Interest rates have risen sharply over the past 16 months, which is good for lenders, but not so much for borrowers. New mortgages now come with interest rates around 6 percent, pricing some people out of the market. But for those who hold “older” mortgages with much lower interest rates, some opportunities may present themselves. … View Article
It’s tax time! Although tax returns aren’t officially due until mid-April, the first quarter of every year is when the forms arrive in the mail, as we start to compile information to begin the dreaded process of filing. With the myriad forms that so many people have to deal with, it’s good to know which… View Article
Interest rates went up quite a bit in 2022 – did you notice? It’s a pretty sure bet that you did, since everything from mortgages to credit cards to the value of the stock market were affected. But are higher interest rates good or bad? Depends on whom you ask. To borrowers, it’s not so… View Article
One of my favorite authors in the blogosphere is Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money. He said something recently that really got me to thinking about why we believe so much in the power of a Bucket Strategy. His advice was this: Save Like a Pessimist and Invest Like an Optimist. So… View Article
If you’re accustomed to living on a certain amount each year, with fairly stable savings account balances, it can be a real shock to the system when you suddenly receive a large influx of money that alters your current financial situation. While a small percentage of people achieve this through winning some kind of cash… View Article
Introduction If you’ve ever done investment research on individual companies, you may have noticed that the dividend yield of some companies seems to be a lot higher than others of a similar class of stocks. And sometimes those higher yields look pretty attractive, don’t they? After all, isn’t owning a stock with a 10% dividend… View Article
The creation of the Roth IRA back in 1998 gave us an entirely new financial planning tool — one that both retirees and those who are still saving for retirement could potentially use. Since that time, it’ turned into a useful tax-advantaged tool for many people to help offset and maybe even eliminate certain taxes… View Article
If you’ve ever thought about retiring early – say, before age 60 – you’ve likely thought about how you’re going to be able to create the cash flow you need and to make it last for the rest of your life. The problem is, you’re not yet old enough to take any Social Security retirement… View Article