As we embark on a new year, there's no better time to take control of your financial future by thoroughly reviewing your cash flow. If having a vision and establishing goals is the touchstone for a financial plan, this essential financial practice sets the foundation for achieving your goals and ensuring long-term financial stability.
Anyone who has gone through a divorce knows how emotionally challenging and financially complex it can be. While attorneys handle the legal aspects, a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® focuses specifically on the financial implications of divorce. This specialized designation equips professionals with the expertise to guide clients through the intricate financial aspects of divorce proceedings, ensuring better outcomes for their financial future.
Anna Marie Mock, a fee-only certified financial planner at Highland Financial Advisors, discusses the dynamic interplay between art and science in financial planning. Drawing inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci's philosophy that "everything connects to everything else," she emphasizes that financial planning is an art involving subjective goal-setting and a science-driven by objective analysis tools. In this video, Anna explains how the scientific method can be applied to financial planning, using equity compensation as a concrete example.
What are your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about money? What about your partner, and do they differ from your own? Sometimes, the conflict we experience around money in our personal lives can be attributed to incongruent money scripts with those with whom we share finances. Let’s dive into the term money script and how understanding it can help us achieve our financial goals.
Depending on the list, sometimes being ranked #1 is where you want to be, and sometimes it’s not.
For example, New Jersey ranks #1 in education according to U.S. News and World Report. The Garden State also ranked #1 as the 2021 best state to live in (barely getting beat out by Massachusetts in 2022, boo!), #1 in most Revolutionary War battles in a single state, and #1 in the number of dentists per 100,000 residents.
During my sabbatical, I read a book by Simon Sinek, “The Infinite Game,” which was published in 2019 and inspired by James Carse’s 1986 book on game theory titled “Finite and Infinite Games.”
In the books, finite and infinite games are described in this way:
A finite game is played to win, like baseball or golf. The players are known, the rules are set, and the endpoint is defined.
Inflation is all everyone has been talking about for two years. Inflation reaching 40-year highs has wreaked havoc on consumers' wallets and caused market uncertainty.
The inflation story in 2021 was propelled forward by supply chain disruptions following the shutdown of the economy due to the COVID stay-at-home orders. This broad statement of supply chain disruptions expands to the physical transportation of products and a shortage of workers and materials
Would you believe it if someone told you that you could improve sleep, reduce stress and anxiety, and boost your mental well-being by reducing social media and news intake? About four months ago, I decided to conduct a self-experiment where I reduced the time spent on social media apps and watching news channels.
Shakespeare wrote ten dramas, each with a different story and cast of characters. However, his tragedies follow the same five-act formula: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. Every play, movie, and television shows from Shakespeare's time to today follows the same five-act sequence. Our culture's art and entertainment reflect our innate expectations of the hero's rise, fall, and resolution. Likewise, our expectations for the economy and financial markets are no different.
Leonardo DaVinci wisely said, "Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Realize that everything connects to everything else." Financial planning integrates art and science through a dynamic process. The art is subjective and experienced while exploring goals and aspirations and making decisions. The science is objective and visible in the tools to develop projections analysis.
Walter Mischel, psychologist and professor at Stanford University conducted an experiment in the 1960s about delayed gratification and published his findings in 1972. In the study, a researcher explained to a child they could either have one marshmallow immediately or two marshmallows if they waited 15 minutes.
As of Friday, the 29th of July, except for the NASDAQ market, the US equity markets recovered somewhat from the bear market correction. A bear market is a loss of 20% from the previous high. In the first six months of 2022, the equity market had lost over 80% of what it gained in 2021 and entered a bear market correction.
There seems to be a list of five things for anything you can think of to improve your odds of success. Pareto’s Principle (the 80/20 rule) states that 80% of the results will typically come from 20% of the cause. If a list of five things can truly make a difference in your life, that is an excellent return on your behavior.
During a recent financial review with a couple, we discussed inflation. The wife asked me, “So, what is cyclical inflation.” I used the term illustrating the difference between temporary, transitory inflation and built-in, cyclical inflation. It suddenly occurred to me that those are some fancy words. What do they mean in plain talk?
Recently, we had a client report that a fraudster had stolen her identity. It seemed that someone may have obtained access to her email address and was creating havoc with her online accounts. We immediately told her to go to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) website, www.identitytheft.gov, to report the incident and follow some immediate steps to start dealing with the breach.
In Part 1 of F.I.R.E., we explored the meaning behind the movement and the different variations, while Part 2 of F.I.R.E. provided some context on common misconceptions. With that backdrop, we are going to outline how to quantify your definition of F.I.R.E.
