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In honor of Independence Day, let’s focus on a freedom you probably want to achieve—your financial independence. You know, that time of your life when you have enough money to kiss your job goodbye and pursue your passions.

Sounds great. But for most of us, it also sounds like a long slog. Achieving financial freedom means you have to accumulate wealth. And the surest way to build wealth is to spend less than you make. When you live someplace as expensive as the Bay Area, it’s hard not to pay out every cent that comes in.

When people think about estate planning, they may think in terms of personal property, real estate, and investments. Digital assets might seem like a lesser concern, perhaps no concern at all. But it is something that many are now considering.¹

When our parents retired, living to 75 amounted to a nice long life, and Social Security was often supplemented by a pension. The Social Security Administration estimates that today’s average 65-year-old female will live to age 86.6. Given these projections, it appears that a retirement of 20 years or longer might be in your future.^1,2  

Investing can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. If you have a portfolio that was built for you and use the help of a financial advisor, you shouldn’t be too worried about volatility and financial news. 

Here are a few tips to help you invest wisely, and stay sane at the same time. 

Before 2018, you could partly or fully deduct investment advisory fees on your federal income tax return. When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, however, the miscellaneous itemized deduction for investment fees and expenses vanished.¹
  
This deduction seldom mattered for taxpayers in the highest brackets, as they could only deduct miscellaneous items on Schedule A once those expenses exceeded 2% of their adjusted gross incomes. Other investors took advantage of it; some, frequently.¹

Accepting one’s own mortality is a tough pill to swallow. As such, estate planning can be a morbid topic that lingers in the background of our lives ominously. Nobody wants to plan for their own death! However, the repercussions your family will face are dire if you delay preparing for the unforeseen curveballs that life throws our way.
In order to ensure that our families are secure with a strong foundation no matter what occurs in the future, Americans must be proactive. With that being said, we will look at the most important elements of estate planning that must be addressed.

If you’ve ever played the Game of Life board game, it becomes clear that compressed into the colorful path there are various stages of life. Each stage holds its own major financial challenges as well as prospective profits in addition to surprises (new baby!) and forks in the road. In the real world game of life, much is the same, but with sound financial planning throughout the different stages of life, you can have much more control over how much you retire with (as opposed to those random tiles you collect throughout the board game).

If you’re just starting to take charge of your financial future, it can be stressful approaching financial planning with confidence. Do you ever talk to your bank or financial manager and think that they’re speaking a foreign language? Between acronyms, money talk, and words longer than my arm, it’s no wonder that sometimes going to the bank is similar to going to the dentist - but hopefully not as painful. We wanted to help with that. Here are a few financial terms you should know by heart before consulting a financial professional.