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The Equifax Data Breach: What Matters?
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP ® There have been articles informing individuals what to do about the recent data breach. See this link for what has happened. What we have learned: Signing up for Equifax credit monitoring is not necessarily free like it has been with other company breaches. You can sign up by November 21st for…
[Video] Free Money May Exist With This Employee Benefit
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP® We all like the idea of free money, so I want to walk you through one area where there may be free money available which you’re not taking advantage of. In your retirement account you’re putting money in yourself and then your employer may also be willing to put money in as…
Friday’s Financial Update 9-15-2017
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP® During the months of August and September, we’ve seen continued positive performance in the financial markets. With this higher performance has come an increase in volatility attributed to a variety of reasons which we will dig into. The following chart is extremely helpful for comparing volatility and putting it into perspective. As…
You can’t afford to wait!
We are all praying for the states that have been, and will be affected by hurricanes. No one wants to go through any natural disaster or event like this. But the reality is that things will happen in life that you just can’t afford to wait in planning for. Governor Rick Scott in Florida provided…
[Video] Beneficiaries: Who, When, & Why?
STEPHEN SMALENBERGER, EA In Prior videos we talked about 401(k)’s, IRAs, and even life insurance. Something that we haven’t touched on yet is what happens when you pass away. So what I want to go through here is the big picture to make sure everything is still as you desire. Because sometimes life happens. It…
Do You Panic About Investment Performance?
We have been attending a conference in Dallas over the past week. After leaving the hotel, we started hearing that many gas stations throughout the city and suburbs were actually out of gas. Due to the rising prices caused from the destruction that Hurricane Harvey had on the Houston community and two oil refineries there,…
[Video ] What Are The Basics of Social Security?
STEPHEN SMALENBERGER, EA This is a topic that becomes important especially when someone is considering retirement or is already retired. When does it make the most sense to start collecting? That really depends upon your specific situation. In order to start receiving the full value of the benefits that you’ve accumulated over your working career,…
What is the market?
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP® Whether it is on the nightly news, in the newspaper, on various financial radio stations or websites, you hear people talk about the market. Yet, what is the market? The market is simply where stocks, bonds and funds are traded. Here we refer to a handful of common indexes or benchmarks used to…
[Video] What To Do With My Paycheck?
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP® It is really important to consider some of the first steps and goals in your financial life. Before you start thinking about investing or saving for retirement, you need to be sure that you have a good foundation to build upon. One of the first places to start is being sure to…
Friday’s Financial Update 8-18-2017: Investing vs. Gambling
We’ve all seen the news headlines this week of political drama in many forms. The market has been up and down depending on the news of the day. Despite these events, a diversified long-term focused investment plan is still the way to go to weather not only the news but also the market. Thought that…
[Video] Recharacterization…The Roth Conversion “Undo” Button
STEPHEN SMALENBERGER, EA Ever wished you could hit the “undo button” and everything would go back to how it was? Well this does actually exist and in the financial world this is known as a recharacterization. That is a big word that essentially means to unwind or undo a Roth Conversion that was processed at…
Friday’s Financial Update 8-11-2017
What difference do you notice in the pictures below? These two pictures represent the S&P500 Index performance from this past week and of course, an amusement park roller coaster. The path each of these took is the same. So what can we learn and where do we go from here? First, how did the ups…
