A firm’s glossy website can leave a strong first impression and when you go in to meet with a firm and its team you will likely experience a similar charm. However, sometimes these efforts to entice new clients make it hard to see beyond the veneer. So how can you tell if a firm is telling the whole story?
Janet Kim Sing
Typically, a firm will manage the assets, but not physically hold them. There is an outside party, called a custodian, who holds custody over the firm and its clients’ assets.
Isn’t an Investment Advisor the same thing as a Portfolio Manager? Well, not necessarily...
Maria Dawes
Fees are a natural part of paying for a service, whether you’re paying a mechanic to fix your engine problems or paying a firm to manage your money. Within our industry, however, fees have tended to be very convoluted, layered, and difficult to understand.
Most parents plan to leave an inheritance to their children, but they often do not go far enough in planning how much to leave, and when their child should receive it. But before any fancy planning is done, you need to first ensure the basics of estate planning are covered.
The loss of a spouse is a tragedy and not knowing where to start, who to turn to, what to do, is all the more overwhelming during a time of mourning. Although we cannot prevent death, we can plan for it.
Experiencing unemployment in the years right before retirement can be an extremely distressing and difficult situation to navigate. Cutting your spending to a bare-bones budget will likely be critical and those who have an emergency fund already saved will certainly weather this storm better than those who do not.
We have spoken a lot about the importance of proper planning and how this can help to provide a roadmap to guide us. However, we have also spoken about the practicalities of life and how changes in circumstances can sometimes throw a wrench into the works and affect our plans.
In many ways, it will depend on your situation and the type of pension you’re accessing. But some forethought and extra planning can be helpful to best manage your retirement income tax situation, as well as your estate tax liabilities.
