Have you ever committed to something and halfway there think, âOh, that was a bad decision?â Well, you have my absolute sympathies! I signed up for the Savannah Rock ânâ Roll Half Marathon â my first half marathon ever â and before this year I had never breached the four-mile mark. After an attempt at […]
Frozen. Thatâs the only way I can describe it. Mike, the other financial planner in our office, and I were listening to the report of the stock market rapidly dropping, while staring at each other in disbelief. It was October 19, 1987. We didnât have a computer screen to look at, so the only continual […]
Have you ever thought about how you make your choices every day? Take traffic, for instance. My brother lives in Washington, D.C., and works roughly an hour away from where he lives. On any given day there could be traffic that extends his drive 30-40minutes, or even more! Because of the traffic the shortest route […]
We are often asked by first-time callers to our office if we are a “Fiduciary.” It seems like the word is all over the news these days, but what exactly does it mean? In a nutshell, a fiduciary is a person or organization who is ethically bound to put a clientâs best interests first at […]
In my last blog we got back to the basics of how to prioritize paying down debts. Of course not everything is cut and dry, and as one of my friends pointed out, âPhil, your firm focuses on investmentsâŠshouldnât I use my money to make more money in the stock market instead? Then I can […]
Recently I was having a discussion with a friend in his mid-20âs who is working two jobs and in a very good position of low expenses and high income to maximize his debt payoff. We were discussing his opportunity to pay down his large student debt during this period and he went on to mention […]
Donât accumulate possessionsâŠaccumulate experiences. Yes, it sounds like strange advice coming from a financial advisor. On a daily basis I counsel clients to grow their assets, because one day they will be drawing from them. But as I cross another milestone â July 7, 2015, marked my 30thAnniversary in the financial planning profession â I […]
We drink a lot of water here at TFG. I mean a LOT. You know those commercials where they point out the amount of water bottles consumed in one year could circle the planet? Weâre the stretch from Virginia to Austria. (Donât worry, we recycle.) Now, anyone who delivers all our H2O is going to […]
April 20th was my son, Philipâs, 23rd birthday. He didnât ask for much⊠all he wanted was for Mom and Dad to travel to Williamsburg with he and Janae, his lovely fiancĂ©e, and âdo the ropes course.â Sounded to me like a fairly simple birthday request, so I said, âLetâs do it.â What is a […]
If you knew exactly how long you would live, what would you do differently? Would you travel more and work less? Would you start your dream business? Would you sell your house and live on a cruise liner? Would you spend all your money, or stockpile it to leave to your loved ones? In the […]