Settling Down

Plan for summer expenses with budgeting tips for camps, childcare, activities, and savings while keeping family goals on track.

Life insurance can help protect income, build cash value, support long-term care needs, and transfer wealth as life changes.

Wedding costs can add up fast when invites stack up. Learn how to budget for outfits, travel, and gifts without derailing your financial plan.

Life changes can reshape your budget, insurance and legacy plans. Use these five checkpoints to prepare with more confidence and control.

Do a financial check-in for couples to review spending, reset goals, ease money tension, and schedule your next talk.

From my own experiences, I’ve learned that it’s not a good idea to mix money with family, without clearly defined boundaries.

Sharing your personal money stories helps you understand each other’s values, priorities and expectations — how you grew up around money, how you prioritize spending, saving and investing, and what financial equality looks like in your relationship.

Schedule these financial check-ins on a consistent basis to reassess goals, address concerns and adjust plans as needed. Review your budget and your personal balance sheet monthly together so you understand your combined financial situation.

What better time than the start of a new year to craft your financial future. Working with a CFP® professional provides direction in several areas of personal finance, including budgeting, investments, insurance and tax planning.

It’s important to note that when tax-loss harvesting, the replacement investments have a lower basis and, if sold, will recognize the gain deferred from the sale when first harvesting the loss. That said, a good strategy may be to hold these positions in one’s portfolio for as long as possible and consider it a core holding, held long-term.