WealthSmith Financial Planning

05/16/2024

The Dow touches 40,000..... the appeal of cheaper money on the horizon (true or not) is the sugar high the market was looking for....perhaps the old adage of "sell in May and go away" is taking a breather this year.

02/04/2024

I'm looking for anyone who might know who the person on the left is. The person on the right with the dark hair and the tie is James Robert McLaughlin; born 1909 in Muskegon, MI, died 1972 in Lansing, MI. I'm guessing this picture was taken somewhere between Muskegon and Lansing between 1940 and 1950. James Robert owned McLaughlin Office Furniture/Supplies in Lansing. He had a brother, Frank Mclaughlin 1903-1924, a brother Lawrence Harold Mclaughlin 1907- 1961, and a sister Winni Mclaughlin Maynes 1905-1966. They all attended Muskegon High School and at one time lived on Crozier street. Frank was pushed from a train or fell in 1924 in Dunkirk, NY……Lawrence was married to Margaret fuller from Massachusetts, then Married to Jean Parks Kelso and lived in Nevada, and then married to Avis Elizabeth Helton and lived in San Bernardino and worked at the Riviera in Las Vegas. Lawrence was also a golf pro in the 1930s…..a gambler in the 40s and 50s and traveled w a trained attack dog. If anyone has any pictures of James, Frank, Lawrence, or Winnie that would be helpful as well. This post obviously has nothing to do with my business but I couldnt figure out any other way to boost a post. Through ancestry I have determined that Lawrence is my grandfather and I have no pictures of him and limited info about him. Any help would be much appreciated.

We are a Wealth Accumulation, Financial Planning & Retirement Income Planning firm.

01/30/2024

Is there anyone in facebook land who can manufacture this part?
Please let me know.
Gary

11/09/2023

…if banks are not creating a market for federal funds, were does the rate come from? The answer: the Fed just makes it up. Literally makes it up.

Today, US commercial banks carry an estimated $650 billion loss in their “held to maturity” assets…but they don’t have to mark them to market. If this was 2008 they would have insisted on mark-to-market and we would need TARP 2.0 to bail out the banking system.

This is exacerbated by the Fed engineering a decline in the M2 measure of money, which has fallen by 3.6% in the past year, the most substantial drop since the Great Depression.

As of November 1, 2023, the Treasury General Account (TGA) at the Fed held $820 billion. The Treasury could use this $820 billion to reduce debt, but it hasn’t, and taxpayers will pay roughly $40 billion per year in interest, just so the Treasury/Fed can hold this cash.

The government has expanded significantly since 2008, with federal government spending growing from 19% of GDP in 2007 to 25% last year, and the Fed's balance sheet has expanded from 6% of GDP in 2007 to 33% of GDP. It's evident that we no longer operate in a free-market capitalist system. While government involvement in the economy is not new, it has reached unprecedented levels.

These are all excerpts from an article authored by Brian Wesbury at First Trust, attached hereto. Please read it. It is telling!

05/28/2023

In the words of the rock’n’roll band The Clash “Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble….An’ if I stay it will be double! So, come on an let me know…………should I stay or should I go!”
Have you left a retirement plan (401k, 403b, 457, SIMPLE IRA, SEP IRA, etc) at your last employer and you are not sure if you should move that old retirement plan from your old employer or keep it right where it is? Should it stay, or should it go?!?
Are you worried about the account being too small for anyone to help you with it if you move it?
What will you lose if you keep it with the old employer and what will you lose if you move it out of the old employer?
Where do you even move the account to? A new employer’s retirement plan? Your own individual IRA? What IRA options do I even have? Can I buy gold with my old employer’s retirement plan? Can I buy property with my old employer’s retirement plan? Can I take a loan off my old employer’s retirement plan? What about stocks or bonds? What about savings accounts? What are my options?
What does it cost to move this old employer’s retirement plan? Are there taxes to worry about?
Who is managing my money if I leave the old employer’s retirement plan with the old employer? Is anyone even managing it now?
These are all good questions, and I have been helping individuals with these answers for 30 years. If you would like to know more about how I might be able to help you, feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmthfp.com/book-appointment-online/. I am a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ bound by the fiduciary standard, with 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. All conversations are confidential.

05/21/2023

You’re one year away from retirement, or five years, or ten years from retirement. What keeps you up at night?
What I have found over the last 30 years of working with pre-retirees and NOW-retirees is that their concerns, though not communicated to me in these terms, fall into one of the following categories:
Longevity risk: Will I outlive my money?
Sequence of return risk: What happens if the market tanks as soon as I stop working?
Long Term Care risk: What happens if I need extended care that is not covered by Medicare?
Market risk: Should I become more conservative now that I’m taking money out of my retirement plan and no longer contributing to my retirement plan?
Inflation risk: How much will inflation eat into my retirement plans?
Interest rate risk: I want to turn back the clock and go back to 1980 when I could get 14% or higher rate of return in a bank insured certificate of deposit (CD). Will I ever be able to take no risk and live in retirement?
Recency bias: The market has dropped 2 years in a row, it is going to drop every year in my retirement!
What if there were a way to work with someone who has been addressing these concerns for 30 years?
As a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ with 30 years of experience addressing these concerns I have found that people find comfort in working with someone rather than trying to go-it-alone.
I can help reduce the anxiety associated with moving into your retirement years. If you would like to find out more about how I run my retirement planning practice, feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmthfp.com/book-appointment-online/. All conversations are confidential.

05/18/2023

Long Term Care (LTC), it can be a problem or it can be a solution.
When was the last time you visited a nursing home, assisted living center, independent living facility, or memory care facility?
If you have visited more than one, I’m sure you can see the difference in the quality of some facilities.
I recently visited 4 different facilities for my father, and I can tell you that there were two that were places my father could see himself in, and two that I would not LET him go to.
Here is a question: How are folks paying for their stay at their chosen facility? Depending on the level of care, the average of the four facilities that I visited was between $4,200 to $12,000/month. The lower cost was independent living care, and the higher cost was Nursing Home level of care.
That equates to a yearly average of $50,400 per year and $144,000 per year, depending on the level of care.
As a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ I have looked at many different options for dealing with this situation for my clients. I have worked with close to a dozen Elder Law Attorneys on this issue over the last 30 years. Insurance is sometimes a solution, and sometimes it is not. Luckily for my parents, and for my sibling and I, I placed their Long-Term Care Insurance policy back in 1994 for the assets that could not be protected by trusts, and established trusts for the assets that could be protected by trusts.
For my father, when the time finally comes, the only decision that will need to be made is what facility would you like to go to.
What decisions will you, as adults or as adult children, have to make for yourself or your loved ones when the time comes?
If you would like to consider working with a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ who has been dealing with the issue of Long Term Care Planning for 30 years, feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmithfp.com/book-appointment-online/. All conversations are confidential.

05/15/2023

Income taxes in retirement can be confusing.
Should you take Social Security at age 62 and work, or is that a tax nightmare?
Should I be putting money into a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA? If my work 401k has a Roth options, should I utilize that?
What happens, tax wise, if I am married and my spouse passes away? Do I get to stay in the same “married filing jointly” tax bracket or do I get pushed into the “filing single” tax bracket?
What happens to my untaxed gains in my annuity when I die?
What happens to my untaxed IRA/401k money when I die?
How do I plan for the issues listed above?
As a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ bound by the fiduciary standard, with 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, I have answers to these questions and often times I can help reduce some of the anxiety associated with taxes in retirement. If you would like to talk, feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmthfp.com/book-appointment-online/. All conversations are confidential.

05/12/2023

Medicare can be a complicated system to understand. Here are some questions that I have had posed to me recently:
“I have just moved to the area and my carrier automatically enrolled me into their Medicare Plan for the State of Maine. I’m not sure I want to stay with this carrier as Maine might have better options than Michigan did. What can I do?”
“I have insurance through my domestic partner, but I am turning 65. Do I have to sign up for Medicare or can I postpone it like married couples do when the non-Medicare eligible spouse has employer insurance which also covers me?”
“My doctor told me I needed to have cataract surgery. I turn 65 in a few months. Can I put of the surgery until I go on Medicare if my doctor says it is safe to do so, or will Medicare not cover that because it is a pre-existing condition?”.
I have been specializing in help my clients with Medicare since 1993. If you would like help with questions dealing with Medicare, feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmthfp.com/book-appointment-online/. I am a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ bound by the fiduciary standard, with 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. All conversations are confidential.
All conversations are confidential.

05/09/2023

Do you have an investment account with a financial advisor? Do you understand the fees that you are paying and what those fees cover? If you answered “yes” and then “no” to these two questions you are not alone.
Over the past few weeks I have been asked, by more than one party, to perform an analysis of exactly what a client is paying for their investment account with “xyz” investment advisor (fictious name to protect the innocent 😊).
I have found that in the two most recent cases that I analyzed that the fees were about the same, but what the parties were getting for the fees was not the same.
One party was paying the normal fee for having their advisor manage their investments, while the other party was paying the same fee, but their fee included all financial planning as well as the management of their investments.
If you don’t feel that you have a good grasp on what you are paying to your financial advisor and what you are getting for that payment, feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmithfp.com/book-appointment-online/. I am a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ bound by the fiduciary standard, with 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. All conversations are confidential.

05/07/2023

Have you been told that you should buy an annuity? Does the product seem too good to be true? Are you unclear about what the internal costs are of an annuity?
I have been working with annuities for 30 years. Some annuities are perfect for the situation that they are being purchased for, some are not. There are many, many different types of annuities and they all have their pluses and minuses, depending on the situation.
Here is something you might consider: Does the financial professional marketing (selling) you the annuity have the licenses to sell you anything other than an annuity, or is an annuity all that they can sell?
If you would like to know more about annuities from a Certified Financial Planning Professional™, who is bound by the fiduciary standard and who is not only licensed to sell annuities, but is also licensed to sell insurance, annuities, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, Unit Investment Trusts, and is licensed to charge a fee for advice, as opposed to being paid a commission… feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmithfp.com/book-appointment-online/. All conversations are confidential.

05/05/2023

Are you considering divorce, but you don’t know what this will mean for you financially? Have you been served divorce papers, and you are worried about what this will mean financially for you?
Are you single and considering entering into a relationship but you are concerned about how to handle financial issues with your new partner?
Pre and Post divorce planning can be a complex subject and one that creates anxiety for many people.
My past work with divorce/family attorneys and their clients has proven to be an asset for many of my clients.
If you would like to know more about how I could help potentially work with you to reduce some of the anxiety that is associated with divorce-finances, or “finances related to new relationships” feel free to reach out and schedule a no cost, no obligation 15 minute phone meeting by going to my online calendar at: www.wealthsmithfp.com/book-appointment-online/. I am a Certified Financial Planning Professional™ with 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. All conversations are confidential.