Blog

When I entered the world of finance, I found myself drawn to the idea of comprehensive financial management. Budgeting, planning, saving, investing, all of it was exciting to me and I worked with many clients who were high-earning professionals in their own right. But I was struck by how many of them, despite earning six figures or more, saved very little. They spent almost everything they made. 

For many retirees receiving Social Security benefits, it’s easy to be frustrated. 2023 ushered in an 8.7% increase, the largest raise in Social Security benefits in over forty years.

Making a marriage last is hard work. This is no secret to anyone who is or has been married, because life gets complicated.

They say that good things come to those who wait. And when we’re talking about Roth IRAs, this is certainly true, since we don’t typically reap their benefits for years.

For decades, we’ve been encouraged to contribute as much as possible to these plans, with the idea being that you will be in a lower tax bracket when you retire – and therefore you’ll pay fewer taxes on these funds than if you’d forgone the tax break upfront. Of course, our economic landscape has changed since the traditional IRA and 401(k) first gained widespread use, with IRA’s first becoming popular in the 1970’s and the 401(k) following in the early 1980’s. The highest tax bracket in the 1970’s was 70% and it dropped to 50% in the early 1980s, so we can see how workers believed they’d pay less once they retired and were taking less income.

In a world filled with distractions, procrastination, and competing priorities, it can be all too easy to put off important tasks or decisions, believing that there will always be a more opportune moment in the future. However, the wisdom of this adage challenges this assumption, asserting that the most opportune moment to act is often the present.