If the goal is to save for college, there isn't a better vehicle than the 529 plan. Because of their unique combination of tax benefits, which vary by state, they can offer a greater after-tax return than a normal brokerage account. How much greater depends...
I do not officially have a financial advisor (cobbler's children's shoes and all that, plus I am surrounded by great ones here who humor me), but if I did, I suppose the questions that I'd be asking her would tend toward these: How can...
Wesley and I are weeks away from meeting the newest member of our family, and if someone could tell me the exact timing of when our baby boy might arrive, I would really appreciate that. As many of you can relate to, it’s hard to...
Do you have a favorite season? Would you choose winter, spring, summer or fall? Or perhaps the holiday season, beach season or football season? Whatever your choice, I suspect that tax season is near the bottom of your list. Like it or not, on Monday,...
The question of what makes a happy life has been talked about a lot lately thanks to the release of the book, "The Good Life," which summarizes the 85-year-long (and counting) Harvard Study of Adult Development. What the book says, and the study found, is...
It seems to me that the most devastating, most commonly sold lie in finance is that something can be got for nothing. That the hard work can be skipped, that the process can be short-circuited, that no-pain can in fact lead to solid gains. This is an...
The Beacon office is located within the heart of Five Points neighborhood in Raleigh, appropriately named after the five-pointed intersection of Glenwood Avenue and neighborhood roads. That intersection is known for having confusing traffic patterns, speeding cars, distracted pedestrians, and unfortunately, many accidents. You need...
2022 was a tough year to be an investor. Supply chain bottlenecks, the highest inflation we've seen in 40 years, the war in Ukraine and a very aggressive Federal Reserve all ran headlong into elevated stock and bond valuations creating an unpleasant scenario for most...
As 2022 came to a close, Congress passed a spending bill that included a retirement bill commonly referred to as "SECURE Act 2.0." Its predecessor, 1.0, passed at the tail-end of 2019 and lifted the starting age for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from 70 to...
An over-simplified story about the Global Financial Crisis is that when the housing market blew up, causing subprime mortgages to start drowning, causing the collateralized debt obligations backed by securitized versions of those subprime mortgages to implode, causing mass panic and the threat of bank...
