Taxpayers and businesses spend an estimated 7.1 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements, which is worth $388 billion in economic value just to comply with tax regulations.1 As complex as the details of taxes can be, the income tax process is fairly straightforward. However, the majority of Americans would rather not spend time [...]
A Bucket Plan to Go with Your Bucket List John and Mary are nearing retirement and they have a lot of items on their bucket list. Longer life expectancies mean John and Mary may need to prepare for two or even three decades of retirement. How should they position their money?1 One approach is to [...]
A Brief Guide To Condo Insurance The ownership structure of a condominium unit is different from that of a single family house. Here’s what you need to know when purchasing insurance for your condo.1 1. Understand the Master Policy Since the ownership of all common areas is shared with other condo owners, the association of [...]
Understanding What Drives Higher Prices Can Help Improve Retirement Planning According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2024 Retirement Confidence Survey, 83% of workers are concerned that the higher cost of living will make it harder to save as much as they want toward retirement. If you’re like most retirement savers, you’ve likely had concerns [...]
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is scheduled to sunset. Get your planning done soon so you don't miss out. "Due to personally owned life insurance and estate growth over time, more clients than you might think could be impacted by the estate tax sunset." The current estate tax exemption amount is historically high, but it’s [...]
The State of Play In a July 21 open letter posted on social media, President Biden wrote that he has concluded “it is in the best interest” of the Democratic Party and the country for him to “stand down from reelection” and subsequently posted on X that Vice President Kamala Harris has his “full [...]
Key Takeaways Inflation expectations over the next 12 months have convincingly improved, giving the Federal Reserve (Fed) reasons to pivot. We will likely notice improving inflation dynamics later this week. Risk appetite improved as investors considered bringing cash off the sidelines and into capital markets, pushing the markets to new all-time highs. Building permits, [...]
The Two Faces of Debt - Good Debt vs. Bad Debt Understanding Good Versus Bad Debt Can Help You Make Smart Financial Moves Credit card debt is a huge challenge for many people. According to Debt.org, Americans owe $986 billion on credit cards, surpassing the prepandemic high of $927 billion. While credit card debt [...]
Tools and Techniques Raising a child is expensive. From the day a baby is born until the day they turn 18, a typical family will spend about $310,605 — or about $17,000 a year, according to a recent Brookings Institution analysis of data from the U.S. Agriculture Department.1 If you’re planning to start a [...]
Erick, are there any tricks to paying down credit card debt? I’d love to put the money in my 401(k) instead! Try the avalanche or snowball method. In each you’ll focus on making extra payments to one debt — while continuing to make the minimum payment on all your other debts. With the avalanche [...]
