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Dealing with Debt
Did you know that 77% of Americans carry some amount of debt? Now part of that is to be expected. For most of us, we simply can’t purchase a home without borrowing. However, a 2018 Northwestern Mutual study showed that, exclusive of mortgages, average household debt is $38,000. Credit card debt makes up the largest […]
Talking Money with Your Partner
Whether you’re married, living together or in some other type of committed relationship, it’s important to have good communications about relationship issues. This might include how to parent the kids, life goals, finances and so on. In many surveys, money is included in the list of topics that can be difficult for couples. For example, […]
Lifestyle Creep
Lifestyle creep is simply using income increases to finance a more lavish lifestyle. It’s natural to want to enjoy increases in your income, but some discipline here can reap large rewards down the road. Some advisors advocate saving all of your future increases since you’ve gotten along without them so far. This approach neglects the […]
What to Do With an Inheritance
Many of us, but actually not most of us, will receive an inheritance at some point in our lives. And about one in three of us will have spent/lost that inheritance within two years. If you inherit $10,000 this may not be a big deal. But if you inherit $100,000 or even $1,000,000, you may […]
Where to Keep Cash?
We should all have some very liquid assets (cash-like investments) to pay bills and to allow us to pay for life’s inevitable surprises (auto work, appliance repairs, etc.). Often we keep these funds in a checking or a savings account. This is absolutely the right approach for money that we know we’ll need in the […]
Investing in Gold
There are two schools of thought on investing in gold. Those who like the idea say that it is a hedge against inflation, a safe haven in a calamitous world and that it offers protection against a weakening dollar. The most famous advocate against investing in gold is Warren Buffett. His basic grievance is that […]
Donor-Advised Funds
Donor-Advised Funds, or DAFs, are merely a tax-efficient way to make charitable contributions. They work pretty simply. You make a contribution to a DAF and they distribute it to a qualified charity. You can advise them on how much to give to each charity. (Strictly speaking, DAFs do not have to heed your advice, but […]
Yield Curves
Yield curves are simply graphs of the interest rates of bonds with different maturities versus time. A commonly cited example is the yield curve for U.S. government securities. The rate for 3-month, 2-year, 5-year, 10-year and 30-year treasury securities are plotted on the vertical axis and the maturity period is graphed on the horizontal axis. […]
Another Reason to Eliminate Credit Card Debt
You might have heard that the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds interest rate another 0.25% recently. That puts this rate at 2.0%. (It is expected to rise to 2.5% by the end of the year and to 3.5% by 2020.) As the Fed rate increases, so does the prime rate that banks use for […]
Inflation
I’m pretty sure every reader has a pretty good understanding of inflation. In general terms, things cost more as inflation rises so that a fixed amount of money buys fewer things. And from an investment point of view, a portfolio worth a certain amount of money will buy less as inflation rises. Inflation is measured […]