PFA Launches a Podcast - Financial Discretion Advised Abrin Berkemeyer CFP® and Tyler Hafford recorded the first episode "What the F???" to kick off our new podcast Financial Discretion Advised. The two delve into the most important question to ask your financial advisor: Are you a fiduciary? After this quick...
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Changes are coming to the University of Maine Retiree Health plan. Here, in this post, we’re giving you what we’ve been able to find out about the new plan so far, and to give you some additional color to what you can get from the published information. If you want…
Under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, Health Reimbursement Accounts – or HRAs – joined an already complex alphabet of healthcare funding options that exist for employees and business owners. HRAs are possibly the least understood of these because, for a lot of reasons, they have been used relatively scarcely. …
Two economists meet at a conference. One asks the other: “How’s your wife?” The second economist responds: “Compared to what?” People who have been on earth at least as long as I have will recognize the riff off the king of the one-liners, Henny Youngman. More on Henny later,…
“I am more concerned with the return of my money than the return on my money.” Will Rogers Two things seem to occur pretty reliably during periods of market stress and uncertainty: People become very interested in safe places to put their money, and the return on safe assets drops…
During these difficult times, non-profit organizations are especially challenged. Fortunately, agile organizations and a motivated donor base have been able to, at least in part, step forward to help. The government has been helping with funding of its own in the form of direct support and by providing some expanded…
Gap years have always been an option considered by students leaving high school – and for a lot of reasons. 2020 marks a year when the list of reasons may be growing substantially. A sudden change in the number of high school graduates who are reluctant to jump into college…
For most people over 70, the annual Required Minimum Distribution from retirement plans and IRA accounts is a routine. In 2020, though, the vast majority of RMDs are suspended. Many retirees took their ordinary distributions before the economic crisis precipitated by the lockdown in March, and now it has become…
If you’re a TIAA participant in the University of Maine system, whether an active employee or one who’s left because of a job change or retirement, you likely get a pretty heavy supply of mail from TIAA. Some of the mail that came in late 2019 and early 2020 might…
‘Flattening the curve’ is sure to remain a major part of our lexicon long after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed. Curve flattening makes the assumption that simply eliminating the disease is impossible. As such, the next most important step is to slow the spread so as not to overwhelm the…
