Finances & Your Family
[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…
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…
[Video] Roth Conversions: What Are They & How Do They Work?
STEPHEN SMALENBERGER, EA We want to introduce a design element that we like to use in financial plans, when it makes sense. And this strategy is known as the Roth Conversion. Money may be put into a Roth IRA in two forms: Contribution(s) Conversion(s) As explained in prior articles and videos, the Roth IRA contributions…
