Top Financial Living Blogs of 2020 for the New Year

As 2020 comes to a close, we would like express our gratitude to everyone who has enjoyed reading Advance Capital’s Financial Living blog this year.

We want to especially thank those who have subscribed to receive our latest posts and newsletters in their electronic mailbox. (If you haven’t subscribed yet, what are you waiting for?)

Our goal is to provide easy-to-understand, enlightening and actionable information to help you make the smartest financial decisions possible – tips for your financial challenges today, tomorrow, whenever.

Therefore, we’re going to say goodbye to 2020 by sharing our top blogs of the past year – things you may have missed or want to revisit – that will also get you ready for the new year and beyond.

Life satisfaction tops out at an annual salary of $95,000, on average, according to a study by psychologists from Purdue University. Enough money to never have to worry about going broke or paying for medical care is important. But money is not the only or most important piece of a fulfilling retirement.

A growth mindset dismisses the thought of limitations. Financially speaking, with enough hard work, you can always improve in your professional and financial lives. You don’t need a substantial inheritance or million-dollar business idea to build wealth. The effort to take small, consistent financial steps will make a big difference over time.

Advance Capital Management was named to the Barron’s list of America’s Best RIAs. We are honored and grateful to our clients for making this possible.

The advent of social media has led to a proliferation of false information, famously referred to as “fake news.” For our purposes, we can loosely define “fake” as in misleading, highly biased and/or utterly unrelated or unhelpful to an individual investor’s situation.

A forced retirement doesn’t have to mean an unenjoyable retirement. There are some steps you can take to help keep your retirement dreams alive as best as possible.

Sure, it would be nice to have one financial plan that serves you for life, just as it would if you could buy six-pack abs off the shelf. But that’s not how it works, nor how you should want it to work. Life changes. We find new interests. We grow older. Your finances, therefore, should change, too.

Like personal development, financial planning is a continued pursuit of living the best life you can.

As they say, age is just a number. Because, historically, the market has gone up more than it has gone down – a lot more. Therefore, what determines how much you earn isn’t when you started but rather how long you’ve been invested.

Debt is as American as apple pie, found in households of all shapes, sizes and incomes. It is a part the financial lives of both the rich and poor as well as the working and retired. Given debt’s many harmful effects, what can you do to best manage it? The answer may lie in understanding what propels you to borrow in the first place.

Many students will pay for college through a combination of savings and financial aid. Knowing how one affects the other will help your student effectively take advantage of both.

You could be following financial advice that is not in your best interest. And if you turn to the Wild West that is the internet, maybe even worse.

Bond prices generally move independently from stock prices, which helps prevent your overall portfolio from falling in lockstep with the stock market.

Bonds, therefore, serve as a valuable portfolio diversifier. They help lower overall risk in your portfolio without dramatically sacrificing returns.

Having a grasp of your emotions during difficult times and a clear set of investment objectives will help you build an optimal investment portfolio and keep you invested for the long term. Therefore, every once in a while, it’s a good idea to review your investment risk tolerance.

The bad news is a bear market will likely impact your retirement plan. The good news is that you have options to manage its impact.

Even in the best of times, investing involves uncertainty and the potential for surprises. No investment plan is 100% foolproof. But it’s possible to increase the chances of reaching your financial goals. As an investor, you can use averages and checkpoints as a tool to guide your investment decisions.

If there is one silver lining of a crisis, it is the reorienting effect that reminds us of what matters most in life – our loved ones and our health. A crisis can also serve as a reminder of what we should do to protect them.

A Roth IRA provides several advantages in retirement when you start to use your savings for income. Whether you should consider a Roth conversion depends on your current and expected future financial situation, but sometimes also the state of the market and the economy.

Although designed for medical needs, HSAs have various features, such as greater tax advantages than other investment accounts, that make them a valuable asset in retirement.

If you plan to retire yet still work throughout your early to late-60s, it is important to know the rules for taking Social Security while working. They can help you decide how much to work or what type of job to pursue, and determine if it is better to delay your benefit.

Unless you have that rare skill of predicting the future, stock picking is like finding a needle in a haystack. The success of companies such as Apple and Microsoft only seems obvious today because we have the benefit of hindsight.

The desire to make a positive impact can be fulfilled by giving your time, energy, money or all three to something greater than ourselves. With all of life’s demands, most people though support their favorite causes, whether it’s social justice or animal welfare or special needs education, with financial support.

THANK YOU FOR READING!!!