Category: Financial Planning
Blog
Claiming Your Social Security Benefits Early: When It May Not Pay to Wait
Ryan Yamada, CFP®, Senior Wealth Planner We’ve all heard the conventional wisdom when it comes to claiming Social Security: you should wait as long as you can before claiming benefits. Wait right up to age 70, if possible. After all, that’s when you would get the greatest monthly benefit.
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Which Medicare Plan Is Best for You?
Scott Budd, CFP® Senior Wealth Planner Choosing the right Medicare plan is one of the most important decisions seniors are faced with. It’s also one of the most difficult. The health care system isn’t user-friendly to begin with. Stack all the Medicare options on top of that and you& …
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How Much Do I Need to Retire? Planning for Your Unique Retirement Needs
By Craig Lemoine, Ph.D., CFP®, Director of Consumer Investment Research “How much do I need for retirement?” It’s a question I often hear, and one that seems straightforward enough to tackle. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t quite so simple.
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Paying for Health Care in Retirement
By Ryan Yamada, Senior Wealth Planner When putting away for retirement, we often dream about all the things we’ll be able to do with that money – traveling, going out to eat, maybe trying new hobbies.
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Senate Addresses Taxes, Deficit, Inflation, Health Care in Proposed Bill
By Jamie Hopkins, Managing Director, Wealth Services Sonu Varghese, Director, Investment Platforms; and Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist, contributed to this report. Senate Democrats have reached a general agreement on a bill to address climate change, taxes, health care, inflation …
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Quarterly Market Outlook: What Lies Ahead for the Third Quarter of 2022?
By Scott Kubie, Senior Investment Strategist The first half of the year proved challenging for even the most hardened of investors. High inflation. Continual losses in the S&P 500. Bear market. Fed rate hikes. It all added up to the third most volatile market in 25 years.
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Culture From the Top Down: Executive Compensation Plans Explained
By Craig Lemoine, Director of Consumer Investment Research At their most basic level, executive compensation plans are designed to attract, retain and motivate top talent and leadership. But truly successful plans are designed to be much more than providing a high salary to a key employee – …
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What Do Financial Adviser Designations Mean? What are the Letters after a Name?
By Craig Lemoine, Director of Consumer Investment Research We speak a secret language in financial planning. So much of our world is filled with abbreviations surrounding insurance and investment products, processes, education and accomplishments. I could say “Tammy, a CLU and ChFC®, revi …
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RMDs on Inherited Retirement Accounts in the Age of the SECURE Act
Tom Fridrich, Senior Wealth Planner Once upon a time, people would put money in their 401(k) or IRA accounts and know that – should their retirement savings outlive them – their loved ones would inherit the rest and all would essentially be well.
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How to Talk to Your Family About Your Estate Plan and Avoid Complicating Their Grief
Sarah Duey I once had clients with only one daughter. They created a trust for only their grandchild without ever telling their daughter why. As the trustees, we worked with this daughter, because her child was still a minor. There were hard feelings — a lot of wondering why her parents …
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