A pension plan has become exceedingly rare, or at least that’s the conventional wisdom. But that doesn’t mean pensions are not still an important retirement planning tool for many people. While it’s true that few private sector employers offer pension benefits for new hires, they are still common for people who work in the public sector. Many older people also have some pension benefits, perhaps from a previous employer. So, although pensions aren’t available to everyone, the

Your asset allocation mix represents your personal decisions about how much of your portfolio to allocate to various investment categories, such as stocks, bonds, and cash. How much you allocate to each category depends on your financial objectives and personal circumstances. However, it is a percentage that is likely to change over time. As your needs for safety of principal and a steady income stream become more important, the percentage of bonds you own is likely to increa

Hello! I hope you have started to go out and explore again… many clients have taken road trips this summer; some through Colorado, I know a couple who visited Nashville, and even a family that drove their RV in a big loop to Texas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania to the Great Lakes and back home – Winner! For us this summer as Asher’s baseball and Portia’s softball wound down, we took a short trip to South Dakota through Wyoming where we stayed overnight in Lusk, WY because the tru

Everyone’s goals for retirement are different. Maybe your dream is to travel the world; maybe it’s to live closer to your grandchildren. Maybe your plan is to while away the days fishing or quilting; perhaps you’re planning to take up a second career. Maybe your goal is to save enough to leave a substantial sum to your beneficiaries. Whatever your dreams are, your retirement plan needs to reflect them — and because your dreams are uniquely yours, your retirement plan should b

Despite the natural pull investors may feel toward stocks similar to those they’ve had good experiences with, the best way to reduce risk in stock portfolios is to diversify. Diversification is a practice investors use to reduce risk in their stock portfolios, as well as maximizing returns by investing in various industries that will most likely react differently to the same event in the market. To make wise investment decisions, investors must be aware of the two types of ri

Tax-loss harvesting is choosing to sell some investments at a loss to reduce taxes on realized capital gains from other investments. The key to successful tax-loss harvesting is to identify investments that have lost value and then determine which to sell, while staying true to your target investment mix and diversification strategy. Following are things to consider to see if tax-loss harvesting can help you lower your tax bill. Assess Your Capital Gains Thoroughly review you