MONTHLY ECONOMIC UPDATE     MONTHLY QUOTE “Variety is the soul of pleasure.” – Aphra Behn      MONTHLY TIP   A finer retirement strategy pays attention to tax implications. Many pre-retirees embark on retirement transitions without studying them.      MONTHLY RIDDLE   An ancient invention (still used the world over)… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and in good health. Merrill Lynch recently published its study, “The New Retirement Workscape,” on new trends retirees have embraced toward working. One of the more interesting trends is that new retirees are taking the first few years of retirement off and then… ...

Greetings! I trust that this finds you well and enjoying life. If you had to cut back your spending, where would you do it? This question has a way of reflecting our values as much as it does our practicality. One recent study found that when workers started feeling even a little… ...

Greetings! I trust that this finds you well and enjoying life. Isn’t it great to live in an era that experiences such radical advancements in medical science. Because of these advancements, it’s likely that physicians will prescribe more and more prescriptions as we grow older and this form of healthcare… ...

Greetings! I trust that this finds you well and enjoying life. You may have heard the saying, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making plans.” That’s a line from a John Lennon song entitled, Beautiful Boy. It’s also a keen observation of what could happen if you focus too… ...

Greetings! I trust that this finds you well and enjoying life. If it wasn’t for America’s military might and superiority the world we live in would be very different. America owes a huge debt of gratitude for the men and women who fight for our country and for those who… ...

Greetings! I hope that this will find you well and enjoying life. You may think that because you’ve written a will, your estate plan is all set. What you may not realize is that instructions in a will do not supersede the beneficiary instructions on your retirement account, annuity, insurance… ...

Greetings! I hope that this will find you well and enjoying life. As we get older, our financial objectives change. For example, as young up-and comers, we tend to focus on saving and investing for retirement. But the closer we get to retirement, the more we need to consider how… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. Social media is a powerful force in our society today. Lately I’ve seen a lot of articles and studies on how much value it actually provides in our lives. The juries not in on it yet and only time… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. As a retirement planner I am seeing more and more clients downsize their homes and have a number of them considering moving to retirement communities. Now that the home buyer market is beginning to progress, more late stage baby boomers… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. Your mail is protected by 18 U.S. Code § 1708, but that won’t stop mail theft, which may occur after you’ve already read through your mail and thrown it away. The trash cans you place at the curb for… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. Here we are once again, income tax filing deadline time of the year unless of course you file an extension. I want to challenge you to ask yourself if you are doing everything that you can to minimize… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. Do you have a grandchild rapidly approaching college with no college savings? You can step in with a substantial gift by opening a 529 college savings plan. The nice thing about these plans is that you own the account and… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. Carl Richards is a financial writer known for depicting financial illustrations with nothing more than a Sharpie. Like a cartoonist, he’s able to capture financial notions, behaviors and logistics with a few simple swipes of a heavy-handed pen.… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. Like you I am seeing a great deal of advertising these days about reverse mortgages. The prominent actors and politicians hired to promote them, make it all sound so easy and hype them up to appear to be… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and in good spirits. From time to time I have a retired client that decides to downsize their home. In the last year or so I have had several retired clients to make the decision to down size their home and… ...

Greetings! I hope that this finds you well and enjoying life. I received a couple of calls last week from clients that were concerned about the effect that the crisis in Ukraine could have on our markets if it comes to war. Obviously there would likely be repercussions for markets… ...

Greetings! I trust that this finds you well and enjoying life. It’s so easy to get caught up in the economics and finances of retirement and disregard the quality of life aspects. Although finances and money are important, they certainly don’t guarantee a happy life. The attached article is one of… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. In January and early February we all got a big dose of a “global economy” and the effect it has on our stock market. We should all be aware that we are much more impacted by events around the world… ...

Greetings! I trust that this will find you well and enjoying life. I read an article in Think Advisor magazine recently (you can find the entire article posted on Armor Financials Facebook page) that was intriguing. The article quotes Joel Kurtzman a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, regarding his… ...