.Strategies for How to Avoid Inheritance Taxes

Ben Geier, CEPF® Thu, September 16, 2021

How to Avoid Inheritance Taxes

When a loved one dies, there are a lot of things to worry about, from planning the funeral to dealing with your own emotions. As is often the case though, money is a major part of the calculus of life when dealing with a recently deceased family member.

When they pass, your family will have to deal with their money, assets and debts. And if they have a large enough estate, you’ll potentially have to worry about the estate and inheritance taxes. There are things you can do now, though, that will limit the amount of money ultimately subject to these taxes, so that your family can use more of your wealth to build their own lives. For help with the estate tax or any other financial planning issues, consider working with a financial advisor.

.How to Overcome Financial Problems

By Claire Tak Updated June 4, 2021

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It keeps you up at night, it’s the constant mental burden that causes you stress and anxiety. Money problems — it can feel impossible to solve and according to a Stress in America survey, two-thirds of respondents say it’s their number one reason they worry.

In a recent Well Kept Wallet survey of 1,000 consumers asking how financially stable they are, 40 percent admitted to not even having a savings account. Plus, 38 percent said they don’t have a monthly budget.

This problem is indicative to some of the challenges facing Americans today, why they fall into such financial binds, can’t seem to save money, and live a debt-free life.

15 Secret Places to Hide Money Around Your Home

By Deacon Hayes Updated September 2, 2021

Sometimes you want to have cash around the house so that it easy to access, however, you don’t want just anyone to be able to find it. Perhaps you have found your own hiding places over the years, but are they as safe as you would like them to be?

Here is a list of some of the best places to hide money around the house. Some of the hiding spots are free while others are products that you can purchase that blend into any houses decor.

.How You Feel About Money

Posted September 14, 2021 by Michael Batnick

There is one thing that trumps everything else when it comes to how you feel about money. It doesn’t matter how much you make. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve saved. It definitely doesn’t matter where interest rates are. The thing that most influences how you feel about money is how you grew up around money.

I’ve been thinking about this while listening to Ramit Sethi’s podcast. Ramit sits down with a couple in every episode where one or both partners feel anxious about money. The kicker is that in most situations, these people make a nice living. Each story is a little different, but it seems like they all have one thing in common. They faced financial hardships as a child.

.A Number From Today and A Story About Tomorrow

Sep 8, 2021 by Morgan Housel

Every forecast takes a number from today and multiplies it by a story about tomorrow. Investment valuations, economic outlooks, political forecasts – they all follow that formula. Something we know multiplied by a story we like. The trick when forecasting is realizing that’s what you’re doing.

A few weeks before he died a reporter asked Franklin Roosevelt if the Yalta Conference negotiations near the end of World War II set the stage for permanent peace in Europe.

“I can answer that question if you can tell me who your descendants will be in the year 2057,” Roosevelt said. “We can look as far ahead as humanity believes in this sort of thing.”

.What Is a Property Trust and Who Needs One?

Ben Geier, CEPF® Fri, September 10, 2021, 11:34 AM·4 min read

Property Trust

Trusts are useful financial tools, often used for the purpose of planning an estate. A trust is essentially a legal framework into which ownership of assets can be placed. These assets can include financial products like stocks and bonds, or it can include real physical property, like land, jewelry or vehicles.

There are a number of reasons one might use a trust, including, but certainly not limited to, estate planning scenarios. If you think you might need a trust or you want help setting one up, consider working with a financial advisor.

.You Could Accidentally Disinherit Your Children Unless You Follow This Obscure Rule

Mike Piershale, ChFC, President Fri, September 10, 2021

If you’re widowed or divorced and have named your children as the beneficiaries of your company retirement plan, you could be putting them at risk of being disinherited if you remarry. Due to a little-known ERISA rule, if your new spouse outlives you, they will receive your company plan funds, rather than your children — even if you have put your children down as your named beneficiaries.

While the purpose of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is to stop one member of a married couple from giving survivor benefits to someone else that should rightfully go to the surviving spouse, in some scenarios this law can lead to abuse.

.Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees: How to Teach Kids About Finance

Paige McCullough Wed, September 8, 2021

When we think of the finance industry, children don’t often come to mind. Dependent on others, kids, of course, don’t pay the bills or contribute to the finances in a household, and often parents don’t think children should even need to think about money.

But maybe children should. Instead of being let loose into the world of personal finance when they turn 18, what if that process was a gradual one built on milestones and lessons learned in a controlled environment? One in which children can take some ownership of their finances and be better prepared for their financial future. To see how this can take action, I talked to two financial app companies who prioritize children in their services, Till and Acorns.

.Should We Buy A Home Outright Or Get A Mortgage?

Jacob Passy Fri, September 10, 2021

My wife and I have nearly $600,000 in our investment portfolio. Should we buy a home outright or get a mortgage? ‘We think we know where and how much we want to spend on a house, but we don’t know how we should buy that house’

Dear Market Watch, My wife and I are Americans living in London. We currently rent, mainly because London real estate is hugely expensive but also because we know London is not our long-term future. In the next year or so, we have plans to move back to the U.S., where we’ll purchase a house and start settling down a bit.

My wife and I are in our mid-30s. We have no kids and no desire to have a family, and we’re currently sitting on about $580,000 in our investment portfolio. This amount does not include our retirement savings.

.7 Areas Where You Should Continue To Be Financially Conservative While the Economy Recovers

Andrew Lisa Wed, September 8, 2021

The pandemic forced people to regroup financially and reassess what they were doing right with their money and what they were doing wrong. In most cases, the answer was to be more conservative — to pare back spending, increase savings, be wiser with their investments and take fewer risks.

Now that places are reopening and things are changing, many people are letting their guards down — the problem is that “over” is an overstatement. Millions who could and should be vaccinated are not, the Delta variant is now raging across several states and new lockdown restrictions are being imposed.