Dear Mr. Field, Today, I write this open letter to you because I had the mixed fortune of watching you speak before 200 or so NexGen financial planners. I call it mixed fortune because I thought you spoke well for the most part. Your story of the pizza parlor and its pay-it-forward policy was heartwarming. Your personal journey of having …
Small Errors, Big Problems – An Inflation-Adjusted DIY Case Study
Recently, a financial planning colleague asked on his Twitter page: DIYers – What average investment return (profit) do you assign to your retirement plan? What’s your reasoning? — Tyler Olson (@olsonplanner) August 20, 2023 One of the first replies was from an Anesthesiologist: “5%. Expect 7% and account for 2% inflation with projection for “today’s dollars.” While that seems like …
Paying and Getting Paid What You’re Worth
About a year or so into being a financial planner, I was given an opportunity to speak to the Women’s Community within the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. I had a fifteen-minute block, alongside an investment adviser from Boulder and a disability insurance saleswoman, who had their own fifteen-minute blocks. The investment adviser gave some good, if perhaps a bit off-base …
Uncle Sam Wants His Share
One of the most common frustrations of a financial planner, really, of any financial professional, is when the client does things backwards. They make a big financial decision and take a big financial action, then afterward, come to the professional seeking advice on how to mitigate the consequences of their decision. “How was I to know that selling that condo …
Guest Post: What I’ve Learned as a Financial Planner
A farewell guest post by our Associate Planner, Samantha Rauch. Over the past couple of years while working at MY Wealth Planners I have had the pleasure of experiencing what it means to be a financial planner. This is a role that goes beyond numbers and spreadsheets. It is a role that allows you to make a meaningful impact on …
Pick Two
As the old expression goes: “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Yet it seems there are cultures both among aspiring financial planners and financial planning firm owners that attempt just that. Students and career changers have casually shared with me time and time again that they’re looking for a position for two or three years that will …
The Roth Conversion
This is a rare occasioned blog in which I’m going to talk about the straight technical. This is a textbook case study of one of the most powerful financial planning techniques that we use with clients, and the good news is, you don’t have to be rich to benefit from using it, though its value does scale significantly. I’m talking …
The Cost of Trust
During my time in the Army Reserve, I had a job at IBM working in various roles in assisting projects relating to training and transferring services for various client companies to IBM. At one point, I went through the training for the service desk for a Department of Defense contract. The trainer, a woman named Cady, explained “the magic black …
Sex Sells
Yesterday, as often happens, a tweet went viral. Now, notably, I’m not here to talk about vesting schedules. Vesting schedules would be contrary to the title, and might be the “least sexy” thing we could possibly discuss. Suffice it to say, vesting schedules exist because employers want to incentivize employees to stay longer than minimum terms with the company. Other …
Never Work for Free
A gathering of powerful men sits, cantankerously debating the solution to a mutual problem. Among their shouting, a stranger enters their company and offers a solution to their problem. “It’s simple.” He says, which of course, raises a question from the group: “If it’s so simple, why haven’t you done it already?” To which he replies, “If you’re good at …