saving

May 8, 2020

What’s the Best Way to Protect Your Hard-Earned Wealth?

What’s the best way to protect your hard-earned wealth? That’s the million-dollar question that’s on a lot of people’s minds right now. The fact is that the coronavirus has demonstrated in absolute terms how an unexpected event can quickly take away your earnings ability and deplete your life savings. Events surrounding the coronavirus have also demonstrated how life’s surprises can come at you from all directions. And when they do, your ability to build enduring wealth can evaporate in…

May 1, 2020

Keep Your Money Growing with Two Simple Steps

Growing financial wealth in today’s environment has been a struggle. Whether it’s the wide swings in asset prices that make it hard to decide whether to stay in or get out the markets to the dour economic conditions that have negatively affected business earnings. Finding the right strategy to grow your wealth in a world locked down truly has been a challenge. So, what can households and investors do to make the right decisions to grow wealth given today’s challenges?…

April 24, 2020

The First Step to Thriving Financially: Creating Wealth Today

What can individuals do during this downturn to thrive financially and build, or in many cases, rebuild wealth that has been lost in the past few weeks? By many measures, U.S. economic activity continues to grind to a halt on account of the COVID-19 containment efforts. This is evidenced in various data releases published this week. And it’s also a key reason why some Governors are eager to reopen their state economies. But the reality is that returning to normal…

April 10, 2020

The CARES Act and Thriving During a Downturn

By the time the U.S. economy reopens weeks from now, tens of millions of people will have lost their jobs and thousands of small businesses will remain shuttered on account of the COVID-19 outbreak. Estimates of the economic impact differ widely and it’s very likely that the ultimate financial cost of the coronavirus will take months if not years to fully understand. As we pointed out in our report last week, Congress has stepped up to support ailing households and…

March 5, 2020

Three quick steps to help manage financial anxieties during uncertain times

If the coronavirus, recession angst or elections are keeping you up at night or have generally increased your level of anxiety, you can take comfort in knowing that what you’re feeling is natural. In fact, our brains are primed for an anxiety response during times of heightened uncertainty. At least that’s according to one research paper published in the journal Nature. And as the researchers point out, higher levels of uncertainty disrupt our ability to assign clear probabilities of success…

February 27, 2020

Economic update: Downside risks still increasing

The outlook for the U.S. and global economy has deteriorated yet again. Unsurprisingly, the culprit behind the outlook downgrade has been news of the coronavirus’ continued spread. To be sure, risk assets sold off this week and financial market volatility increased as concerns about the virus and its potential impact on the global economy dented investors’ up-until-recent euphoric sentiment. More importantly, worries about the coronavirus come at a time when economic conditions in the U.S. and around the world remain…

February 12, 2020

What should you know about the SECURE Act?

If you are preparing for retirement, are currently retired, or own a small business chances are you’ve probably heard something about the SECURE Act. So what is it? Simply put, the SECURE Act is a law that makes it easier for small business owners to offer attractive retirement savings opportunities to a population of workers largely underserved by retirement savings options. In this week’s blog post, we explore a high-level overview of the SECURE Act and its implications for businesses…

February 2, 2020

Why the coronavirus is relevant to your finances

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore the potential financial fallout from the novel coronavirus (nCoV-2019) outbreak underway. Some of this fallout was evidenced in the global stock selloff on Friday and futures (as of this writing) point to a weaker start at Monday’s open. Indeed, the concerns surrounding the ongoing spread of nCoV is likely to weigh on market sentiment for weeks. But why is nCoV relevant from a financial perspective? Well, in our opinion, the quickening spread of…

January 2, 2020

Getting ahead isn’t what it used to be

Various economic and market indicators suggest the U.S. economy is in a better spot today than a decade ago. While some are more well off today, the traditional life playbook for getting ahead has seemingly failed many households. Looking ahead, we believe that the key to households getting ahead financially will be for households to customize their own personal financial playbooks. By many measures the U.S. economy is in a better spot today than it was a decade ago. In…

January 2, 2020

The rise in wealth and a decline in financial security

Financial conditions have become increasingly complex and uncertain even as the economy and financial markets have gained in recent years. A lack of financial preparedness, fewer savings opportunities for a younger generation and retirement insecurity are just a few reasons why a growing number of people find it harder to get ahead in life financially. Nevertheless, we believe that the development of a customized personal financial playbook can help households navigate coming complexities and uncertainties and ultimately get ahead in…