable future. This fits in with one definition of planning, which is “intelligent cooperation with the inevitable.” Planning identifies problems and points the way to solutions. Taking a systematic, thorough look at the situation and thinking about the future possibilities can bring these things to light. It helps us to do first things first. In other words, it provides a rationale for assigning priorities. Should we save more for retirement, or for college? Should we pay off our home mortgage? Planning helps to coordinate your various goals […]
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Is a Reverse Mortgage Right for You?
As individuals near retirement there may be a need for additional income in order to support their living expenses in retirement. On this blog we have discussed creating income streams in retirement with annuities, Social Security optimization, and withdrawal strategies in qualified accounts. For some individuals these streams of income may not be enough. Another potential vehicle to assist with providing income in retirement is a reverse mortgage. Reverse mortgages are where an individual or couple uses the equity in their home to received monthly income payments. Generally, once the owners pass away or sell the home, the loan is paid off with the remaining equity in the home. There’s also a limit on the amount a homeowner can borrow. The most popular form of a reverse mortgage is the home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) offered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). To qualify, individuals must be […]
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Should You Self-Insure?
At some point in our lives the question arises as to whether or not it makes sense to keep some of the insurance we have. Please understand that this post is not about encouraging the reader to drop any insurance coverage, but perhaps give some perspective on whether or not it makes sense to do so. Consider the case of life insurance. Generally, the younger we are the more life insurance makes sense. When we’re young we have many years until retirement and have high human capital; the ability to earn great amount over our working lifetime. Our financial capital is very small; we haven’t accumulated any assets such as retirement savings. As we age, our human capital decreases. Our financial capital increases and is high when we retire. Thus the need for life insurance diminishes. It’s at this point that an individual can consider letting their term insurance policy […]
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The Power of Dollar Cost Averaging
If you’re like most investors systematically saving for retirement through their employer or with an IRA chances are you’re taking advantage of dollar cost averaging. Dollar cost averaging is a method of investing a specific dollar amount, generally monthly, no matter how the market is reacting. It’s also a way for an investor to fully fund a retirement account without requiring the maximum amount allowed in one shot. For example, let’s assume that an investor under the age of 50 wants to save to an IRA. The maximum contribution to the IRA for 2015 is $5,500. Should the investor want to save monthly and still invest the maximum allowed for the year, he would simply divide by 12 and invest a sum of $458.33 monthly. The beauty of this strategy is that the investor takes advantage of market swings, whether high or low. If the market is considerably high (as […]
Sterling Raskie, MSFS, CFP®, ChFC®
The latest in our Owner’s Manual series, A 401(k) Owner’s Manual, was published in January 2020 and is available on 
A Medicare Owner’s Manual, is updated with 2020 facts and figures. This manual is available on 
Social Security for the Suddenly Single can be found on Amazon at 
Sterling’s first book, Lose Weight Save Money, can be 
An IRA Owner’s Manual, 2nd Edition is available for purchase on Amazon. Click the link to choose the 
Jim’s book – A Social Security Owner’s Manual, is now available on Amazon. Click this link for the 
And if you’ve come here to learn about queuing waterfowl, I apologize for the confusion. You may want to discuss your question with Lester, my loyal watchduck and self-proclaimed “advisor’s advisor”.