My maternal grandfather was born in south Alabama in May of 1924, and I remember him telling a story from his childhood of a Christmas morning during the Great Depression when he woke up to find an orange in his stocking. Such was the extent of the...
No, this is not a brief about how much you pile on your plate at Thanksgiving, although I do love hearing about favorite family recipes! Many people describe December as a time of being stretched too thin – even if each separate thing vying for...
It's hard to believe but the Holidays are here and 2023 will soon draw to a close. The end of the year and the Holiday season is a time when many people do the majority of their charitable giving. Here at Beacon, we have the...
By now you have likely heard the news that Mint, the well-known budgeting app, is discontinuing at the end of the year. Part of it will be rolled into Credit Karma (owned by Intuit), but most of the budgeting features will cease to exist. It...
Each year around this time the IRS announces contribution limit and tax bracket increases for the upcoming year. The Social Security Administration does the same, notifying recipients what change in benefits they can expect. You may remember that all of the above--contribution amounts, tax brackets and...
How long will the Fed keep rates where they are? Is there another rate hike coming, or will rates start to come down again? If so, when? In the meantime what’s in store for my portfolio? The answer or course—to these and many other important questions—is...
I bet if I asked you for a list of things you're looking forward to during the upcoming Holiday season, tackling a list of personal finance items would not appear in your top 10. Or top 100 for that matter. That's why I like to...
I recently visited Boone, NC and was able to make a trip to Grandfather Mountain where I enjoyed taking in the beauty of Fall. As I was admiring the changing leaves, I walked past a car in the parking lot that had a "ROBNHD" license...
Three and a half years ago, just before COVID hit and housing markets went even higher while interest rates skyrocketed, Ryan wrote a brief entitled "Your Home is Not An Investment (You Probably Won’t Downsize)." An alternative title probably could have been "You Might Downsize...
There is a pretty strong body of evidence pointing toward the idea that the reduction in independent play in children has been instrumental in the rise of anxiety and depression in children and teens in the U.S. As a parent, this makes intuitive sense on some level,...
