As summer winds down, kids head back for a new school year. Among the pencils, paper, and other supplies, it’s important to equip your child with another tool: a higher level education. College education is a game changer in an individual’s economic outlook. Statistically, a college education means lower unemployment, higher median income, greater access to employer-provided health insurance, and lower incidence of poverty compared to those without a college degree. Many pare

What is rebalancing? Rebalancing is a smart way to control your risks in investing. It realigns your portfolio back to its original asset allocation. The rebalancing process consists of selling what has become a larger piece of the portfolio than you originally intended and buying what has shrunk to become a lower percentage than your target allocation called for. The idea here is that your original asset class ratios were designed based on historical risk and return expectat

In the second part of this blog series, we'll take a look at a few of the implicit costs of investing. These costs are not easily observed and can be difficult to quantify. Portfolio Turnover Turnover is a measure of how frequently a portfolio manager buys and sells assets in a fund within a 12-month time period. Every time a manager buys or sells a security within the fund, the brokerage firm assesses a transaction fee. A fund with a high turnover ratio incurs more fees

A car is one of the most significant purchases a person will make. In terms of wealth creation, it is also arguably one of the worst investments available. A vehicle is often a necessary means of transportation to maintain employment. However many people view a car as a status symbol or pay a premium for the driving experience. The true cost associated with purchasing an expensive new car is often overlooked. Unlike stocks, bonds, and real estate, cars are essentially guara

Thinking about where you want your life to be in the future – whether 30 years from now, or just 10, can be stressful. Most people don’t even know where they want to be in 1 year – and if you’re anything like me, you don’t even know what you’re doing next week! However, there are important times in life when we have to step back and make plans for the future. Not just for our own benefit, but for the sake of our children and our future generations. The following are 8 importa

Greg Phelps is a CFP® certified financial planner in Las Vegas, Nevada. As an Ed Slott Elite IRA Advisor, he’s also an IRA specialist. We asked Greg to guest write for our blog on how beneficiary IRA’s work, and the rules surrounding them. IRA Beneficiary Rules IRA’s (individual retirement accounts) are one of the most popular ways for investors to save for retirement. In fact, as of 2012 there was nearly 50 million American households with over 5.4 TRILLION dollars in i

Purchasing a home can be a very stressful experience. Long search times, indecisiveness, and an inability to find a home everyone in the family will love are some of the most common issues people run into when searching for a home. Finally finding a home you’re absolutely happy with can be a big relief – until the appraisal value turns out to be much lower than your offer. It’s a common situation in rising housing markets. A rise in demand forces homebuyers to bid against

Greetings from Austin ​Austin is considered to be one of America’s fastest growing cities. Its central location in Texas along with a wide variety of employers is well known. The great food, live music, SXSW, ACL, hiking and bike trails and the state capitol don’t hurt either. This increase in the demand to live in Austin has caused the population to nearly double for the past twenty years, as shown in the image below. Approximately net 110 people move to Austin every day.