What Is A Power Of Attorney?
.What Is A Power Of Attorney?
By Cameron Huddleston
If there’s one thing I think no adult should be without, it’s a power of attorney.
You were probably thinking I was going to say something more essential to a happy life – such as love and affection or a sense of purpose. Of course those things are important, but I’m a financial journalist and this is a blog about money (mostly). So that’s why I want to highlight how essential having a power of attorney is for everyone.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t have this legal document. Only one-third of adults 55 and older have a durable power of attorney, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch and Age Wave. The percentage among younger generations is likely even lower.
If so many Americans don’t have a power of attorney, it can’t be that necessary, right? Wrong. If you want to have a say in who gets to make financial decisions for you if you can’t on your own, you need a power of attorney.
What Is A Living Trust?
.What Is A Living Trust?
By Cameron Huddleston
Chances are, you know what a will is. This legal document spells out who gets your assets when you die. It also allows you to name an executor to oversee the distribution of your assets and guardians for your children.
If you don’t have a will, your state’s laws will dictate who gets what. That means your home, car, investments or any money in your bank account could go to someone you don’t want to get it. Even your children could end up with someone you wouldn’t have chosen.
Some people go a step beyond a will by creating a living trust. You’re probably thinking those people are the rich and famous. However, trusts aren’t just for the super wealthy. There are benefits of a living trust that make this estate planning tool ideal even for the not-so rich and famous.
5 Signs Your Parents Need Help With Their Finances
.5 Signs Your Parents Need Help With Their Finances
By Cameron Huddleston
November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. When my mother started exhibiting the early signs of Alzheimer’s, I wasn’t aware that her lapses in memory were the beginning stages of a disease that has gripped her for more than 10 years now.
In fact, I initially thought that she was asking the same questions over and over because of hearing loss from a tumor that she had behind her left ear. I didn’t want to believe that my mom was starting to lose her memory in her early 60s. That was something that happened to people who were much older, I told myself.
But one night while I was at her house, it became painfully obvious that her hearing loss wasn’t the problem.
Everything You Need to Know About Recessions
.Everything You Need to Know About Recessions
January 9, 2020 By Nicholas LePan
Just like in life, markets go through peaks and valleys. The good news for investors is that often the peaks ascend to far greater heights than the depths of the valleys.
Today’s post helps to put recessions into perspective. It draws information from Capital Group to break down the frequency of economic expansions and recessions in modern U.S. history, while also showing their typical impact.
What is a Recession?
Not all recessions are the same. Some can last long while others are short. Some create lasting effects, while others are quickly forgotten. Some cripple entire economies, while others are much more targeted, impacting specific sectors within the economy.
Fed Official: “If there’s a recession, don’t worry”
.Fed Official: “If there’s a recession, don’t worry”
Notes From The Field By Simon Black
January 29, 2020 San Juan, Puerto Rico
Earlier this week I sent one of my team members to a banking conference here in Puerto Rico hosted by the Federal Reserve.
It might strike you as strange that the Fed would be holding an event in Puerto Rico, but it’s not that unusual.
Puerto Rico is a US territory and hence part of the US banking system. So just like the rest of the United States, banks in Puerto Rico (including my own) fall under the umbrella of the Federal Reserve.
The whole point of the event was to help showcase large-scale investments in Puerto Rico that local banks can help finance.
6 Strategies to Protect Income From Taxes
.6 Strategies to Protect Income From Taxes
By Barbara A. Friedberg Updated Jan 29, 2020
These tips can help you preserve the income you earn
Earned income gets taxed in many ways: at the federal and state levels, and by Social Security and Medicare, to name a few. Taxes are difficult to avoid, but there are many strategies to help ward them off. Here are six ways to protect your income from taxes.
Key Takeaways
Contributing to qualified accounts with pretax dollars can defer or exempt some income from taxation.
Business ownership includes several work-related tax breaks, as does owning a home or being a student.
Tax-sheltered income from eligible municipal bonds can also help taxpayers save.
1. Invest in Municipal Bonds
Buying a municipal bond essentially means lending money to a state or local entity for a set number of interest payments over a predetermined period. Once the bond reaches its maturity date, the full amount of the original investment is repaid to the buyer.
The Best Money Advice I’ve Ever Gotten
.The Best Money Advice I’ve Ever Gotten
By Cameron Huddleston May 29, 2019|In Budgeting, Financial Planning
I have been writing about personal finance for a long time – more than 17 years. As you can probably imagine, I’ve had the opportunity to interview countless financial experts, lots of ordinary folks who’ve shared their money journeys with me and even some big names in the world of business and finance – such as Tony Robbins and David Bach. I feel fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about personal finance from these interviews.
You can imagine, though, that it might be tough to pinpoint the best money advice I’ve ever gotten in the nearly two decades I’ve spent as a financial journalist. But that’s what my friend Shannon McLay asked me to do when she recently was interviewing me for her podcast, Martinis and Your Money.
The Money Market Riggers
The Money Market Riggers
The Final WakeUp Call By Peter B Meyer
Earning Money, When Actually Getting Poorer
Stocks finish at all-time highs. But think again. In terms of real money – in gold-linked, pre-1971 dollars — stocks have been losing ground since the start of this millennium.
We are witnessing the most remarkable episode in financial history. Investors think they are making money, while they are actually getting poorer.
President Donald J. Trump tells the international Deep State Cabal at Davos that the U.S. economy is “spectacular,” while many countries have never recovered from the crisis of ’08-’09. – Be conscious and awake to witness the upcoming financial demolition game on a global scale.
The Fed clearly made the right choice when it chose to pump up the repo market with hundreds of billions in new money every night. Otherwise, the world economy, the stock market, the whole financial system would have gone to Hell.
It would surely do the right thing next week and the weeks thereafter, too. The feds have $6 trillion of short-term loans to “roll” in over the next six months. That’s the cost of overspending by governments on wars, wasted subsidies, giveaways, unnecessary activities, and other throw away.
How to Get Better at Anticipating Your Financial Needs
.How to Get Better at Anticipating Your Financial Needs
By Trent Hamm
Getting Started
Home » How To Get Better At Anticipating Your Financial Needs
One of the most valuable tools for keeping your financial life as stable as possible is to improve your ability to anticipate your future expenses and financial needs.
This enables you to take some steps to prepare now for those expenses and thus reduce their impact in the future.
For people who aren’t naturally familiar with planning ahead, this can feel like a major shift in thinking. Many people simply buy groceries as needed by visiting the grocery store and wandering through the aisles to grab items needed for their next few days worth of meals. Many people respond with chagrin when they find an unexpected bill in the mail.
Ten Rules for Asset Protection Planning
.Ten Rules for Asset Protection Planning
By Jay Adkisson
Start early, keep it simple, and don’t try to hide stuff from your creditors.
There’s a gambling saying that goes something like, “If you want to be a winner, you have to walk away from the table a winner.” One time-honored method of reaching this result is to systematically take your chips off the table as you win them, so that your potential for losses stays small.
Asset protection planning is all about taking chips off the table in good times, so that you still can walk away from the table a winner no matter what happens in bad times.
Those who worry the most about asset protection are those who are the most likely to get sued; think obstetricians and, more recently, real estate investors here.
But average folks often get caught up in difficult situations, and thus if you have something to protect then the topic of asset protection should at least cross your mind. ...
How To Protect Assets and Avoid Taxes
.How To Protect Assets and Avoid Taxes
Get Lauded As A Philanthropist Like Mark Zuckerberg
By Jeff Berwick
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook posted a “Letter To Our Daughter” stating that he would give 99% of his Facebook shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative “to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation.”
The New York Times, perhaps the most economically ignorant tabloid in the world, headlined, “Mark Zuckerberg Vows to Donate 99% of His Facebook Shares for Charity.”
Countless people across the webisphere lauded Zuckerberg as a caring philanthropist who was just giving 99% of his wealth away.
In many ways what he did was philanthropic but not for the reasons that the great majority of people think.