Category: Retirement

  • Is it Safe?

    Perhaps one of the biggest challenges that investors face is determining if “right now” is a SAFE time to invest (meaning not just the present, but any time). What makes it difficult for investors is a twofold issue: first, is a lack of historical knowledge and perspective, and second, their own emotions. Actually, if one…

  • Tax Time IRA Answers

    Let’s take down the age old question of “Should I invest in a Roth IRA or a Traditional IRA?”   Before I jump into this, you must know that neither one is a bad choice, and it all depends on your situation and goals.  Both accounts are considered “Qualified Accounts”, meaning they have tax advantages over…

  • What is a Hedge Fund?

    Are you missing out on the supposedly huge amount of profits to be made by investing with a “Guru” in his Hedge Fund? Hedge funds are like mutual funds, but they are managed by self titled experts who charge an enormous fee to try and beat the market.  Hedge funds and Investing Guru’s are built…

  • 3 Things to Consider When Preparing Your Will

    A death in the family is traumatic and stressful, and something which all affected must come to terms with in their own way and in their own time. Unfortunately, it’s also usually the time during which emotions are running at their highest when family members need to come together and agree. In this ‘perfect storm’…

  • Keys to Maximizing Your Social Security Benefit

    You have worked hard all of your life. You have raised a beautiful family that you are proud of, and you and your spouse are finally ready to enjoy your golden years together. And yes, you have also planned and saved for these future retirement years. Maybe you planned many years ago or maybe you…

  • 5 Life Insurance Myths Busted

    Life insurance may not sound all that exciting, but when you do stop to think about life insurance and you, it’s not uncommon to assume that since the concept of life insurance is simple enough, so too are the products. It’s also fairly easy to rationalize the things you really don’t understand about life insurance,…

  • Guide to a Baby Boomers Retirement

    The ripe age of 65 is no longer a valid number for those planning their retirement. As more and more baby boomers reach this age, demographers and researchers are skeptical as to just how long they will live. Not only does this uncertainty have effects on a national level, as to the cost of Medicare…

  • Retirement Planning Basics: Investment Accounts

    Planning your investments to build a retirement fund can be a dizzying prospect. The various questions and options and details and accounts and amounts are enough to make anyone’s head spin. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a generic recipe for success? A nice neat list of step by step instructions on how to…

  • Equities in the Last 30 Years: A Retrospective

    Looking at a chart http://bit.ly/qSHuve covering the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last century is a lot like looking at a chart of profitable business earnings at a cartoon enterprise meeting–it’s almost a caricature of itself, a steady upward slope punctuated by regular but far-between drops, always ending higher than it…

  • Should you Buy Gold as an Investment?

    We have all seen the advertisements and headlines that keep telling us that investors need to flee to safety and buy gold.  They will tell us that the stock market is going to crash worse than last time, and that investors need a hedge to inflation with gold.  They will say it with charisma and…