According to the IRS, U.S. taxpayers received $264.5 billion in total refunds in 2016. That makes the average refund total about $2,993. Read more…
6 Signs It’s Time to Sell Your Business
There’s no right or wrong reason to sell your business; when you’re ready, you’re ready. Read more…
How Much Can I Afford: Home, Car, Credit Cards, and Savings?
One of the most frequent questions that I get asked by my friends and family is, “How much do I need to buy ________?” Read more…
College Freshmen: 3 Things I Wish I Knew
Pick a dorm. Sign up for classes. Buy a laptop. As a recent college graduate, I can remember going through my checklist of everything I needed prior to my college move (on top of all the pieces of advice my parents were attempting to engrain in me). Read more…
The Collective Knowledge of Markets
Meet Penelope the cow. NPR’s Planet Money asked the internet how much Penelope weighed and got 17,205 responses. The average of all the responses was 1,287 pounds and the actual weight was 1,355 pounds. The average was off by only five percent. This experiment, which was originally conducted in Read more…
5 Estate Planning Documents You Need
Estate planning is a little different for everyone. While you are alive, the estate planning process allows you to manage and preserve your assets. At death, your estate plan allows you to conserve and control their distribution after your death according to your goals and objectives. Read more…
Risk Tolerance
Today we continue a discussion that began with defining risk and then focused on measuring the risk/return tradeoff. To briefly summarize those articles, we learned: Read more…
How to Analyze Risks and Returns in Investing with Plancorp
Smart investment decisions are necessary on the road to financial security, but it's important to understand how to analyze the risks and returns associated with investment decisions. Knowing how to analyze risk and return properly can help you build a successful portfolio. Read more…
Evaluating Cash
“Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.” Read more…
January 26, 2015
Avoid Hidden Investment Costs
We never cease to be amazed at what little time is spent by the typical investor trying to get a handle on what his or her investing costs are. It’s amazing because, aside from the fact that costs can have a major impact on portfolio returns, they are still the only thing that we, as investors, Read more…
