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It’s that time of year again! Fall is upon us and annual open enrollment is in full swing for a majority of companies. Open enrollment is a great time to reevaluate what makes sense for you and your family’s health. It may be tempting to just breeze through enrollment and stick with the same Read more…

Interest Rates on Federal Student Loans Are on The Rise. Consider these 5 Key Benefits Before Bypassing Them For Private Student Loans. Read more…

Think about the major choices you’ve made in your life. Picking a career path, choosing a life partner, deciding to have children, changing jobs – these are high-stake decisions because each forces you to set aside all possible futures except the one you ultimately choose. Read more…

I wrote a piece about what a Cash Balance Plan is recently, which you can find here. The natural question after reading that is “Is my business a good candidate to set up a Cash Balance Plan?” Read more…

The 2010s was arguably the decade of the corporate perk. For years, we could hardly escape the barrage of beer taps in the break room, free gym memberships, and unlimited PTO. These benefits may have led to a “best place to work” award or two, but when was the last time a free lunch helped you feel Read more…

What are the tax implications to consider if you’re moving from one state to another? Each state has a unique set of taxes, such as property, sales, estate or inheritance, and income tax, that apply to its residents. The Tax Cuts and Acts Job put a $10,000 limit on the state and local tax Read more…

As you age and mature in life and in your career, your investment priorities change, and financial goals and objectives shift as well. Having the right financial advisor by your side means having a proactive partner to make sure you reach your goals during life's journey. I created this investing Read more…

After several years of deliberation, I’m finally launching a podcast. I’m excited to introduce you to The Long Term Investor, a financial podcast designed to distill complex topics into easily digestible lessons and make you a better investor. Read more…

Homeownership has long been one of the biggest goals for Americans to achieve, and a cornerstone of the traditional American Dream. More than 65% of the US population owns their home – but without the help of a mortgage, many of those homeowners couldn’t afford to make the purchase. However, very Read more…

For a myriad of reasons – from automatically passing ADP testing, helping with Top-Heavy failures, or owners saving $60,000+, many businesses choose to use a Safe Harbor formula in their 401(k) retirement plan. Let’s find out what the Safe Harbor formulas are and why you may choose one over the Read more…

If you have a groundbreaking entrepreneurial idea floating around your head, then you may be wondering what to consider before starting a business. One simple mentality will help — the more planning you do upfront, the better off your new business venture will be. It's just like taking a vacation. Read more…

Unless you’re independently wealthy, you probably receive an income for work you perform at your job. Read more…

Nearly everyone needs life insurance, but it’s easy to end up with a bad policy. That’s not your fault. It happens because of predatory sales tactics that are often used by people who sell insurance. Read more…

Join InspireHer founder and Senior Wealth Manager, Sara Gelsheimer, for a chat with physician, founder and hard-working mom, Dr. Becky Lynn, of Evora Women's Health at St. Luke's Hospital in Chesterfield, MO. Dr. Lynn discusses starting her new women's health clinic at the beginning of the Read more…

The financial decisions you make in your 20s are arguably more important than any other time in your life. The most important decision you can make is to start investing now. To illustrate, imagine two college graduates with access to tax-deferred investment accounts earning 8% per year. The first Read more…

Want to get the most out of your 529 College Savings Plan? If one of these special situations apply, you may be able to shop 529 plans in an effort to reduce fees and gain access to additional features and benefits not available in your state-sponsored plan. Don't miss this short informative video Read more…

The right investment strategy to reach your goals shifts as you age. Once you reach your 30s, the looming worries of graduating, starting a career and climbing out of the student loan debt hole probably have been replaced by more domestic concerns. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median Read more…

Creating a budget and sticking to it is difficult for most people because the process is time consuming and restrictive. Traditional budgeting forces you to make every decision as if you live in a spreadsheet. But guess what? You don’t live in a spreadsheet. Read more…

By the time you’re in your 40s, you have probably established some financial goals, invested in your workplace retirement accounts, and set aside money for a rainy day. It’s also more likely you have gotten married, bought a home, and had a few kids. Next comes the question of whether you’ve done Read more…

For most of your life, saving for retirement probably wasn’t a high priority. But as the years count down on your career, nerves set in and rhetorical questions start flooding your head: Have I saved enough? Did I invest too aggressively? Do I have the right kind of insurance? Read more…

I’ve read the articles and maybe you have too; articles about Mega Backdoor Roths (MBRs) that promise a lot – but maybe don’t explain all the issues they may cause for certain businesses or people. In this article, I'm going to review what a MBR is, how it works, and while it may be good choice for Read more…

In our Family Office practice, we field a lot of questions from clients who are interested in alternative investments. Perhaps you’ve also wondered whether you could improve on your investment portfolio by branching out beyond your core stock/bond asset allocations. With all the possibilities to Read more…

In our Plancorp Family Office practice, we often work with clients who are frequently presented with opportunities to invest in non-traditional offerings such as private equity, private real estate, hedge funds, etc. Read more…

There’s one more important detail to pay attention to when comparing advisors: The way they get paid. Unfortunately, not all advisors operate by the same methods, and how an advisory firm generates revenues and compensates its employees is a critical factor in the quality and type of advice you Read more…

Homebuyers are opting for more living space than they have in recent years. This need for expanded square footage has led to a unique situation: people wanting to buy and sell a house at the same time. Read more…

Every family is unique, and everyone has their own questions, priorities, and vision for the future. However, there are certain life events or financial situations that are especially complex and call for deeper expertise from a financial advisor. Read more…

How old were you when you first started seriously thinking about money? For me, it was when I was eight, based on “The Money Tree” book that I “authored” for a third-grade assignment. Read more…

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have delivered eye-popping returns in 2020 and 2021. All kinds of crypto – including what started as a joke and meme, Dogecoin – are receiving heightened media attention as a result. The value of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies has risen sharply in past months. But Read more…

Gold is shiny and makes nice jewelry, but it doesn’t impress me as an investment. Read more…

There’s an important detail to pay attention to when comparing advisors: The way they get paid. Unfortunately, not all advisors operate by the same methods, and how an advisory firm generates revenues and compensates its employees is a critical factor in the quality and type of advice you receive. Read more…

You may have noticed that advisors go by many different professional titles, which are often followed by a trail of different three-letter acronyms representing special designations. They seem important—but not all titles and credentials are as valuable as they sound. Read more…

After years of inflation readings well below 2%, financial markets expect to see higher inflation in 2021. Read more…

The potential value of a relationship starts with the person who will be guiding your financial decisions. You’re looking for someone with deep knowledge and experience to back up their advice, and you want to gauge whether that advisor is a good fit for your family’s needs. Above all, you want Read more…

What is the top-heavy test? 401(k) plans must be tested annually to determine if they are top-heavy. The top-heavy test compares the account balances of “key employees” to those of “non-key employees.” If the sum of all key employee balances exceeds 60% of the total plan balance the plan is Read more…

A productive working relationship with an advisor begins with trust and transparency. Even before you dive into the details of the advisor’s services, you want to understand key issues that reflect how they define and uphold their commitment to clients. This is true for any advisor, and is Read more…

With mortgage rates near historic lows, it seems like all anyone who owns a home talks about right now is refinancing. If you own, too, you might wonder: Is now the time to refinance your mortgage? Read more…

The business community has certainly felt the impact of the pandemic — so much so that the number of active business owners fell by 3.3 million between February and April 2020. That’s a 22% decline, the largest on record. Small businesses were hit the hardest, but nearly half have said they’re now Read more…

“I said it would happen.” “It had to happen.” “I knew it would happen.” You’ve probably made statements like these at one point or another. That’s because once an event occurs, our brains immediately connect the new information from what happened to related knowledge stored in our memory. By making Read more…

The cruel irony of economic downturns is their tendency to disproportionately impact the populations least equipped to withstand them. The downturn caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is no different. Read more…