Did your teen get a summer job? Mine did - in the dining room of a local assisted living facility. Prerequisite: Ability to speak loudly and slowly. One conversation reportedly went like this: "Tonight's special is spaghetti with marinara sauce." "MARIJUANA sauce?!" "No, marinARA sauce!" After more banter to establish the lack of psychoactive substances in the sauce the resident went with grilled cheese. Good choice. Teens earning money is a beautiful thing! Now's the time to salt away some of those earnings to a ROTH IRA and they won't have to share with Uncle Sam. No tax now, no tax later. It doesn't get much more beautiful than that. TEN things to know about …
Retirement
Working during Retirement for Fun and Profit!
When I work with clients on retirement planning I have a lot of questions about numbers. How much have you saved so far? How much more will you save? How much do you spend now, how might that change in retirement? How much will your social security benefit be? How much will your health insurance cost? On and on and on, numbers galore! But what about the non-numerical questions? They are also important. How will you fill your time for the first 6-12 months after you retire? How about after that? How will you keep your mind sharp? What's going to get you out of bed in the morning? (Besides the cat) For some people, the answer to these questions is a job, even …
Cash and the Single Woman – What does the Survey Say?
I specialize in helping single women make sense of their money and their taxes. So I was very interested when Fidelity* recently came out with a study exploring the financial planning and investing habits of single women - they surveyed 1,503 women who never married, are divorced or widowed as well as single men and married men and women. Kathleen Murphy, president of personal investing at Fidelity said of the study ".....it's critical that women be actively involved and invested in the financial choices that can enable them to live the lives they deserve." There are a lot of interesting things in this study. I could write a bunch of newsletters about it. In fact, maybe I …
There are worse things than going to see a financial advisor!
Hello! A lot of people dread the idea of seeing a financial advisor. But as one of my best friends frequently says: "The truth will set you free". And this month I debut a new feature called "What I am Reading". Read on to learn more. Best, Michelle Morris, CFP®, EA BRIO Financial Planning Recently clients sent me the following cartoon: NON SEQUITUR © 2017 Wiley Ink, Inc.. Dist. By ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. They did say not to take it personally! I love this cartoon, even if it does suggest that going to hell would be preferable than coming to see me! There are a lot of reasons people dread …
What’s your number?
Hello! Much has been written in the financial press about "your number": the amount of money you should save in order to retire. It's an important number. But even more important is the first number you must have before you can even start to figure out "your number". Read on to learn more! Best, Michelle Morris, CFP®, EA BRIO Financial Planning Recently, a client emailed me after she got home from her hair salon. She was concerned because her hairdresser said you need "at least 2 or 3 million dollars" to retire. My client is probably not going to have that. Nor does she need it. Now certainly there are worse things that getting financial advice from a …
