5 Ways to Pay for Your Kids’ College

The following is a message from the Center for Personal Finance Disease Control about a particularly dangerous virus called Pretend Investor Disease (PID).*

There are many types of Investor Diseases, but PID is an especially malignant one that, if left untreated, can suck your savings dry.

Investing based on past performance is like driving while looking in the rear-view mirror.

It. Will. Cause. Accidents….

Weather changes often, so I’ve never really relied on forecasts. Instead, I prefer to look out of the window to see what’s happening in real-time. My low-tech approach made sense for years. But my strategy—and the jokes about weather forecasters—may one day be a thing of the past.

I bring up the subject of forecasting because despite knowing better, I still see a lot of people playing what I consider a fool’s game. ..

Pretend for a minute that you find yourself in the enviable position of having chosen a few winning individual stocks.

You’ve made some money, and now you want to sell.

The question is: How do you know when it’s time?

For the longest time, I’ve had this sneaking suspicion that buying high-quality stuff, which perhaps initially is more expensive, actually saves me money in the long run.

Turns out, I’m right.

Today, I want to ask you… “Why?”

That is, I want you to ask yourself.

Why do I invest a certain way?

Why do I spend what I spend?

Why do I save as much (or as little) as I do?

Here’s a paradox…

Here’s a tough question:

Is it hard for you to talk about money with your spouse or partner?

When tackling big, audacious goals, you don’t need big, audacious actions. All you need is the contagious magic of micro-actions. Because micro-actions spread…

Getting ahead is overrated as a goal. In fact, it might even be just plain stupid.

The problem with getting ahead is that it’s a zero-sum game. There’s only one winner….

Let me tell you a little story about an #entrepreneur.

We’ll call him Bob.

(I think you’ll feel this hard if you run a business, but it’s got a solid lesson even if you don’t.)…

This week, I want to make an important but relatively narrow point about investing.

This is going to sound self-evident or obvious, but most people don’t understand it.

The point I want to make is this:

There’s a difference between investment returns and investor returns… and only one of them matters.

Let me explain….

When it comes to financial goals, the only ones that matter are yours.

Listen, I realize any discussion of goals can be tricky. But at least for this discussion, I find it helpful to think of a goal simply as an object of desire. It’s something I want….

We are officially into July, which means we are entering the second half of the year. And even though there are six months ahead of us, why wait until year-end to get started on your tax planning? There are many strategies that require discussions as we get closer to December 31st.

According to the state of Maryland, approximately 1,000,000 employees work for an employer that does not offer an employer-sponsored retirement plan. Because of this, the Maryland$aves program was developed…

Bouts of market volatility are an unnerving, but normal, feature of long-term investing. They’re not fun, but you can expect to see market declines periodically. Yet it’s hard to sit still when the market is sliding. You can’t help but think: "Shouldn’t I be doing something?" Every investor is different, but here are a few steps that everyone should consider during market volatility…

You may find yourself checking the news more frequently than you normally would. Times like these tend to rattle us and bring forth several questions and concerns. We may be thankful for our security domestically, while simultaneously losing sleep over loved ones who may be directly affected overseas. Either way, it’s a good time to engage in conversation.

Capital gains tend to be a hot topic. Any changes – even just the suggestion of change – can really affect the timing of decisions when it comes to your investment income. In this blog, we review a couple things our business owner clients should consider.