It's time to get your emergency documents in order. Laura Adams' piece, published at Fidelity.com, explains five important ways you can protect your family by being prepared. Another way you can help your family prepare is by using FidSafe (see more on FidSafe below). Adams writes: 1. Last will Your last will is a document that communicates your final wishes after your death. Every adult should have a will. Otherwise, the courts decide what happens to your possessions and who will take care of any minor children who survive you. You don’t need a lawyer to create a will, but if you have a … [Read more...]
You Invest They Win, AGAIN
Let’s file this one under You Invest They Win shall we? Unprecedented monetary policy intervention by the Fed has done what all unprecedented interventions by the government do, create winners and losers. In this case, the winner is BlackRock. The Fed picked the firm to handle its corporate bond buying program. Of course, BlackRock's share of the corporate bond market grew, and the big got bigger. As one investment professional told the Wall Street Journal “The unprecedented actions taken by the Fed during Covid-19 just accelerated the trend where the biggest products get … [Read more...]
Are You Working with Sound Investment Counsel You Can Trust?
When it comes to your money, one question you must be able to answer is: Are you working with investment counsel you can trust? Are you working with a counselor who adheres to the fiduciary rule—someone who, by law, makes investment decisions that are best for you, not them? Are you working with someone who’s seen it all? Yes, stocks do crash. That at least puts you at the starting line. Next, you and your counsel need to develop trust. This comes in many ways. The idea is to get to a level where you can ask your counsel anything, knowing you’ll have an answer with the truth you deserve. … [Read more...]
One Simple Way to Help Your Finances in Times Like These
You know how hard it is to talk about money. That’s why I want you to blame Your Survival Guy when you bring up the subject with your spouse. That’s why I’m here, to help you both beat inertia and take care of your financial well-being. One easy way to do this is to start by saying, this Survival Guy feels that simply discussing money will help get us to the retirement we deserve. Use me as the ice breaker: “He says…” Grant Donnelly, assistant professor of marketing at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, can back me up with research. He's quoted in the Wall Street Journal, … [Read more...]
It’s Never a Bad Time to Downsize Your Home
Now, more than ever may be a good reminder that it's never a bad time to downsize your home. Americans are house rich and cash poor, not a great mix in times of economic turmoil. Wealth in cash is very liquid, you can spend it on what you need when you need it. Even stocks and bonds are relatively easy to sell to generate funds. But houses, they're a lot harder to sell quickly if you want to get all the value from them you deserve. In the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Dezember explains how many house-rich but cash-poor Americans are faring today, writing: Americans with mortgages have … [Read more...]
Is Your Stock Portfolio Suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?
You could be suffering right now from the Dunning Kruger effect and not even know it. Worst of all, it may be affecting your stock portfolio's performance. If you are one of the recently arrived "Robinhood" investors and think you have cracked the market code, you may, in fact, be suffering from the Dunning Kruger effect. The syndrome is named after Justin Kruger and David Dunning, who outlined it in their 1999 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The authors introduced their paper by describing the effect: People tend to hold overly favorable views of their … [Read more...]
2020: College Is not What You Signed up For
This year, college is not what the freshmen were signing up for. COVID-19 tests, distance learning, no campus activities, parties banned, very little of the true college experience available. In the Boston Globe, Thomas Farragher tells the story of University of Massachusetts students, who are now on campus and facing a very different experience than the one they thought they'd receive. He writes: "I can’t believe this is our life now. I’m really speechless about it,'' said Caroline Ricciardi, a 21-year-old senior from Cherry Hill, N.J., enrolled in the UMass College of Nursing. “I’m sad. … [Read more...]
Are You Prepared? A Long, Cold Winter for Stocks is Nothing New
The stock market/Wall Street has made a full recovery from March, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way on Main Street. The 10-year treasury pays you peanuts and that’s about what local businesses have earned compared to pre-virus. Why will they stay in business, especially in cooler New England when outside dining is basically gone for the winter? Cities like Boston that depend on sports/entertainment/dining are not coming back this season. In times like these, you can be your own barber—you can handle a bad haircut—but will you be your own investment counselor … [Read more...]
Who Wants to Live the Island Life? You Do: Part II
You read yesterday about how to live an "island life," whether that be on an actual island, or by simply protecting yourself from the dangers around you. One of the best parts of living on an actual island is access to the beach. But many islands with top beaches come along with a high cost of living. Thrillist has put together a list of the "World's Most Beautiful Beach Cities Where You Can Live for Dirt Cheap." There are some nearby places like Las Terrenas in the Dominican Republic, and some further afield like Canggu, Bali. The author writes: More than a few Americans fantasize … [Read more...]
You Don’t Get To
You don’t get to choose a lot of things in life. In times like these, we're always thinking of loved ones. We look at the world today and wonder what it will be like for them when we’re gone. How will our children survive, when being a productive citizen is frowned upon? Believe me, your instinctual focus on your family is always correct—because they need your guidance. You just need to give it. Your children will always be your children. In my conversations with you, you’re telling me how worried you are about their futures. In many cases, you’re telling me how successful they are in … [Read more...]
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