Learn more about the sweeping legislation designed to fight America’s retirement savings crisis
In May 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act, commonly called the SECURE Act. Designed to help tackle our country’s growing retirement savings crisis, the far-reaching legislation spent months tied up in the Senate. On December 19, 2019, it passed the Senate with a 71 to 23 majority.
Let’s take a look at a few standout provisions of the legislation and discuss what they could mean for you.
Many married couples split household tasks and responsibilities, choosing to divide and conquer in an age of unprecedented busyness. For example, one spouse might handle grocery shopping while the other does all the yard work. One spouse might do daycare drop-off while the other handles the kiddos’ bedtime routine. It’s an effective and efficient way to run a household, especially if both spouses work. When it comes to money issues, however, these topics are best tackled as a team.
Spending, budgeting, and other financial issues can cause stress and anxiety, so many couples avoid these topics. However, since money issues are one of the leading causes of divorce, it’s important to work through the uncomfortable topics and get on the same spending page.
Here are five tactics for making sure you and your spouse agree on household spending and avoid money conflicts:
Do you find yourself wondering if you’re on track to meet your retirement goals? Are you saving diligently but still unsure whether it’s enough? A valuable benchmark to help you answer these questions is your net worth: that is, the number you’re left with when you add up your cash and other financial assets and subtract all your debts.
Everyone strives to be successful in their careers. You may spend long hours working hard to ensure the success of the company you work for or the one you’ve created. Success, however, is not only about what you produce at work and what you earn from that. Giving time to establish goals for your financial future will help you maintain financial security for the long-term.
When you think about leaving a legacy for future generations, does your mind automatically associate this idea with financial assets? It’s normal to want to put an estate plan in place that will benefit your heirs, but you may want to think outside the box, too.
Why? Well, there are some things that money just can’t buy.
In truth, your legacy is about much more than just your hard-earned assets. You have a wealth of life experience and wisdom to share, too. A great vehicle for preserving this intangible type of asset is a Legacy Letter.
In the investment business terrain, there truly is no such phenomenon as a “sure thing,” and this is the reason our goals-based planning method takes into account the natural unpredictability of the market. In order to arrive at a safe middle ground, our strategy endeavors to invest assets in a way that even the worst of market situations have a less than total effect on any one portfolio. While there is no guarantee, prudent and science-based investing can help our clients weather the storm during market declines and benefit from the growth during periods of market upticks.
Human nature being what it is, however, we anticipate the anxiety that can lead clients to respond hastily during market corrections. Unfortunately, these premature panic responses can jeopardize a long term strategy, and significantly hurt a portfolio.
Behavioral biases can negatively affect our financial decisions, but there are ways to harness the power of optimism and manage your responses in a positive, confident manner, despite the inevitable pressures you may face financially over the course of your life.
The following is a demonstration of how a pragmatic approach to managing your behavioral biases can function to prevent your negative auto-responses during times when your confidence in your finances is strained.
Reading the trade press and the almost daily deluge of advisors jumping from firm to firm, you might think switching firms is a quick and easy task.
But regardless of whether you’re going independent, joining another wirehouse or shifting to a regional firm, moving presents enormous risks to advisors who want to preserve their book of business and transition assets while also avoiding legal trouble from their former firm or ending up at the wrong place.
Three advisors who moved since last summer and agreed to speak to AdvisorHub about their move generally report that the process has gone smoothly thanks to careful planning, patience in dealing with unexpected surprises and a loyal client base who was willing to follow.
Everything changes when you become a parent — especially your finances. You want to make sure to start off on the right financial footing. But, financially speaking, where do you begin? What’s the best financial advice new parents need to know?
If your employer offers a 401(k) plan, you likely know two things about it: 1) you can automate investment of a portion of each paycheck to make saving easy, and 2) whether or not your employer offers matching contributions (i.e. free money).
Outside of this basic information, 401(k) plans can be a bit confusing for the average investor. The financial jargon alone can be enough to deter you from investigating the best way to protect and grow your money over the long-term. This is one of the main reasons so many people leave their retirement accounts on auto pilot, failing to learn ways to enhance their earnings. If you’d like to avoid this fate, information is key.
