Image credit: decoist.com Whenever the market has a good run, as it has lately, people start thinking it may be overvalued and ripe for a fall. Thoughts turn next to other forms of investments, such as real estate or more esoteric alternatives like options, oil or other natural resources, or precious metals.  Real estate is …

Why do so many people experience problems in managing their finances? As Tolstoy famously wrote in his novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And so it is with our financial lives. Any one aspect of a family’s finances that is not working well can …

At the beginning of the series, I wrote that most of us give little thought to where we are going in life and how we will get there. We let others around us set our goals for us, because that is how life starts out in childhood. With the coming of adulthood, we are supposedly …

Success is when you are owed what can be repaid.  Significance is when you are owed what cannot be repaid.  Everyone can choose to aim for significance in some aspects of their lives. Everyone who comes to my financial planning practice has reached some level of success. They have enough money that they now feel …

In the last post, I wrote about aspects of life that are predictable and the urgency of making wise choices in our own lives. While much is predictable, some of the most significant aspects of life are completely unpredictable. Each unique person born is the winner of a huge lottery, as we know from biology. …

Though everyone’s course through life is different, most of our lives go through predictable stages. People are unique animals in many ways, but two of the most remarkable are how utterly dependent we are on others for survival, and how long this period lasts. It is typically a year before a person can walk, but …

As humans, we balance the pull to conform with what nearly everyone around us is doing, and the desire to be unique individuals. We navigate through life, constrained by these boundaries. Most of us give little thought to where we are going, and how we will get there. This post begins a series that will …

With the entire economy experiencing turbulence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many are starting to wonder about the strength of insurance carriers. I had an opportunity to get the perspective of John Ryan, Founder and CEO of Ryan Insurance Strategy Consultants, of Greenwood Village, Colorado, regarding the latest developments with life and long-term care lines …

One popular style of stock investing is to buy individual stocks with steady or increasing dividend track records.  The idea is that companies who commit to pay a dividend consistently arrange their businesses to have a profit, and share prices keep up with inflation. These companies then pay out a modest fraction of profits, ensuring …