FINANCIaL
FIELd NOTES
The Importance of “Trusted Contacts” On Your Financial Accounts
Most estate planning assumes you are either completely coherent and in charge of your money, or someone else has legally taken over through a power of attorney. However, real life is messier than that. There is usually a long stretch in between, sometimes years, where someone is still handling everything themselves and mostly doing fine. Nothing has been diagnosed, and by every legal measure that person is still perfectly in charge of their own affairs…
Where Do Bonds Go From Here
Nobody is excited to own bonds right now, and for good reason. Bonds are supposed to be the boring part of the portfolio and instead they have delivered the worst stretch in the history of the asset class. In fact, we were recently updating Investment Policy Statements for clients and had to put “N/A” for the “length of recovery” in the bond market benchmark because we are still technically in a drawdown from the 2022 selloff…
How Being Present Increases Happiness in Retirement
Over the years, I’ve reshared this blog post with special moments when I’ve noticed people being especially present. There was the couple, surrounded by people on their phones, staring at Rory during The Open Championship. There was David Beckham, watching on as Messi took the field, after years of work putting together the MLS club Inter Miami…
Is a Record $1.2 Trillion in Credit Card Debt a Conern?
Americans now owe a record $1.26 trillion on their credit cards. You may have probably seen some version of that headline on the news. It sounds alarming, and it is meant to. A number that big, sitting all by itself, does exactly what it was built to do. It makes you a little nervous about the state of the world and a little more likely to click.
As I’ve written before, most of the figures cited in the news are a single stand-alone number. “The Dow Sheds 500 points, ”Over 1,000 violent crimes reported in Northern Virginia,” and “US Household Credit Card Debt Hits $1.2 Trillion“ all lack perspective. If the Dow Sheds 500 points, what is the total Dow? If there were 1,000 violent crimes, is that crime figure higher or lower than last year? If credit card debt hit $1.2 trillion, what percent of household net worth is it?
Practical Steps to Secure Your Accounts
In recent years, our team has heard of multiple situations where money has been stolen from my client’s personal checking or savings accounts. Our team has been wrapping our heads around why and how it happens, and I want to share some of what we’ve learned.
Let me start with how these things actually happen, because the mechanics are less mysterious than they sound. Then I will give you a short list of what to do about it…
The Future of the US Dollar
Every few years, someone declares the dollar is finished. Debt too high, deficits unsustainable, China rising, etc. I've heard some version of this for the past decade, and I want to walk through what the data shows, because I think a lot of clients are genuinely worried right now about the future of the US dollar and their investments.
The dollar has real, legitimate challenges. But it is not losing its grip on global finance, and the most likely alternatives don't hold up when you look at the data…