March 2018

Ring Life’s Bell

Overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles are what defines us. Some are more challenging than others. When cancer patients defeat the monster, they ring a bell signifying their victory. This includes little kids. Pediatric cancer is every parent’s worst nightmare. Yesterday I brought my son, Joe to his checkup. In fourth grade, he was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkins…

Three Ways To Increase Your Portfolio’s Longevity

Concentrate on improving the lifespan and healthspan of your money.  The same principles will exponentially increase the quality of your life. Dr. Peter Attia has a clinical interest in human longevity. How can we extend our lives without destroying quality?  Living to 100, but relying on a feeding tube doesn’t cut it.  Just like the…

It’s Monday Again…..When Is My Retirement?

Don’t worry about short-term market movements. Keep your eye on the big picture. These links will help you do just that. Baby Boomers are moving to retirement hot spots again. Wall Street Journal Crappy Index Annuities will be big winners if the fiduciary rule is permanently overturned. InvestmentNews Do retiree’s need life insurance? Wall Street Journal…

A Timely Chat With The CFA’s Barbara Roper

Unlike the Appeals Court, Barbara Roper doesn’t think the Department of Labor’s Fiduciary rule is “too broad and unreasonable.” The timing of our podcast is impeccable. Barbara is Director of Investor Protection for the Consumer Federation of America. CFA is an alliance of approximately 300 pro-consumer organizations which, in turn, represent more than 50 million individual consumers….

Bloodied But Unbowed

Delay, divide and conquer is the legal strategy of conflicted financial salespeople. They are targeting The Fiduciary Rule designed to protect investors from financial predators.  Their sleazy tactics drew blood last week. In a date that will live in financial infamy, a U.S. Appeals court in Texas shot down the Labor Department’s rule. “Too broad and unreasonable,” according…

It’s Monday Again…..When Is My Retirement?

Maybe I should send these out to members of the Trump administration. Like some us, retirement may come sooner than we anticipated. The worst financial companies keep you from accessing your own funds. New York Times  Don’t receive a failing grade for your retirement. MarketWatch A Day of Infamy for Investors. Court rules against the…

Financial Sludge Part Deux

The worst financial firms don’t get that it’s YOUR money. Why do people need to hire a cryptologist to get their OWN money back? I wrote about this problem here. The New York Times exposes Voya, a leading provider of 403(b) plans for teachers. According to Ron Lieber, they have created their own form of financial Chinese…

Kill the Caricature

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.”  — Oscar Wilde Dina here … When asked by strangers what I do for a living, nothing makes people recoil more than realizing my profession has to do with financial matters. If only they knew that, as a fee-only fiduciary, my role as a financial advisor is markedly…

Your Child Isn’t A Travel Team Mutual Fund

Warning labels should be attached to travel teams and high fee investments. Both are dangerous to your health and wealth. TD Ameritrade estimates that 63% of American families spend between $100 and $500 per child a month on youth sports. Astonishingly, 20% spend more than $12,000 a year. Sports are terrific.They teach many essential life…

Don’t Listen to Financial History Abusers

History doesn’t predict the future.  It does predict how homo-sapiens typically react to the unexpected; hint — usually not good.  Morgan Housel describes the mistaken lessons of history in Ideas That Changed My Life: “History is abused when specific events are used as a guide to the future. It’s way more useful as a benchmark for how…