Although many clients and advisors are jumping at this opportunity (to convert Traditional IRA’s to Roth IRA’s), there are a number of factors that must be examined, including the possibility that a client will have extraordinary home assistance and medical expenses that will, in effect, be payable from taxable retirement plan accounts on a tax-free basis.
if you are under age 35, you have to really consider the idea that planning for your future financial independence, whether you want to accomplish that goal early or later in life, may be more difficult to accomplish than you realize.
Gaping Hole Number 3 – No Emergency Fund Imagine you’re happily working at your new job, enjoying nights out with your friends, dining out, drinks and such. Your lifestyle is wonderful – then you lose your job. What will you do now? Can you cover next month’s rent? Surprisingly, many people with high paying jobs [...]
Gaping Hole Number 2: No Personal Legal Documents Most young people I encounter aren’t even thinking about this when they think of personal financial planning or when they are preparing for a meeting with a financial advisor. Not being married, and not being a minor, you do not have a clear cut line to a [...]
Attention Gen X and Gen Y: 4 Gaping Holes In Your Financial Plan Comprehensive financial planning is a topic that often eludes younger people. Today thought, more people are thinking about planning at a younger age as they know they have to take care of themselves because with so much spending on the older generations [...]
Continued from previous article… 4. Cost of Living Increases Mean Changes in Investment Mentality Needed For quite some time now, the economy has been adjusted for two income households or higher income earners, especially in cities like Boston, DC, New York, Seattle and San Francisco. I have noticed, at least in the Boston area, that there [...]
(photo courtesy of Kevin Stryke) In a recent survey, about 45% of baby boomers worried about being alone. And chances are, with the increasing divorce rate, and surprisingly large number of people who die suddenly in their 50′s and 60′s, many boomers will be alone at least for some period of time. With all of [...]
For a couple of years I have been trying to convince my clients to purchase PHYSICAL gold and silver but none of them have listened to me. Of course the clients have been exposed to gold, silver, and gold miners through stocks and ETF’s for quite some time now (about 4.5-5 years, which still isn’t [...]
According to well-known contrarian indicators such as the AAII’s bull/bear survey (American Association of Individual Investors), pessimism is at the extreme level that most of the time signaled a rally in the markets (see front page on left side of AAII website). Will markets start rising from here? Well, it helps that Asian & European [...]
I am currently knee-deep into my final client Roth IRA conversion analyses before the year ends and since I am doing that, I thought I would share some ideas that are going through my head as I do this. First off, in order to consider this, it is likely that you think that tax rates [...]