Insights

Teaching kids about money is especially complex – you aren’t just passing on a few bucks to go to the movies, but an array of attitudes, values and assumptions regardless of whether you mean to. Your kids watch, in a way not even they are aware of, how you interact with finance and how you …

You may be in isolation, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone. Your team of professionals – from your advisor, to your insurance providers, to your bank – should be going to work for you in these unprecedented times. But how do you know if you’re receiving the value you should from your finan …

As the stock market hit its lowest returns since the 2008 Financial Crisis, the government stepped in in an attempt to boost the economy.

There are a few specific challenges, and therefore specific solutions, that I see millennials facing. Let’s imagine a conversation I might have with this hypothetical 20- or 30-something, and look at some financial advice for millennials. 

Have you wondered what you could gain by working with a financial professional? Many people consider working with an advisor when their finances have reached a certain point of complexity – they want someone else to step in to evaluate their situation and weigh in on what’s next.

The most solid strategy is to build an emergency fund – accessible, ready and able to support you and your family when you hit a rough patch. Let’s look at a few essentials on creating and protecting your rainy-day money, and how this fits into your overall wealth plan. 

When thinking about money – do you feel stressed, tense, controlling, confused, like you have an abundance of it or a lack thereof? If you relate to any of these questions, you have an unhealthy relationship with your money.

Your financial advisor may not be the first person you call when considering splitting up, but they should be somewhere on the list. One of the concrete things you can do to help with the process and the healing to follow is to plan ahead. 

For most students, experts say it remains financially worth it to go to college, despite rising tuition and opportunity costs in relation to increasing wages for workers holding only a high school diploma. The average rate of return (net gain or loss on college investment across a career) is 14%. 

Your Health Savings Account (HSA) is a cornerstone of your benefits planning. The money is triple tax-advantaged – contributions, growth and withdrawals for qualified expenses are not taxed. This account is like nothing else, and you need to take full advantage of it. 

There’s more to this central question – rent/lease versus buy – than simply the numbers in your bank account. What you don’t spend in cash, you may spend in time and energy; what you save in this market you may pay for a year from now when the market is depressed.