Financial Planning

The Role of the Living Will

By |2021-01-19T13:13:24-05:00January 19th, 2021|Financial Planning|

Go to an attorney for a Will and you’ll get not one document, but several—the Will, a Durable Power of Attorney, a Health Care Power of Attorney, and what may be the most overlooked and under-appreciated of the documents, a Living Will. The Will lays out what happens after you die. The other three documents focus on what happens while [...]

What To Do After Your Spouse Dies: A Checklist

By |2021-01-14T14:28:36-05:00January 14th, 2021|Financial Planning|

The wife of a friend of mine passed away recently. He’s going through the grief and loneliness you’d expect after being married 53 years. And now he has a new challenge, one I’ve seen with so many other widows and widowers—dealing with the long list of legal and financial items that come up after the death of a spouse. The [...]

The Estate Planning Excuses Game Show

By |2021-01-11T10:55:08-05:00January 11th, 2021|Estate Planning, Financial Planning|

Welcome to the show, where you, as part of the studio audience get to hear some of the most common reasons why people don’t plan for the distribution of assets after they’re gone. Listen closely, so you don’t make the same excuses. Okay, maybe that’s a little over-the-top, but not creating an estate plan, even a basic one, opens the [...]

IRA Required Minimum Distributions Get Smaller – By a Little

By |2021-01-04T09:14:10-05:00January 4th, 2021|Financial Planning, Retirement|

It’s a tiny little gift from the IRS, but it’s still a gift. Beginning January 1, 2022, Required Minimum Distributions on IRAs, qualified retirement plans, and annuities will be less. It’s your reward for living longer. RMDs have to be taken by people turning age 72 after 2019. Older taxpayers were required to begin RMDs the year after they turned [...]

Take Advantage of These COVID Estate Planning Opportunities by the End of 2020

By |2020-12-07T09:00:51-05:00December 7th, 2020|Estate Planning, Financial Planning|

May you live in interesting times. Although that sounds like an ancient blessing, it’s believed to be a Chinese curse casting instability and uncertainty on the person who hears it. Blessing or curse, it’s a great description of the year we’ve just come through, and in spite of all the turmoil, there are some things you can do before the [...]

2020 Year-End Financial Checklist

By |2020-11-30T08:53:03-05:00November 30th, 2020|Financial Planning|

The end of the year is always a good time to do a little financial maintenance, take advantage of last-minute tax deductions, and get your financial house in order for next year. Here’s a checklist of some items to consider.   Tax-Loss Harvesting Do you have losses in your investment portfolio? It may be to your advantage to take them [...]

How to Guarantee a SMALLER Social Security Benefit

By |2020-11-23T10:16:14-05:00November 23rd, 2020|Financial Planning, Retirement|

Social Security, although originally intended to be a supplement to Americans’ retirement income, has become a major source for many. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that half of senior citizens get 50% of their income from Social Security and that 1 in 4 seniors receive 90% of their retirement income from Social Security. A new Transamerica study [...]

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