ACTIVE LIFESTYLE FINANCIAL PLANNING

Mindfulness I have been recommending Mindfulness to planning clients lately for a multitude of issues. A practice of Mindfulness is much needed given our current pace of life and it has been helpful to me personally in a number of areas so I thought I would share the typical Q&A. The first question: what is Mindfulness? George Mumford, a Mindfulness guru who worked with Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson and the Chicago Bulls back in their heyday, did a great job of explaining

Save an Average of $5,000 by Selling Your Home Yourself (and spend it on a financial plan) The average American pays $12,000 in commissions every time they sell a home. The median home value in the US is around $200,000. The typical real estate fee a seller pays to sell a home is 6% of the sales price. This seems crazy to me. I have some client’s who are adamant about selling their house themselves and we decided on using a flat fee MLS service to save at least the listing c

A few things happen when you run barefoot. Most of them are not what you would expect. If done correctly, rather than injuring yourself,...

For whatever reason; pace of life, having kids later in life etc, few couples I know seem to be able to get pregnant without some amount of help. This seems to just be a fact of modern life. As you can imagine, the cost of help with conception can vary greatly depending on what is required. Procedures start at a couple of thousand dollars and run up to the ultimate option which is In Vitro Fertilization or IVF. Based on a 2014 study, the median out-of-pocket expenses for a c

With several new self-employed clients this year I have been having the business expenses conversation with some frequency while preparing their tax returns for the first time. To help clients get a head start, I put together the following quick reference and figured I would post it for other business owners to use similarly. It is not intended to be a comprehensive list and you should consult your tax advisor and all of that other fun disclaimer stuff. Startup Expenses Ma

All You Ever Wanted To Know About Roof Repair and Replacement Hurricane Matthew spared Charleston from his worst, but many in the coastal communities with older roofs did sustain damage of varying degrees. Unfortunately my roof at approximately 17 years of age was still the old style three tab shingles rated for only 60 MPH winds and was one of the casualties. I am a consumer, not a roofing contractor, but I thought I would share what I have learned after going through this

A famous quote from Warren Buffet goes, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.” Ascertaining price, and what you get for that price, when looking for a financial advisor is as difficult as any purchase I can think of. One would think a logical place to start is a provider’s title. After all, a Lawyer practices law, and an Accountant does accounting. However, unlike many other industries, “professionals” in financial services can call themselves virtually anything un

Background It is pretty much common knowledge that accident free cars are worth more than those that have sustained damage. Even an expertly repaired car with no visible evidence will be worth less thanks to the proliferation of services like Carfax and Autocheck to tell the tale (which is a good thing). I actually have a client who was set to trade in a vehicle this summer and he was recently in an accident. I looked into our options to recoup the difference in market value

The human body is not grateful for a lack of pain. Most of us don’t get out of bed everyday thankful that our knee, back, ankle or ribs...

It is rare to find the time to sit down and watch a movie these days, but I recently happened upon a movie called “About Time” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2194499/ and was captivated. In this movie, the leading actor had the ability to travel back in time. No, this was not another “Back to the Future” because this guy used his gift in practical ways to live the best life he could envision. He went back to correct situations that didn’t turn out as planned the first go around