Understanding that two weeks ago I wrote about the behavioral financial biases that lead to someone with political beliefs having their perception of money and the economy skewed by their politics, I’m now probably going to stick my foot in deeper water by talking about a recent political issue: the president’s taxes. In the interest of trying to keep as …
One of the most common points of improvement early on in the financial planning process is cash flow management. Whether the client lives paycheck to paycheck or is sitting on a significant amount of cash in their checking and savings accounts, most people don’t know the answer to “what’s right for me?” and consequently either overspend and run a constant …
In my newfound academic studies, I get the opportunity to read research. A lot of research. A lot of research. This isn’t for the pure fun and joy of it, but because the effort to obtain a Ph.D. is equal parts your own research and learning what’s already been done in the field. Consequently, you spend a significant amount of …
The United States has, by design, a politically polarized governmental system. While many other democracies practice with a parliamentary system, which utilizes proportional representation to allow for multiple small parties to build coalitions that result in majorities, the United States system favors deliberate disfunction. Concerned about tyrannies of the majority, the founders put in place a number of mechanisms to …
Every two years, a research team from the University of Southern Maine and kitces.com (a popular research and thought leadership platform in financial planning) conduct and release a study on “How Real Financial Planners Actually Do Financial Planning”. The study, the only of its kind, surveys hundreds of financial planners from an array of business models on how they conduct …
At MY Wealth Planners®, we are a Fee-Only Financial Planning firm. This means we are paid directly by our clients and no one else. This is an advantage to our clients for an obvious set of reasons: fee transparency, reduced conflicts of interest, and in many cases, lower costs to clients. However, when the public is asked to compare financial …
Well, first of all, it’s good to be back; I missed opining at everyone for a whole two weeks! Now down to business: I promised that I would share with you what I learned in the two-week Personal Financial Planning summer intensive as part of my Ph.D. program. Simply put, it’s this question: “What have we learned?” You see, Personal …
Guest Written by Samantha Rauch Hello! It’s the end of an era, my nine weeks with MY Wealth Planners has flown by and it’s crazy to think I’ll be back in class in a few short weeks. Dan asked me to write this piece to talk about what I’ve learned about people and their personal finances as a student who …
A unique opportunity has arisen in the financial services world over the past decade or so: Investing in your beliefs. Now that isn’t to say donating to non-profits or your church, but the actual advent of investment products designed to allow you to invest in companies representing your beliefs or to avoid investing in those you don’t want to support. …
We all have money scripts. They’re immutable psychological principles that were founded in our early childhood and that have been informed by the terms and perspectives we’ve observed in others around money as we’ve grown up. Positive examples can be “a penny saved is a penny earned” or “pay yourself first”, while more destructive versions can be “there is never …