Monday, May 7, 2012
The Importance of Retirement Goals and Visions
More than Numbers - Financial Planning has traditionally been about numbers. How much do I need to save? How many years before I can retire? How long will my money last? And yes, crunching numbers is one part of the financial planning equation. But there’s more to it than that. Some say that financial success is 80% behavior and just 20% numbers. Go back in time for a moment. Imagine yourself back at your very first job; you’re sitting in the conference room listening to the company’s 401k provider talk about the retirement plan. He says, “If you’re 25 years-old and save about $300 each month, then you’ll likely have $1 million when you’re ready to retire at age 65.” Admittedly, that’s an impressive number. But how many 25 year…
Monday, April 23, 2012
From columnist Steve Davis.
I received a phone call not long ago from a client of mine who needed to file a claim on his disability insurance policy. He and his wife had gone to the movies on one of their bi-weekly “date nights”. Before the movie ended – while the house lights were still dim -- he got up to get some popcorn, but tripped on a broom an employee had left in the isle. He ended up falling down the stairs and was severely injured. Can you imagine? Who would have thought a date night could end so badly? Disability -- More Common than you might imagine. Let’s face it: Nobody wants to imagine getting sick or hurt. Nobody wants to think about what life would be like should a disability strike. But the reality is one in three Americans between the ages…
Monday, April 9, 2012
Columnist Steve Davis tells his advice for the class of 2012 in Mansfield.
For Mansfield's high school seniors, it all comes down to just one month. For the past 12 years they have been going to school learning, growing and working toward their high school diploma. And now, it is college decision time. These students have studied, taken the SAT exams, written essays, completed the rigorous admissions process and now have just 30 days to make a decision about which college to attend. Schools have mailed their acceptance letters and almost every college expects a response by May 1. So how should a student make that final choice? Based on where their friends are going? How great the football team is? How much financial aid the school is providing? According to Todd Weaver, a Senior Associate with Canton-based …
Monday, March 26, 2012
A Mansfield Financial Planner looks back
I’ve been in a reflective mood lately. You see, my oldest son turns 21 next month. When he was born, I had a few wishes for his childhood. I prayed that he would be healthy and happy, and I even recall telling my infant son that I hoped he would one day see the Red Sox win it all! As every parent knows, the birth of your first child is a time of great transition. This was certainly true for my wife and me. We had been married for about 5 years before our first was born and during that time, I had started a career in banking and had quickly advanced to Vice President of Commercial Lending. But in 1991, not only was I about to transition into fatherhood, I was also about to transition into a different career. You see, a month before …
Monday, February 27, 2012
The ins and outs of Social Security, from Mansfield's Steve Davis.
Social Security touches the lives of almost every American family. It not only provides income to retirees, but also to workers who become disabled, and families in which a spouse or parent dies. But it wasn’t always this way. Here’s what President Franklin Roosevelt said in a radio broadcast on the third anniversary of the Social Security Act in 1938, just a few years after the Great Depression and stock market crash left many older American penniless. “Long before the economic blight of the depression descended on the Nation, millions of our people were living in wastelands of want and fear. Men and women too old and infirm to work either depended on those who had but little to share, or spent their remaining years within the walls of…
Monday, February 13, 2012
Is Your Tax Refund Too Big? What to do now that the IRS is finally giving you your money back
In the 1979 Academy-Award-winning movie Breaking Away, Dave Stohler’s father goes catatonic when his son offers a refund to a customer who wants to return a car to the family’s used-car lot. “Refund?!, Refund?!”, he screams (you can watch the clip here). These days, shouts about refunds tend to be for joy or relief rather than consternation. Of course, we’re talking about an entirely different type of refund. February is the month when early filers start getting their tax refunds. According to the IRS, the average tax refund in 2011 was about $3,000. For some, this is a good thing – like the $20 you sometimes find in the pocket of your winter coat after you pull it out of summer storage. For others, it’s the realization that they’…
Monday, January 30, 2012
5 Retirement Planning Tips for 40 and 50-year-olds with little to no retirement savings.
When our grandparents retired, most employees received a golden watch and a pension that promised a guaranteed life-time income. Not bad at all! For most working individuals today, however, pensions are a thing of the past and now it is up to each one of us to provide for our own retirement income once we stop working. In the mid-90s, the stock market was booming and our IRA and 401k plans were growing like weeds. But after a difficult decade of little growth in the stock market coupled with high levels of unemployment, many people are finding themselves in their 40s and 50s with practically no money saved for retirement. If you find yourself in this painful predicament, don’t panic. Here are a few things you can still do – the key …
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Estate Planning -- Not for the Rich Only
A wise man once said, “If you don’t die before retirement chances are pretty good you’ll die sometime afterwards”. And while we all know and understand that death is a sad fact of life, we sometimes put off making decisions that will help our loved ones after we’re gone. When Steve Jobs died last year, many financial pundits wondered whether his advisors had helped him set up an effective estate plan. Given the fact that Jobs famously resisted the advice of his doctors for several months while he explored other alternatives, some wondered if he might have acted similarly when it came to his estate planning. With a net worth estimated at nearly $7 billion, the stakes were large -- his estate could have been hit with nearly $2.5 billion …
Monday, January 2, 2012
Seven steps to help you reach your financial goals.
This year, forget about New Year’s resolutions; they don’t work. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology showed that 88 percent of all resolutions ended in failure. Sure, the first two weeks usually go great, but by February, people start falling off the wagon and before long most find themselves back where they started, and sometimes even further behind. Still, approximately half of the US population makes New Year’s resolutions each year. Among the most popular are weight loss, exercise and better money management. As the writer of a personal finance column, you would think that I’d be all in favor of encouraging my readers toward better money management and personal finances. It’s true; I am absolutely in favor…
Monday, December 5, 2011
The Importance of Checklists and how they can help us with our finances
Last week, a checklist used by astronaut James Lovell was sold at auction for $390,000. You’ll remember that the Apollo 13 mission to the moon nearly ended in disaster when an oxygen tank exploded and caused the computer guidance system to lose power. More than 200,000 miles above Earth, Apollo 13 commander Lovell used this checklist to make some critical calculations that allowed the crew to know their position in space and make a safe return to earth. Lovell’s checklist led to what many describe as NASA’s finest hour. So, what does this have to do with a personal finance column? Well, unless you’re rolling in the dough, it’s probably not a good idea to spend that much money on an auction item that was expected to sell for only $25,…
Steve Davis
10:28 pm on Monday, April 9, 2012
While preparing to write this article, I attended a workshop Todd presented in Easton. it was informative and very well attended. If you are at all interested in this subject, be sure to go to the event at Harbor One U. more ›