This time of year, we’re all noting that in Central Kentucky, we’ve got about a month until school is back in session. Some us look forward to that, and getting back into our “normal” routines, but at the same time, a lot of us are trying to maximize these last few weeks of summer with the kids by heading to the beach, the pool, or taking a nice hike while the days are still long and warm.
At a conference our team attended this week in Cleveland, I overheard several conversations about the current state of the financial markets, and what folks are thinking is going to happen in the coming weeks and months. People look back at the crash of 2000, the crash of 2008, and then at the current rally and think we’re inevitably due for another crash.
I recently watched an excellent Ted Talk on how gratitude leads to happiness. The gist is that being truly grateful, even for the small things, and showing that gratitude throughout each and every day, leads to a much greater feeling of happiness and satisfaction in life.
In the financial industry, a lot of time, resources and energy have been spent telling the earliest of the Baby Boomers how to effectively create a legacy. For these folks, the investment planning strategy is often, “we’ll take your money and grow it into a bigger pile of money so you can leave a legacy gift.”
After well over a decade in this business, we see certain topics over and over again when we sit down with clients in our conference room. Two of the most common goals people have are saving for retirement and saving for college, and the two can often feel at odds with one another, In most cases, saving for college feels more difficult than saving for retirement, and there are several reasons for that.
For many of us in Generation X, retirement is a life we can’t even imagine. Not that it’s so far away, or that we’re not saving (although many Gen Xers aren’t), but rather, retirement simply doesn’t mean to us what it meant to Baby Boomers and World War II babies.
When it comes to budgeting, we see people falling into the same traps over and over again. Now, in theory, well all know what it means to budget: live within your means, spend less than you make, save for emergencies. Sounds simple, right? Then why do so many people, no matter how much money they’re bringing in, have trouble with budgets?
In a perfect world, where everyone knew exactly what they should do with their finances and made perfect financial decisions, there would be no need for you to use a financial planning team. The reality is, however, that we all live in an imperfect world, where all of you are very intelligent and highly skilled at something…other than financial planning.
It’s graduation time in the Bluegrass, that exciting period when all the local colleges and schools are graduating a whole bunch of kids. Whether it’s kindergarten, middle school, junior high, high school, college or beyond, every one of these newly minted graduates, no matter their age, has a future so bright they’ve gotta wear shades!
It’s that time of year when caps and gowns are being packed away and newly minted college graduates have walked across the stage and into the real world here with the rest of us. Many of those students – and their parents and grandparents – will soon start paying off student loans, and will likely be thinking about consolidating some of them to make things a little more manageable.
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