I was at a family wedding this summer and overheard a conversation between two relatives who happen to be in the nursing field. One was starting her career after graduating from college, and expressed the interest to take a job in public service because she wanted to become eligible for loan forgiveness. The other warned […]
This week’s PFA Ponderings was written by guest blogger Magdalena Johndrow, MSc, CFS®, a Financial Advisor with Johndrow Wealth Management. The original blog publication can be found HERE. Summer is finally here! This means campfires, beach days, and vacation travel. But this also means higher gas prices, costly summer camps, and added credit card spending. […]
If you do a Google search for “Questions to ask a financial advisor”, you’re likely to find a lot of repetition. How do you get paid? Are you a fiduciary? What designations do you have? What is your investment philosophy? These questions seem to be ubiquitous across nearly all articles out there. And they’re good […]
I’ve never been a big fan of ‘Rules of Thumb’. They inevitably cause angst for people who have no need to be anxious, or they provide a false sense of security to people who SHOULD be worried. I’ve tried to research the etymology of the phrase ‘Rule of Thumb’ and it’s not helping. There are […]
In the world of investing, nothing seems to create more puzzlement than the relationship between bond prices and interest rates. It doesn’t help that there are so many different types of bonds and plenty of confusing lingo. When I hear on the radio that the ‘yield on the 10 year came in by 2 basis […]
Often, the most disappointed reactions we get from clients is not the result of market declines. Rather, it’s the surprise that happens when they get their tax bill. Frequently, capital gains taxes are to blame. It’s important to know what causes someone to have to pay capital gains tax. Any time a taxpayer sells an […]
Conventional wisdom has it that Social Security benefits are for when you’ve retired. Earning money AND taking Social Security at the same time seems a bit rogue, and such schemes do have limitations imposed by the Social Security Administration. However, there ARE, in fact times when you can double-dip and collect Social Security retirement benefits, […]
“A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. A recovery is when (insert name of a political foe) loses his/her job.” – old time political jab Judging by the media and clients I meet with, Recession is becoming front-of-mind. If you put a group of randomly […]
Among recent headlines, billionaire Robert F. Smith announced that he would pay off the student loan debt of the entire Moorehouse College graduating class of 2019. A number of presidential candidates, including President Trump, are running on ways to reduce the burden of student debt, ranging from small incremental steps to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s program […]
