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Archive for June, 2010

Getting Old(er)

Posted in Estate Planning, Financial Planning, Insurance, Retirement, Values, tagged , , , , , , on June 30, 2010 | 3 Comments »

This year I celebrated my 60th birthday (not looking for any good wishes just stating a fact), and like many of us who maintain lifelong friendships, so did many of my friends, some of whom celebrated birthdates in numbers larger than my ‘six-o’. As we exchanged, and continue to exchange, well wishes this year we [...]

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Strategize to Maximize, and Platonize Your Golden Years

Posted in Retirement, Savings, tagged , , , , , on June 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

When I was growing up, my first job was babysitting. I always put my pay in a secret place in my dresser drawer and about once a month I would sneak in and count it. It was fun to see it grow, but even more fun to spend it on a big purchase I was [...]

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Room for Optimism

Posted in Investments, tagged , , , , on June 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

As a watcher of many business pages, I’ve noticed over the past several years that today’s news carries a more negative tone than ever. The title of every story seems at times to shout at us, “Are you afraid of the next crisis, well, you should be!” What do we fear next? Inflation, or deflation? [...]

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Is Budgeting Worth It?

Posted in Budgeting, tagged , , , , , , on June 25, 2010 | 6 Comments »

Budgeting. The word itself makes most people cringe. The process of budgeting can be very cumbersome and frustrating. First, you have to sort through statements and online transaction ledgers to identify all of the regular expenses you encounter on a regular basis (mortgage, car loan, utilities). Once you have them figured out, you begin the [...]

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Keeping Score

Posted in Financial Planning, tagged , , on June 24, 2010 | 3 Comments »

The value of tracking your stats in the financial game of life Part 1 of 2 Win-lose-tie. Speaking for Americans, we have a national obsession with keeping score. We also prefer to win at everything we do, even though sometimes losing is winning, like when it comes to our waistline. This obsession with keeping score [...]

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Can You Handle the Four Fat Financial Fears? (A four-part series)

Posted in Budgeting, Credit/Debt, Divorce, Financial Planning, Investments, Retirement, Savings, Spending, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Part Two:  Outliving Your Income Here are the four fat financial fears to deal with: Volatility (See May 26, 2010 post) Outliving Your Income Getting Organized When Is Enough Information Enough Last month I spoke about volatility and having a mechanism like the 200-day moving average that gives you a clue as to when it’s time [...]

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Does My Financial Plan Need to Be Updated?

Posted in Education, Estate Planning, Financial Planning, Investments, Taxes, tagged , , , , on June 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »

A recent professional magazine I read regularly had an article by an author who was complaining about his clients and their attitude toward his request to clients about reevaluating their financial plan on a yearly basis. The most common refrain he hears from them is “Nothing’s changed.” His two page article went on to identify [...]

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When Money Doesn’t Matter

Posted in Spending, Values, tagged , on June 21, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Face it. Life is Expensive If someone were to ask you, “What’s the best money you spend every year?” How would you respond? I was reminded of the answer to that question on a recent weekend in June.    For the past 12 years, my wife, Laura, and I have enjoyed being a part of our [...]

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Going to Zero?

Posted in Investments, tagged , , , , , , on June 18, 2010 | 4 Comments »

How have your investments done over the last three years? If you were to ask the myriad of people who are or even pose as professional financial advisors, they would generally say that it would depend on how well your portfolio was diversified. By this jargon, they would mean how your money (in what proportions) [...]

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Want to Buy Some Russian Bonds?

Posted in Investments, Retirement, tagged , , , , , , on June 17, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Are you feeling as frustrated as I am about the low interest rates available out there these days for those of us who are retired, wary of the global stock market and mostly living on a fixed income from safe investments? Five hundred thousand dollars invested down at your friendly local bank in a low-risk [...]

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