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A Christmas Gift that Potentially Keeps on Giving

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  Christmas is a wonderful time of year that brings an abundance of joy through Faith, family, fellowship, and gift-giving. Many of our clients have children and grandchildren they would like to get Christmas gifts for.  Rather than material items such as toys or video games their children or grandchildren would be happier to receive cash or a gift card to their favorite store so they can buy what they really want. However, what if you could put that cash or gift card money to work for them so that it could provide opportunities for them in the future? There are several ways for a parent or grandparent to invest money for their kids or grandkids. My goal is to highlight a few of the many possibilities.  Depending on your goals and financial situation some of the options discussed in this article may be a fit while others may not.  Additionally, there may be other options for investing in the next generation that is not covered in this article. A 529 College Savings Plan , while not
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Thinking about Retirement

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Thinking about Retirement? Factors to Consider Before Deciding I am sometimes asked by my clients: can I afford to retire now?  If not, when does it look like I could retire? The first question I ask is, is your job stressful? The next step is to “run the numbers”.  It is probably a good idea to get a financial planner to help you navigate a software program designed to determine if you have enough money to maintain your lifestyle during retirement. The most important item to determine and perhaps the most difficult number to come up with is, how much money do you need to have coming in each year during retirement so that you can live as you want. To make it a little easier to come up with this number, think about how much income you need if you retired right now.  Forget about inflation and taxes.  Your planner can help you with that.  If you are doing this alone, then your software program will allow you to input an inflation number.  For taxes, you can look at what your adjuste
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Social Security

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When To Draw Your Social Security I am often asked when should I start drawing my social security?  Generally, I tell people to start drawing when they need the money to maintain their lifestyle.  The exception being when they turn 70 years old.  Always start by age 70. If you wish to begin your social security benefit before your full retirement age which is 66 if you were born between 1946 and 1954.  (You are faced with not being able to earn more than 18,960 per year before you must start giving some of the social security benefits back) If you were born after 1954, for every year after 1954 you add 2 months.  If you were born in 1955, your full retirement age is 66 and 2 months.  This continues until if you were born in 1960 or after, then your full retirement age is 67. You only have to worry about the new money that you earn for working.  Interest, dividends, and pensions do not count against you, only new earned income. When you reach your full retirement age, you can earn a
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Ideas to Consider When Investing in Today’s Markets

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Do you feel comfortable investing today in the stock market?  Many people are apprehensive about putting money in the market right now.  Some of the reasons are: The market seems very high.  When the market is high, you hear sometimes days in a row that new records are being set.  Well once a new high has been reached, the indexes can go up only one point which is really nothing, yet the news media excitedly reports that a new record high has been reached. I have been in the financial planning business for 44 years.  For the most part, my clients who I have done the best over the long term are the ones who stayed in the market.  But that can be hard to do especially if you are over 55 years old. One of the ways you can mitigate the risk of putting new money in the market is to use the old dollar-cost averaging method.  An example of dollar-cost averaging is as follows: In this example, you deposited $10 per month for 3 months.  The first month the price per share
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A look at Protection: Floors and Buffers

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Protection: Floors and Buffers When I meet with prospective clients and even current clients, a lot of times they will tell me there are three things they want from their investments; make as much as they can, not lose their principal, and have full liquidity. My response is always the same, I can do all three of those but not in one single investment. In order to have the protection of principal, unless you put your money in the bank where currently one earns very minimal interest or as like to call it .0 nothing, you must be willing to give up full liquidity. For people that are willing to do that with a portion of their monies that they feel strongly about protecting, there are two strategies that can be used to get solid protection and upside potential. A floor strategy is used by insurance companies in certain annuities that give the client a floor or stop loss on the amount of money they can lose in a contract year or defined time period the insurance company proposes. The upsi
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Roth Conversions

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Roth Conversions Interest There seems to be more interest in Roth conversions this year. The reason people are asking more questions about Roth conversions is because of the tax-free growth that Roths provide coupled with the concerns of many people that taxes are going to go up sometime in the next few years and not only on people earning more than 400,000. When you convert to a Roth IRA, you should always pay the taxes with outside of IRA after-tax dollars. If you have $100 in an IRA, you don’t really have $100 you can spend. If you have $100 in a Roth IRA, you actually have $100 you can spend. By converting a traditional IRA into a Roth you are supersizing your retirement asset. In addition to future tax-free growth, another advantage for some Roth owners is that they do not have to take required minimum distributions. Also, their beneficiaries can continue to grow the Roth they inherit for another 10 years tax-free in most cases. The disadvantage of converting a traditional
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Financial Investment Tips: How to Get Prepared for Investing and Starting a Portfolio

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  You don't have to have a high IQ or MBA to succeed on the stock market, or in any other form of investing. All you need is some good resources, advisors, and access to financial investment tips. No, you're probably not going to become rich overnight, but you can still come up with a good long-term strategy. There are always two very powerful tools to keep in mind: time and compounding interest. At any rate, you really need to make sure you have the best resources. You don't need to have a lot of money to invest, as trading commissions and broker fees are a lot more affordable now in the age of the internet. If you've never invested before, the best time to start is now. The earlier you start, the more time you'll have. Financial Investment Tips Anyone Can Use Here are a few financial investment tips for those who don't have a lot of knowledge or experience: • Before you even begin to buy any stocks, you'll need to pay off any high-interest debt you might h
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