The United States has, by design, a politically polarized governmental system. While many other democracies practice with a parliamentary system, which utilizes proportional representation to allow for multiple small parties to build coalitions that result in majorities, the United States system favors deliberate disfunction. Concerned about tyrannies of the majority, the founders put in place a number of mechanisms to …
Every two years, a research team from the University of Southern Maine and kitces.com (a popular research and thought leadership platform in financial planning) conduct and release a study on “How Real Financial Planners Actually Do Financial Planning”. The study, the only of its kind, surveys hundreds of financial planners from an array of business models on how they conduct …
At MY Wealth Planners®, we are a Fee-Only Financial Planning firm. This means we are paid directly by our clients and no one else. This is an advantage to our clients for an obvious set of reasons: fee transparency, reduced conflicts of interest, and in many cases, lower costs to clients. However, when the public is asked to compare financial …
Well, first of all, it’s good to be back; I missed opining at everyone for a whole two weeks! Now down to business: I promised that I would share with you what I learned in the two-week Personal Financial Planning summer intensive as part of my Ph.D. program. Simply put, it’s this question: “What have we learned?” You see, Personal …
A unique opportunity has arisen in the financial services world over the past decade or so: Investing in your beliefs. Now that isn’t to say donating to non-profits or your church, but the actual advent of investment products designed to allow you to invest in companies representing your beliefs or to avoid investing in those you don’t want to support. …
We all have money scripts. They’re immutable psychological principles that were founded in our early childhood and that have been informed by the terms and perspectives we’ve observed in others around money as we’ve grown up. Positive examples can be “a penny saved is a penny earned” or “pay yourself first”, while more destructive versions can be “there is never …
We’ve all had that job. Whether it was THE job or just part of A JOB, we’ve all found ourselves staring at the clock and waiting to go home. But what does that say about the expectations we have for our work and the expectations our employers have? After all, if I’m AT work, shouldn’t I HAVE work to do? …
Yesterday a well-known financial planner who is the employee of a larger firm asked this question on Twitter: “Business owners – what were the most helpful resources or learning you’ve had regarding being an owner vs employee? What advice would you give others?” This a common conversation and question that financial planners face with both clients and the general public. …
Culture is an interesting area of interest, both public, private, personal, and professional. While every individual brings a genetic heritage and traditions in tandem, each business develops its culture from the top down in a positive light or the bottom up in a negative one. From small businesses to enormous institutions, culture is the force multiplier. An institution with the …
Well it’s official, as of Monday June 8th the S&P 500 Index returned to a Year-to-Date positive return, representing the fastest decline of the market and recovery from the decline in a single year in market history. While the technicalities of the causes for both the fall and rise of the market can and will certainly be contested between finance …