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 […]
financial planning
The Second Most Important Factor to Investing Success
On these very pages not too long ago, I pointed out the most important factor to achieving investing success, which is consistent accumulation. The second most important factor? Asset allocation. Asset allocation is the process of dividing your investment “pile” into various different types of investments in an effort to maximize your exposure to the unique benefits of each type of asset class – while at the same time utilizing the risk as efficiently as possible. When it comes to asset allocation, there are two primary factors which help to determine how you might allocate your investment assets: risk tolerance and time horizon. Risk tolerance deals with whether or not you can sleep at night knowing that your investment could fall (or rise!) by 15%, for example. If you’re a person who feels compelled to monitor your investments every day and can’t stand it when you see a loss, you […]
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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 […]
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How We Can Serve You
I wanted to write a short post this week letting our readers know that even though the majority of them may not be located in the state of Illinois, we are generally still able to help and work with you should you want to use or services. Here are a few ways that we can make your experience working with us as “local” and as professional as possible. We use email – a lot. This is arguably the main way we communicate with clients. It’s not that we’re above using the phone, but with our schedules we are frequently out of the office. Email lets us stay in contact with you regardless of where we’re at. We use video conferencing. Whether we’re in the office or traveling for business we can easily have a face to face conversation with you if you’d like to put a face with the name. […]
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De-stress Your Investing
Over your working career is possible you’ll accumulate multiple retirement accounts if you switch jobs frequently and there’s also the possibility that you’ll have multiple IRAs depending on if you’ve moved switched advisers, or wanted to give a fledgling adviser their first sale. Eventually, annual statements start pouring in from all of these accounts and it can be difficult and stressful to keep track of all of the accounts and where your money is being held. For example, you may have to 401(k) plans from two previous employers in addition to the plan you have with your current employer. You may also have two or three IRAs that you’ve opened over the years and whether or not their traditional or Roth can complicate things even more. Here’s a way to organize your retirement account and reduce your stress when it’s time to receive statements. Consider combining your old 401(k) plans […]
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I Have the CFP®, Now What?
This week, several anxious individuals will sit in front of a computer screen at a testing center and will answer 170 questions over a six hour span. These folks are sitting for the national CFP® exam that’s given every March, July, and November. Question topics range from life insurance and annuities to taxation, investment planning, estate planning and ethics. Successful exams takers will be allowed to use the prestigious marks (assuming all other requirements are met). If you’re one of these folks – first of all congratulations! You put in a lot of hard work, studying, and relinquished personal time in order to be successful. You should be proud. But I would also encourage you to not fall to the temptation of thinking, “you’ve made it.” In other words, I hope the exam has taught you that there’s so much we don’t know as planners and the CFP® is merely […]
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Analyze your assets to avoid missing the mark
When we talk about financial fitness, one of the measures that is most important to the conversation is the value of our assets. There are really five different kinds of assets that we should consider: Personal Assets. Clothing, furnishings, and jewelry fit into this category. Most of this “stuff” decreases in value to less than half what we paid for it before we even get it home. Household Assets. This includes real estate, cars, and appliances. Most of these items either appreciate in value over time or provide a fair value over their life (in relation to renting the service). The total value of these assets must be reduced by any loans that we have against them – such as mortgages and auto loans. This will produce a net value of Household Assets. Employment Assets. Some employers still provide for a pension for their employees’ retirement. This pension has a […]
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Should You Delay Retirement?
The question of delaying retirement may arise as you get closer to your “goal year” of when you want to retire. For some individuals’ fortunate enough to be covered under a company or state pension, it can be tempting to retire as soon as possible and collect the pension benefit. The same may be true for folks wanting to start taking Social Security at age 62. Before making the decision to retire or retire early an individual should consider the effects on delaying retirement and continuing to work. This is assuming that they can accrue extra pension benefits for the extra years of service. For Social Security, this would be delaying past an individual’s normal retirement age as long as to age 70. For example, let’s say an individual has the opportunity to be eligible to retire at age 55 and receive a pension of $5,500 per month. However, if […]
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Should You Invest Dollars or Percentages?
In many employer sponsored plans such as a 401k, 403b, 457, or SIMPLE employees are generally given the option of deferring a fixed dollar amount or fixed percentage of their income. The question becomes which category to choose when initially enrolling in the plan and whether or not to change the original decision. Generally, the wiser decision is to choose (or switch to) the fixed percentage. The reason is that by choosing a percentage, you really never have to worry about increasing your contributions. For example, an individual starts a job earning $50,000 annually and decides to contribute 10% annually to his retirement plan which is $5,000 per year.
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The Most Important Factor in Retirement Saving
We’ve all been there: making decisions about the ol’ retirement savings account. It doesn’t matter if it is a Roth IRA, a traditional IRA, a 401(k), or a deferred comp plan, there are many different decisions that you need to make. It can be overwhelming, until you step back and realize that there are actually only three primary decisions to make about retirement savings: How much to contribute How to allocate between asset classes (stocks and bonds; as well as within the sub-classes like large-cap, mid-cap & small-cap stocks; corporate bonds, government bonds, etc.) Which funds/investments to choose
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Where to Keep Your Emergency Fund
Ask any qualified financial planner and they’ll generally tell you to have at least 3 to 6 months of living expenses set aside in order to fund a “rainy day” in the future. This emergency fund is there to help you pay bills such as your mortgage, utilities, and groceries in the event you lose your job, become disabled, or to pay for an unexpected emergency (such as a car or home repair). Some folks may need greater than 6 months expenses if they lose a job that may be hard to find again or a single income family that relies on one individual’s income.
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How to Choose a Financial Planner
Before you sign a contract or buy a product consider the following before choosing your financial planner. Make sure they’re a CFP®. At the very minimum, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ has the met the education, exam, ethics and experience requirements in order to be qualified to discuss your financial planning needs. Anyone can call themselves a financial planner, but not everyone is a CFP®. This should be the starting point of your search. Just because the planner is a CFP®, doesn’t mean you should automatically work with them.
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How to Easily Maximize Your IRA
Recently I had a chance to have some fun with some of my undergraduate students. Polling my entire class I asked them to make a list of wants (not needs) that they frequently spent money on. Answers varied from smartphones (and the respective bill), cable and satellite TV, dining out, coffee shops, beverages (you know which ones), and appearance (spending extra to dye hair, pedicures, etc.). Here’s a list of how each expense was broken down as told by the students. In other words, it was their numbers not mine.
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One of the Best Investments to Make
Traditionally when we think of investing our minds turn to stocks, bonds, mutual funds or real estate. While these may or may not be the best investments for an individual’s portfolio there is one investment that is almost always the right choice for any individual – human capital. Human capital is an individual’s worth of their own potential. Coined by economist Theodore Schultz, human capital can be invested in like any other asset in order to add value to an individual’s life through earnings, health, and quality of life.
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Forget to Take Your RMD?
In case you forgot to take your required minimum distribution (RMD) for 2014 there’s still hope in order to avoid the 50% (yes, that’s FIFTY percent) penalty of the amount not withdrawn. If you missed taking the RMD for 2014 here’s what you can do. According to the IRS the penalty may be waived if you can establish that it was due to reasonable error that you didn’t take the RMD and that reasonable steps are being taken to remedy the error. That is, take the 2014 RMD right away (or as soon as you can let your custodian know) and it might not be a bad idea to take the RMD for 2015 as well (just to be on the safe side). Once that’s done you or your tax professional need to fill out Form 5329 as well as a letter explaining the reason for not taking the RMD. […]
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”.