Tag: Rick Brooks
Taking Over Your Parents’ Finances
I can state from first-hand experience that taking over your parents’ finances can be a challenging and sensitive process. As parents age, they may need help managing their money and bills. This can be especially true if cognitive impairment is occurring. But this transition often comes with complex issues that adult children must navigate carefully. […]
Six Common Mistakes Trustees Make
Planning for the distribution of your estate is complex. There are so many variables to consider, like family dynamics, changing values and ever-changing tax rules. It can be easy to simply ignore the planning, but that just leaves your heirs to clean up a huge mess and often causes strife trying to figure out what […]
Your Car is Watching You
By Rick Brooks Have you read the terms and conditions of the applications installed on your car? Or your phone, for that matter, but let’s focus on your car for now. A couple of weeks ago, Kashmir Hill at the “New York Times” reported that users of General Motors OnStar services (including myBuick, myGMC, myChevrolet […]
SEO Scams Can Lead You Astray
As if there wasn’t enough to worry about online, another scam has become increasingly common and a growing concern for financial institutions. SEO scams hijack your search results and take you to websites that look like familiar (especially financial institutions) sites but aren’t. For example, Charles Schwab recently notified advisors who work with them that […]
What to Look for in your Annual Life Insurance Review
Seriously, when is the last time you reviewed your life insurance? I don’t mean the letter you get (and probably throw away) from your insurance agent every year asking if you need more. I mean really sitting down and thinking about the life insurance you have, why you have it and what you are paying […]
Inflation – Here to Stay
Like most investors, I’ve been surprised by both the magnitude and persistence of the inflation spike we’ve seen over the past several months. The forecasts continue to suggest that inflation should moderate somewhat by year-end and into 2023, but that doesn’t take the sticker shock out of the prices we’re paying today at the store […]
Insurance for International Travel in a COVID World
After more than two years of being stuck at home, there are a lot of people who are ready to pick up and go. ANYWHERE! International travel is more “adventurous” in the COVID era – the pandemic is still raging in much of the world, so the possibility that travel plans could be upset by […]
Ukraine and the Volatility in the Stock Market
As I write this article, Russia has finally made its move into Ukraine. After building up troops along the Ukrainian border, Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale assault on Ukraine with the stated objective of replacing its government. I don’t want to minimize the impact this would have on Ukraine, which will be devastating, but the […]
What is Sustainable Investing?
One of the more interesting trends in the investment industry is a shift by investors towards a greater use of sustainable investment strategies. This isn’t a new thing, but it is a trend that has been accelerating in recent years as global warming has become more of a concern. So it begs the question, just […]
