“Help!” you are crying. “My debt load is weighting me down so much that I am considering selling my house to get rid of it. Should I?” Although I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice in order to dump debt, selling your house may not be the best way. Ask yourself the following question: Why am I in debt?
Managing Money
8 Money Questions That Have a Lasting Impact on Your Finances
Making decisions can be hard work. Sometimes I get tired of trying to choose between all the options of life. Truth be told, some decisions that I thought were important turned out to have little or no impact on my life. Other decisions that I made are still impacting me (either positively or negatively). In […]
12 Factors that Affect Your Home Insurance Rates
An important part of any good financial plan is to have a goal for moving forward, and also to have a good defensive financial plan. Of course, insurance is a key component in financial defense. Most importantly, I think that insurance is biblical. Like any sort of shopping, when buying insurance you are looking to get…
Cash Envelope Budgeting
In case you don’t know or need a refresher, cash envelope budgeting involves using envelopes to manage money. An envelope is created for each of your budget categories such as food, clothes, entertainment, transportation, etc. After you receive a paycheck you fund each individual envelope (or budget category) the cash allotted to it for the month…
What is Private Placement Life Insurance?
Private placement life insurance describes a type of variable life insurance that is only offered privately and not through a public offering. It can be a great a defensive tax strategy that transforms ordinary taxable income as well as capital gains into tax free income without any income tax reporting requirements under, and it is all done legally…
Advantages Of A Living Trust vs. A Will
Over the past 15 years as a financial planner, I am often asked, “should I have a will or a trust?” I sure wished every prospective client would ask this question because this would reveal they were planning ahead. The sad fact remains that less than half of adults have a will, let alone a trust…
When Can You Withdraw From Your Traditional IRA?
For some reason I get this question a lot in my day job, so I thought I’d provide a little clarification on some of the rules regarding withdrawals from Individual Retirement Arrangements, or IRAs.
IRAs were designed to provide an opportunity for folks to save for retirement on a pre-tax, tax-deferred basis. In other words, the money grows without having to pay any taxes on the gains.
How to Raise a Child on Less Than $266,698
How much does it cost to raise a child these days? According to Baby Center web site, the cost of raising a child from baby to adulthood is $266,698. Now that you have pulled yourself up off the floor, I want to assure you that it is OK to bring babies into the world even […]
