Financial advice is full of “rules of thumb”. Save 15% of your income, 100 minus your age to calculate your stock/bond percentages, delay Social Security until 70, etc. These recommendations are repeated so frequently that they’ve become accepted as universal truths. Financial planning isn’t universal. While conventional advice often provides a reasonable starting point, applying it without considering individual circumstances [...]
Once the immediate financial decisions surrounding a divorce have been made, attention naturally shifts towards the future. Retirement, homeownership, and other long-term goals may still be priorities, but in many cases, the resources at your disposal have changed. What once seemed like a clear financial path may now require a fresh look. The challenge is that the original destination, and [...]
Marriage after divorce can bring together more than just two people. There may be children from previous marriages, separate assets, different incomes, as well as different expectations about what each spouse wants to leave behind. Combining everything isn’t necessarily the solution. Most blended families will benefit from being much more deliberate about which financial goals are shared and which ones [...]
When Love Gets a Second Chance, Your Finances Get a Second Conversation The second time around, you know more. You know life can change in ways you never expected. And when two people build a life together again, they aren't starting with a blank slate. I know this because I've lived it. When you remarry, you're bringing two financial histories [...]
After a divorce, it’s natural to look at your new financial situation and immediately ask “How do I get back to where I was?”. In a relatively short period of time, a household that was built around two sets of resources and a shared financial plan becomes something entirely different. Getting back to where you were isn’t the goal anymore. [...]
Financial planning is an inherently subjective endeavor. There is no single formula for how much someone should save, how they should invest, when they should retire, or what their estate plan ought to look like. Yet much of the conventional financial planning framework is built around a traditional path: get married, get a joint bank account, buy a home, raise [...]
One of the most common pieces of retirement advice is to delay claiming Social Security until age 70. It's easy to understand why: every year you wait beyond your Full Retirement Age (up to age 70), your monthly benefit increases through delayed retirement credits. If your goal is simply to receive the largest monthly check possible, waiting is often the [...]
I’ve written about this before, but I recently had an experience that reminded me of all the financial things that have to be handled when a spouse dies. In this case, a long-time client of mine died on a Monday. On Tuesday his wife called. She said, “You always told me to call you if anything happened to Steve. Well, [...]
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