25 Feb 2016

Another Year of the Bump

When I first took over Daily Insights, I wrote an article entitled ‘The Year of the Bump,’ which was about several of the Acropolitans that were having kids that year.  Unfortunately, I wrote that article before our current website, so it isn’t online, but I thought about that in a meeting today. We were visited by representatives from Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) and our primary contact said that he and… Read More

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1 Dec 2015

A Good Way to Give Back

It looks like Black Friday was a dud, I hope that Small Business Saturday was successful and I trust that Cyber Monday was largely ignored here in the office. Last year, Marie Tustin apprised me to Giving Tuesday, which always follows the aforementioned ‘holidays’ but is dedicated to giving back instead of getting good deals. Even if you don’t have specific plans for Giving Tuesday, this is the time of… Read More

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20 Nov 2015

Possible Law Changes Beyond File and Suspend

Back in 1995, I subscribed to the big industry rag for stock brokers, Registered Rep Magazine.  Twenty years later, I still get the magazine, although I haven’t held a broker’s license (the Series 7) for more than a decade. When I sat down to read it a few days ago, I was struck by one of the articles, which said that the popular Social Security maximization strategy, File and Suspend,… Read More

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18 Nov 2015

What Retirees (and Pre-Retirees) Worry About

One of the interesting (but less than encouraging) data points in the inflation data is that medical care service costs increased 3.0 percent in the 12 months ending in October while core inflation was 1.9 percent (core inflation excludes volatile food and energy costs). Everyone at Acropolis knows that retirees and pre-retirees worry a lot about healthcare costs.  A recent UBS study of 1,849 high net worth individuals with an… Read More

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6 Nov 2015

New Data Helps Planning for College

It seems like it was only yesterday that I was pouring over US News & World Report magazines and the Princeton Review book ‘best colleges.’  Of course, it’s obvious that it was a while ago because I’m referring to magazines and books.  Today, everything you need is online. In fact, the volume and quality of the data just got a little better in my opinion thanks to the new College… Read More

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2 Oct 2015

Best Cities to Retire

I recently stumbled upon a fascinating website, the Milken Institute’s Best Cities for Successful Aging. I was doing some research to try and determine whether moving to a state without income tax like Florida or Texas really made a difference to an overall retirement plan.  I created a hypothetical client and ran 10,000 scenarios that were identical other than the state where the client retired. As I expected, the difference… Read More

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22 Sep 2015

Don’t Worry, Be Happy and Live Longer

When we look at our financial planning model, a lot of clients say something like, ‘well, I’m never going to make it that long anyway.’ According to Society of Actuaries, more than half of Americans underestimate their life expectancy and that their financial planning time horizons are too short. When asked how long a person their age and gender was expected to live, 40 percent of respondents gave answers that… Read More

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24 Jun 2015

Maximizing Social Security

It’s a little hard to believe, but I read more and more in the popular press about maximizing Social Security benefits.  One of the best-selling books this year is called ‘Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security’ by Laurence Kotlikoff.    I tried to read it earlier this year and admit that even I found it was pretty dry, and I think it’s fairly obvious that… Read More

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13 Mar 2015

Women and Investing

Despite being married with two daughters, I am not an expert on women. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why women might want or need different financial advice from advisors. A few years ago, Dannelle Ward set me straight and pointed out that women do face different financial circumstances that sometimes require different advice. Here are some statistics: • At birth, the life expectancy for women is 81.3… Read More

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5 Feb 2015

Smart Money Kids

Many readers know that I have two grade school daughters because I’ve written about them in the context of saving for college. Like any parent, I want smart money kids. While this is a common goal among parents, it’s easy to say and much more difficult to actually accomplish in practice. There was an article in the New York Times over the weekend that described a guy who withdrew his monthly… Read More

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