Sending a child or grandchild off to college is an exciting time for a family. For the student, it’s an opportunity to leave the nest and begin the first phase of adulthood; for parents and grandparents, it’s a time to take pride in the years of hard work preparing the next generation for the real world. College is also the first time many young people become responsible for their own finances, and the habits they learn will help set the stage for their financial futures.
Preparing your estate in advance is one of the greatest gifts you can give your family. Many estates include real estate in the form of a primary home, vacation home, and other family properties. While inheriting a property can be a wonderful legacy, it also comes with obligations that heirs may be unprepared or unable to fulfill. If you intend to leave real estate to your heirs, ask yourself these five questions to help avoid creating problems for your loved ones.
By Jessica Kmetty
Backdoor payments, hidden fees, loopholes in the rules…these were the conflicts of interest buried in fine print that advisors who were not acting as fiduciaries used to chisel away about a quarter of their clients’ retirement savings. When the Department of Labor issued their fiduciary rule, the theme was clear: when advising clients on retirement, advisors would legally be considered fiduciaries required to put their clients’ best interests before their own interests and excessive profits and loopholes would no longer stand. This sounds great for the investor, but what about the hidden consequences?
If you have a furry friend, you know your pet relies on you for every need. What would your pet do without you? Although pets are legally considered to be property, to those of us who own pets, they’re more like members of the family. And so, just as you make preparations to care for the human members of your family after your passing, you need to think about how to look after your pets as well.
Here are some options that can help you ensure your pets are cared for if something happens to you:
By John C. Fales
Sometimes it’s hard to tell your spouse they’re spending too much money, to tell your friends you need to skip the annual trip this year, or to tell your child their new car needs to be a joint investment rather than a gift. However, wouldn’t it be easier to have a crucial conversation today rather than a really challenging one later that starts with, “We have a big financial problem”?
If you’ve ever felt a rush of excitement at making a big purchase or experienced feelings of shame at making a financial mistake, you know that our relationship with money isn’t completely rational. For most people, money comes with a lot of emotional and psychological baggage that affects the decisions we make.
The 401(k) plan is becoming the single largest source of retirement savings for a majority of American workers. According to the Society of Professional Administrators and Recordkeepers (SPARK), over 55 million people participate in 401(k) plans. If you participate in a 401(k) plan, the good news is that you have more control over your retirement money. The bad news is that you have more control over your retirement money.
By Michael J. Searcy
When it comes to an advisor managing the money you are saving and investing for retirement, the management and recommendations should be transparent and made with your best interest in mind.
The Department of Labor believed this strongly enough to spend years working on a rule that was finally issued on April 6, 2016. The rule states that any advisor managing a retirement plan or its participants is a fiduciary, legally bound to make decisions in the best interest of their clients. This rule also applies to advisors who recommend consumers move their investments from a retirement plan to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA).
By: Jessica Kmetty
The World Health Organization notes that an estimated 47.5 million people currently live with dementia, a syndrome that affects memory, thinking, behavior and ability to perform everyday activities.* It can severely impact the ability to make financial decisions, and finding ways to help those with dementia manage their finances is critical to their health and well-being. These 5 tips can help families protect and preserve assets:
Few things strike fear into a taxpayer’s heart like a letter from the IRS. Fortunately, the odds of you ever being audited by the IRS are lower than ever. Recent budget cuts have reduced the number of IRS auditors, and in 2014 the IRS audited less than one percent of the individual tax returns it received, the lowest level since 2004.
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