Budgeting is boring! There is no other way to describe it. Tracking all your expenses and inputting them into categories created in one of those financial programs can be tedious. Even the online services that connect to your banking account require monitoring and correcting. It is no wonder that most people never even attempt to…
In the last of the life stage planning series we come to the Golden Years! This is the stage of life where you get away with everything. You can cut people in the grocery line and no one says anything. You can walk up to strangers and start a conversation without any hesitation. And you…
Most folks in their 70s are retired. However, that doesn’t mean you are done with retirement planning! There are still things retirees should be doing every year. One of the tasks to do each year is to update your net worth statement listing all of your assets and liabilities. It doesn’t need to be complicated….
Finally, the decade when you get to retire! Reaching your 60s is an exciting time for soon-to-be retirees. It can also be stressful, but that stress can be greatly reduced with some thoughtful planning before that last day of work. The first thing to do is estimate your monthly retirement income and compare this to…
There are some big changes that occur for 50-years-olds. Of course, there is the gray hair (if you have any left) and larger mid-section. But you also have some different rules for saving for retirement. We’ll get to those in a second. First, we need to talk about the big picture. Your 50s is the…
The recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have stirred up the LGBT community like never before. Many same-sex couples have already made a mad dash to City Hall, anxious to claim their rights to marriage and equal treatment under federal law. Others are unclear on what the changes mean for them, or are confused by the…
Turning 40 is a big deal. This decade of life is a time when you really start putting it all together. Once you make it into your 40s, you have tried out different occupations and gained tons of work and personal life experiences. Finally things all converge when you figure out who you are, what…
A few articles ago I started a series called life stage planning. We only got through the 20s before DOMA was repealed and sidetracked us. But now we are back to continue on through our financial lives providing steps everyone should take as they reach different ages. Did your 20s pass you by without saving…
Everyone knows that the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). That means married same-sex couples now qualify for the 1,100+ federal benefits that were previously denied to them. We can’t go through them all, so here are my top 15 benefits for married same-sex couples: IRA and Roth…
The Supreme Court struck down the portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denied federal benefits to married same-sex couples. This has dramatically changed the emotional and financial lives of the thousands of gay and lesbian married couples around the country. Let’s go through just of few of changes, now that we live…
