Our Weekend Word

Phishing, malware, hacks. Lately, it seems as if the tricks that cybercriminals use to try to access your sensitive information are endless. But even with all of the advanced threats and increasingly clever online scams, one of the simplest ways for identity thieves to obtain information is often overlooked—dumpster diving.

On the radio, many were purporting on what the Steelers needed to do to get better and some prominent voices were pulling to let Big Ben play out that last year of his contract. I tend to disagree with that idea. When the radio host was going through the options for keeping Ben around I wanted to scream out “what’s the point!?”.

While I was ranting to Aaron on the topic later that day, we realized that this situation is not unlike the ones we all find ourselves in trying to plan our financial lives.

It is 2021 and we all know what that means… tax time!  So we wanted to take the opportunity to detail 2020’s tax documents and their disbursement dates.

As we approach the beginning of a new year and consider what it may bring, it’s helpful to reflect on the one now behind us. After what has been a tumultuous year of unbelievable events and unprecedented circumstances, we’ve made it to a point where there may actually be more good news than bad.

2020 has been a difficult year for all of us, and on top of it, IRAs might now be the worst investment vehicle to inherit.

Health has been on the mind a lot in 2020 so in the spirit of having a positive mindset, here are some great steps to improve our financial health at the end of the year.

As the election continues to play out—with Biden being declared the winner of the presidential race and the Republicans taking back some seats in the House and likely retaining control of the Senate—it’s a good time to evaluate what this might mean for your investments. To start, let’s look at how the markets have responded, so far, to the election results.

Four months ago we wrote a piece about how the markets can potentially predict the presidential election (Presidential Predictor).  The gist of that article is that 87% of the time the S&P 500 has predicted the winner of the election.   If between July 31^st and October 31^st the index is up, they predict the incumbent candidate will win, if it is negative, it is expected the challenger will win.  Well… during that period the S&P 500 had a -.04% return.  Statistically speaking, that is within the margin of error and essentially flat.  I think that does a great job of summarizing what this week has been like.  Even now on Friday, we might be a little closer to declaring a winner, but not much. 

Since the outcome is still yet to be determined, we wanted to take a second to discuss something that we have been fielding some calls on, Joe Biden’s potential tax plan. This still very early folks, so take this all with a grain of salt as not only would Biden have to win but his plan would have to make its way through congress before we get the final policy.

We started this blog in early 2016 in hopes of being able to provide our clients, friends, and family some timely input on various aspects of the financial sphere.  During that time, we have managed to send out 247 weeks of consecutive Weekend Words.  If you have been on this rollercoaster with us for that long there is no doubt you have heard us talk about investing early, the power of compounding and how important those key factors can be in attaining your retirement goals.

The work and love that goes into making a home can make them of high sentimental value. Apart from this, our homes also represent another large actual value, making up around 30% of the average homeowner’s net worth. This inevitable mixture of business and pleasure can make our homes a particularly tricky thing to deal with when we start to approach retirement.