Beacon Wealthcare

15 Oct 2020 Four Considerations As You Choose Employee Benefits

Posted at 16:54h in The Friday Brief by Ryan Smith, CFP®, RICP®, CTS™, MSFP

Benefits season is nearly upon us! The time when employees across the country pick their health insurance and other benefits for the coming year. With this in mind, here are four considerations as you choose your benefits. Change How You Pay for Group Long-Term Disability Insurance? Disability...

09 Oct 2020 The Psychology of Money

Posted at 00:55h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

"Doing well with money has a little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people." That's the premise of Morgan Housel's new book, The Psychology of Money,...

01 Oct 2020 Election Day Jitters

Posted at 14:05h in The Friday Brief by Geoff Hall, CFP®

'Tis the season for political ads, campaign yard signs and presidential debates. I knew the 2020 presidential election was nearing but for some reason, probably Tuesday’s debate, I just realized how close it actually is. As of the posting of this brief, Election Day is...

25 Sep 2020 Taxes and Thinking Long-Term

Posted at 12:17h in The Friday Brief by Ryan Smith, CFP®, RICP®, CTS™, MSFP

A few weeks back I wrote an explainer of Joe Biden's tax proposal and received some questions about the following passage: "(Y)es, there are times where it’s beneficial to accelerate income." It's a counter-intuitive statement because most of the conversation around taxes is that you...

18 Sep 2020 Nikola and Startup Investing

Posted at 06:00h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

"The short seller said a 2018 promotional video showing a prototype of a Nikola semi-truck traveling down the road was staged and that the truck was rolling down a hill rather than propelling itself...

11 Sep 2020 Nervy Week, Nervy Q4?

Posted at 06:00h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

[caption id="attachment_12133" align="alignleft" width="300"] COVID chart or Stock Market chart?[/caption] It's been a nervy week of trading in the stock market! Particularly for tech stocks. The Nasdaq Composite Index (which is heavily weighted toward tech stocks) fell more than 10% in just three trading sessions after...

03 Sep 2020 How Much Apple Do You Own?

Posted at 20:33h in The Friday Brief by Geoff Hall, CFP®

There's almost always something interesting going on with the stock market. Lately, it’s been hard to ignore the dominance of large U.S. technology stocks. The fact that the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500, is up 9.16% year-to-date as of September 1st is...

28 Aug 2020 Four Reasons to Consider a Trust No Matter Your Net Worth

Posted at 10:34h in The Friday Brief by Ryan Smith, CFP®, RICP®, CTS™, MSFP

In the context of estate planning (Will, Power of Attorney, etc.) what do you think of when you hear the word “trust”? For many, the word conjures thoughts of the super rich, “trust fund babies,” complex legal structures, maybe even tax avoidance. That’s exactly how I...

21 Aug 2020 What Happens When You Retire “Early”

Posted at 07:00h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

The idea of retirement, that you come to live a life of relative independence without working, is quite new in human history and even today is not a universal reality by any means. But in the US, in the year 2020, retirement is a reality—or...

13 Aug 2020 Speaking of Social Security

Posted at 16:26h in The Friday Brief by Geoff Hall, CFP®

In 1985, I was 13 years old. That year I earned $484 working at a local tennis club taking care of the clay tennis courts. My job involved sweeping the courts with a wide pull-behind broom, cleaning the line tape with a line broom and...

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