Joe got excited about Apple and ordered his advisor to buy 100 shares; his advisor worried about the out-of-character behavior but wasn’t authorized to speak to Joe’s family. Sally thought she had won the lottery and wired $50,000 to a scammer; her bank questioned the large withdrawal, but Sally approved it anyway. Dennis gave his caregiver cash and expensive gifts that totaled over $100,000, leaving his family with no way to get the money back.
One area that is particularly critical to get right in your financial planning process is estate preparation and the protection of your loved ones from the unexpected. Proper estate preparation is an act of love and responsibility to those you care about.
By Michael J. Searcy
Parents of children with special needs face a whirlwind of emotions dealing with the health of their child, physical demands of caregiving, financial concerns and future planning. While there isn’t any one place you can turn for all of the answers, we spoke with several of our clients who are caregivers about their situations. Based on their responses and our experience in the area of special needs, we developed a list of 5 big mistakes caregivers make and pointers to help avoid these mistakes.
Over the 40 years that Searcy Financial Services has been serving clients, we have helped clients purchase Life, Disability and Long Term Care insurance policies to protect their future. While insurance planning was, and will continue to remain, an important aspect of financial planning, we will no longer act as an agent to complete the purchase process. This act allows our firm to be known as a “Fee-Only” firm with various licensure and accreditation boards, as we will no longer receive any commissions for the sale of new insurance nor receive any commissions for the sale of insurance in previous years.
By Michael J. Searcy
Not everybody can get into this club. Not everyone I work with is entitled to buy into this product. I’m allowing you entry because of your elite status, but only if you make a quick decision because I can’t hold your spot long…
By Michael J. Searcy
A friend shared with me…Several of our friends had kids at the same time as us, and we started noticing that our son was developing a lot slower than the other children. He had been born premature and was about 9 months old when he started having bad seizures. He was cared for at the Shawnee Mission Infant Development Center and that’s when we found out about his situation and that he would have a mental delay his entire life.
Many Americans are in their second and third marriages. In fact, statistics from a 2012 book, The Remarriage Blueprint, suggest that nearly 40 percent of new marriages include at least one previously married spouse. Remarrying later in life can produce a number of complex financial, legal, and emotional matters that should be addressed as soon as possible. If you or someone you love is part of a blended family, we urge you to think about these important issues.
One of the most common questions that we get from clients nearing retirement is, “How much income am I going to need to be comfortable?” It’s an important question that gets right at the heart of the retirement puzzle.
By Michael J. Searcy
Does the source of money you receive impact how you spend, save or invest that money? Do you treat money you earn differently than money you have won or received as a gift or bonus? If earned money feels more precious and worth saving, while the other types feel like “fun money” with which you can splurge, you may be practicing mental accounting. Beware – in mental accounting, all money is not treated as equal. You can stop mental accounting from hindering you from making the best decisions with your money, and by being aware that it’s happening, you have already made the first step.
Projecting the Investment Horizon: Don’t Let Emotion Get the Best of You
By Michael J. Searcy
If you’re like the majority of the investing public, you may think this diagram depicting the emotional rollercoaster of investing is a great representation of how you feel these days. The diagram takes us through a simplified market cycle starting with a period leading toward strong performance (a bull market) and then falling into a period of weak performance (a bear market), then back to an upturn, thus showing the cycle is never ending. Fluctuation through these cycles can leave investors with feelings of euphoria when things seem to be going great, despair when they’re going bad, and optimism when it seems like poor performance is on its way back up again.
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