This week’s guest blogger is Richard’s youngest daughter, Amanda, who just married her long-time beau in Austin, TX.  Amanda, who is just as money-conscious as her father, acted as her own wedding planner, and wanted to share her best money-saving tips, gleaned from months of research, with the blog.
The average cost of a wedding […]

Question–would you buy or subscribe to a monthly magazine just to have access to one feature article?
Answer–it depends.
I tend to be inundated with investment and financial planning periodicals.
Nearly two dozen last time I counted.  Once you’ve earned your Certified Financial Planner designation, you pop up on the investment/retirement complex radar, and receive an avalanche of […]

A riddle for our times.
Normally, banks make money by gathering in deposits — paying little or no interest to account holders — then re-lending the money to borrowers at a substantial markup.
Also known as “spread-lending”.  And if the banks make loans to borrowers who pay back the money, life is easy and the bonus money […]

Here is a mystery that I’d like to solve…
Why is it that one spouse/significant other always takes the lead on mastering financial planning, while the other simply acquiesces in whatever decisions are made?
This is not a gender specific issue…the passive spouse can be either one.
In working with clients, I’ve never had a situation where neither […]

It’s not a rhetorical question.
Your risk preference as an investor is dictated to a large extent by the degree to which your income is stable.
For example, if your income is derived from commissions or other highly variable compensation structures, you have, in essence,  income characteristics more resembling a stock than a bond.
The common stock holders […]

Have you heard of these accounts before?
Me neither.
I’m surprised something as useful as this program seems to be has been flying under the radar…unheralded and no doubt under used
The idea that the sparked creation of IDAs is both straightforward and obvious:
Low and moderate income earning families have great difficulty in pooling their savings for major […]

Question–is it a negative or a positive that your stock broker no longer handles small accounts like yours?
Answer–it’s probably the least of your worries…for now.
The old breed of commissioned stock brokers was destined for the scrap heap in any event.
There is now a frantic game of musical chairs underway, where too many brokers are trying […]

Finally….confirmation of what we’ve known all along.
According to I-Pension LLC, 27% of 401k participants did not even open their fourth quarter 2008 statements.
At this point, the media chorus usually chimes in with their “how can you blame them” nod to human frailty.
And that brings us squarely in front of the major roadblock to successful investing:
Behavioral […]