So NOT Fun, but Oh, So Important!
Tracking expenses, I don’t believe that anyone would say that is fun. In fact, that task is probably the furthest from fun, which is why so many people avoid it. I haven’t exactly found a way to make the tedious task any more fun but I do have some tips to make it...
It Pays to Pay Attention!
I feel like I spent my entire morning on the phone. It started with our health care provider’s billing office because we received a bill which had not first been submitted to insurance. I was there with Jeff the day of his appointment where we completed all the...
Shopping With A Financial Planner
I often wonder what my friends think when they ask me to go shopping with them. Are they worried I’ll judge them? Is shopping with a financial planner like going out to eat with a nutritionist? Will they think I’m mentally calculating how much they are spending and...
Define Your Goals
I start at the same place in every initial meeting I have with my clients. We discuss their goals. Often times, this is the first time they have actually taken the time to really think about their goals. They may have a general idea but haven’t explored many...
Plan To Change
It seems like forever since I last posted. It’s been a busy few weeks between adding a new puppy to our family, traveling down to visit my step-daughter at college, a few home improvements, and one late-season summer vacation. We're back and I'm working on some new...
Involve Your Kids With Back To School Shopping
I can’t believe it, but school is already back in session for some and will be soon for the rest. This means it is time to stock up on those schools supplies: pencils, notebooks, backpacks, lunch boxes, and all of the other essentials. Kids usually have an opinion...
Too Much of A Good Thing?
Remember the scenes in Forest Gump where Bubba is listing all of the ways you can prepare shrimp? Sometimes I feel like that when I’m describing all the mutual fund options out there. You have large-cap value, large-cap growth, small-cap, mid-cap, international,...
The Cupcake Wheel
One of my favorite games at my hometown’s fair is the “Cupcake Wheel”. For a quarter you can buy a square on the board. They spin a big wheel with corresponding numbers on it and if the wheel ends on your number you win a box of homemade cupcakes! I remember one...
Size Matters! (Especially when it comes to investing.)
Large, Mid, Small… Are we still talking about investments? As if investment terms weren’t seemingly complicated enough, we throw in terms like: large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap. You may even hear micro-cap and nano-cap sprinkled in there. Really though, these...
The Big 3 – Stocks, Bonds, and Cash
In my last post I talked about some of the general risks associated with saving and investing. Today I want to talk about the three core types of investments (stocks, bonds and cash), called asset classes. There are other asset classes such as real assets (land,...
