Retirement accounts and trusts…Could be like oil and water. If you have a substantial retirement account like an IRA or 401(k), it’s not uncommon to want to name a trust as a beneficiary. There are a number of reasons. Maybe you have underage children. Perhaps you are concerned that your heirs would spend everything the…
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Eeek… Just hearing the words “family meeting” can make you cringe, right? Most of us don’t have great memories of them. They’re usually called in response to conflict—especially when kids are involved—or to address topics no one really wants to talk about. And once the kids move out, these meetings seem to disappear altogether. But…
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Think back to the last time you took a vacation. Do you recall how much time you spent deciding your destination, where you would stay, transportation, dining, and activities for your trip? It may surprise you to know that travelers typically spend an average of 303 minutes (over 5 hours) PER DAY on travel content…
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This might be an easier question to answer than “what is new in DC?” It feels a bit like drinking from a fire hose, so we thought it might be beneficial to zero in on some things that are important to the families we serve. #1…Which, by the way, is my favorite! The on again,…
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While looking for some entertaining statistics on how much exercise equipment is bought in January, I found out why Presidents Day sales are so good. It falls in line with all the returns made on the New Years Resolution items from January. In one way or another this rings true for all of us. I…
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48% – The chance that you will need some type of paid long-term care services in your lifetime. 1 70% – The chance that you will need some type of severe long-term healthcare need if you are 65 today. 1 7 years – This is the average length of long-term care for a woman TODAY.…
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When you start your career in life planning and wealth management you realize every day is like drinking from a fire hose. As time goes on…it doesn’t really change. Unfortunately, there is ever increasing complexity that surrounds what seems to be the simplest of planning tools. IRAs, 401(k)s, and other like-kind retirement accounts are a…
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Wait…That doesn’t sound right! Retirement years are supposed to be “the easy years,” right? There is a saying (paraphrased) that states that what messes up most in life is the picture in our head of how things are supposed to be. Retirement is a prime example of this. We assume that if we work hard,…
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For many Americans, putting money back into a retirement account such as a 401(k) or traditional IRA has been their primary choice to save for retirement. After all, most company plans offer some sort of matching incentive based on what you contribute and your contributions are deducted from your taxable income. In fact, you may…
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Everything is so expensive! Can I still retire? For most of the last 30 years, we Americans have lived in a bubble where no one really understood first-hand what inflation was. There were a couple years from 1991-2020 that the cost of living increased by over 4%, but for most of these years the cost…
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