Anyone who has gone through a divorce knows how emotionally challenging and financially complex it can be. While attorneys handle the legal aspects, a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® focuses specifically on the financial implications of divorce. This specialized designation equips professionals with the expertise to guide clients through the intricate financial aspects of divorce proceedings, ensuring better outcomes for their financial future.
Anna Marie Mock, a fee-only certified financial planner at Highland Financial Advisors, discusses the dynamic interplay between art and science in financial planning. Drawing inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci's philosophy that "everything connects to everything else," she emphasizes that financial planning is an art involving subjective goal-setting and a science-driven by objective analysis tools. In this video, Anna explains how the scientific method can be applied to financial planning, using equity compensation as a concrete example.
What are your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about money? What about your partner, and do they differ from your own? Sometimes, the conflict we experience around money in our personal lives can be attributed to incongruent money scripts with those with whom we share finances. Let’s dive into the term money script and how understanding it can help us achieve our financial goals.
In talking with clients about the benefits their employer provides during the open enrollment season, one often overlooked benefit if clients have dependents is the Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA).
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are not only a savvy investment option but also offer numerous benefits, especially for high-net-worth families. An HSA is a tax-advantaged savings account designed for individuals with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses. While the utility of HSAs is universal, they hold advantages for high-net-worth families and have steadily grown in popularity since their inception.
"The Three Questions Every Frantic Family Should Ask" is a book by Patrick Lencioni, a renowned author, speaker, and consultant on organizational health. The book aims to help families overcome the stress and anxiety of modern-day family life. Lencioni draws from his extensive experience in organizational health to provide practical insights and tools that families can use to build healthier relationships, communicate better, and achieve greater success in their personal and professional lives.
April 30th marked the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web being introduced to the public for the first time. Tim Berners-Lee was a 37-year-old researcher at CERN, a physics lab in Switzerland when he created the first website and launched it on the Web as we know it today. 1.8 billion websites later, Lee's invention has revolutionized the way human beings interact and learn on a global scale.
Reviewing and adequately reacting when handed a severance package can be daunting. A flood of emotions and concerns can cloud your judgment and lead to rash decision-making. It's essential to pause and compose your thoughts before proceeding because some of your benefits will still be extremely valuable to your short and long-term plan.
According to the Department of Energy's SETO (Solar Energy Technologies Office), provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will reduce the cost of installing rooftop solar by an average of $7,500, with taxpayers expected to realize an additional average savings of $9,000 on their electricity bills over the system's life.
Big houses, luxury cars, and expensive jewelry are some of the most common things people believe to be their greatest assets. Although all these things signify wealth, they do not come close to life's most significant wealth and asset, your health. Being physically and mentally able to do the things you love as you get older is something you can't put a price tag on.
Investing can be a daunting task, especially when you have a significant amount of cash to invest. One of the most crucial decisions is when to invest. Should you commit all at once or spread out your investments over time? This article will discuss the two primary investment strategies: lump-sum investing and dollar-cost averaging.
Pandemic investments and the continuation of gene therapy spurred the growth of companies in recent years. Still, these same companies are feeling the pinch due to growing economic uncertainty. Life sciences do better than other industries during economic and market drawdowns, but it is not immune to global influences.
Revelations around the collapse and government takeover of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) dominated the news over the weekend. Except for the distractions provided by March Madness brackets and the Oscars, the word of failing financial institutions brought back bad feelings for everyone. Ironically, the film Everything Everywhere All at Once not only swept the Oscars but aptly describes the swiftness in which SVB collapsed.
I often asked this question in high school – it usually involved someone walking away without me finding out.
And now that I have your attention…
In September 2008, the financial services company ING launched a marketing campaign called “Your Number”. You may remember these commercials – they showed busy people going about their day with large six or seven-figure numbers floating over their heads.
The Super Bowl Indicator is a market phenomenon first introduced in 1978 by New York Times sportswriter Leonard Koppett. His findings revealed that the outcome of the US stock market (measured by the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial Average) could be predicted by the winner of the Super Bowl in the National Football League
When New Jersey deregulated its electric and gas industries in the late 1990s, it was supposed to bring a new competitive environment that would benefit consumers. By being a “shopping state,” New Jersey joined many other states in the northeast where consumers could shop for the best electricity or gas rates among competing third-party suppliers.
Depending on the list, sometimes being ranked #1 is where you want to be, and sometimes it’s not.
For example, New Jersey ranks #1 in education according to U.S. News and World Report. The Garden State also ranked #1 as the 2021 best state to live in (barely getting beat out by Massachusetts in 2022, boo!), #1 in most Revolutionary War battles in a single state, and #1 in the number of dentists per 100,000 residents.
The first investment speculative bubble was the tulip bubble of the mid-1600s. The details are debatable, but from 1634 to 1637, a speculative bubble developed on future contracts for new tulip varieties in Holland. Prices snowballed, reaching ten times the annual salary of a typical tradesman of the day. By February 1637, the market had collapsed. The tulip mania of the 1600s resulted from a mass hysteria for new varieties of tulips developed in Holland after the flower had been introduced to Europe only a few decades before.
A few years ago, I remembered having a conversation with a divorced client that stuck with me. The client struggled to decide whether to keep or sell the marital home after her finalized divorce. Although she asked the right questions and thoroughly understood the numbers, I could tell emotions guided her decision-making, not logic.
During my sabbatical, I read a book by Simon Sinek, “The Infinite Game,” which was published in 2019 and inspired by James Carse’s 1986 book on game theory titled “Finite and Infinite Games.”
In the books, finite and infinite games are described in this way:
A finite game is played to win, like baseball or golf. The players are known, the rules are set, and the endpoint is defined.
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