“If it weren’t for baseball, many kids wouldn’t know what a millionaire looked like.” –Phyllis Diller One of the most commonly asked questions I get as a financial planner is “when can I retire?” followed by “How Much Retirement Does $1 Million Buy?” The answer, of course, is “it depends.” How much you need to … Read more

“A good financial planner is going to do more than pick your funds.” –Dave Ramsey Very recently, personal finance guru Dave Ramsey engaged in a heated discussion on Twitter with several financial planners regarding the appropriateness of his investment and retirement withdrawal advice. The questions were (and are) very legitimate ones, namely: Why does Dave … Read more

“People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will totally change everything. There is no single magic bullet.” –Temple Grandin After reading this article, if you need more convincing, I perform a second evaluation of an indexed universal life (IUL) policy here. I am almost universally against life insurance that isn’t term-based life … Read more

“Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts.” –Albert Einstein “Spending can be investing – if you spend on the right things and really use them.” —Ramit Sethi How are financial planners like vacation timeshare salespeople? Read on and you’ll find out plus you’ll learn how to actually … Read more

Slight was the thing I bought, Small was the debt I thought, Poor was the loan at best– God! but the interest! –Paul Dunbar Are you sitting in a kitchen that was built back in the flyaway collar heydays of about 1973? Dying to upgrade the appliances, strip the wallpaper, get rid of the cabinets, … Read more

“You find peace by coming to terms with what you don’t know.” –Nassim Nicholas Taleb Imagine yourself in a room with 99 other average people. What’s the average weight? If you’re a male, it’s 191 pounds. If you’re a female, it’s 164.3 pounds. What happens to the average weight if you add the world’s heaviest … Read more

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” –George Orwell This is a three part series on USAA. You can read part 2 (the good about USAA) and part 3 (the not so good about USAA) below. Click here to learn how to … Read more

If you own a home with wheels on it and several cars without, you just might be a redneck. –Jeff Foxworthy There are people who view their cars as an expression or extension of themselves. Then, there are people who view cars as a means to get from point A to point B. I used … Read more

Are you looking forward to 2022’s World Cup (when, hopefully, Team USA will again be a participant!) and want to budget for it? Check out my analysis of how much it would cost to go to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. “We’ve prepared the best we can. We’re ready for it. It’s not about … Read more