By: Laura Walton AFC® For the past six years, the editors of Financial Planning magazine along with the Foundation for Financial Planning, a non-profit dedicated to the delivery of pro bono financial planning, recognize those advisors who have gone over and above in providing financial planning services to people who might otherwise not meet with…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Results are in. The five largest funds in the world are all passively managed, and four of them are managed by Vanguard, famous for its low-cost offerings. Almost one of every two dollars invested in a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) over the past three years went into a Vanguard…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Good math skills + good behavioral choices = good financial outcomes…but we struggle with both. Statistics show that two-thirds of us are poorly prepared to make good financial decisions! The National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka the Nation’s Report Card, tells us that just 37% of American high school seniors were…
By: Laura Walton AFC® About 2% of our spending goes to vacations – but that’s an average of all kinds of vacations – from driving and staying with relatives to flying and staying in a hotel. I’ll share a low-cost, high-value vacation a friend took recently but, before that, let’s look at our average spending…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Those were my client’s opening words at our last meeting. We’d met a year earlier and agreed on an aggressive savings goal to meet his retirement needs so I was, of course, interested in his epiphany. “I realized I needed to save $100 a day!” The good news? He’s doing it!…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Even when we identify something we’d like to change, it’s not often easy. After all, we’re likely replacing one habit with another. But, as with most challenges, there are tricks to succeeding. First, of course, you have to commit to something – your goal. The commitment is your rational choice –…
By: Laura Walton AFC® A successful life isn’t often the result of winning the lottery, being plucked out of obscurity by a talent scout or even being born into a wealthy family but rather it’s the result of doing the right things consistently over time. I tossed aside my idea for today’s blog when I…
By: Laura Walton AFC® A fellow I met recently had what I thought was a great strategy for easing his son out of the family home and into his own place. Then a similar idea appeared in an online article – it must be good enough to share! David’s son had graduated from a barber’s…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Sixth-graders in Chicago competed in the money equivalent of a science fair. Let’s see how two teams tackled the cost of prom and getting a dog. Gail MarksJarvis, an award-winning financial columnist for the Chicago Tribune and contributor to the Arizona Daily Star, was among the judges for the competition “Talk…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Unfortunately, I’m not too surprised that 47% of Americans can’t come up with $400 in the case of an emergency. I am surprised, however, at what Neal Gabler revealed about his own financial decisions. Gabler’s article in the May issue of The Atlantic, The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans, is an excellent…