Managing a Household Allocation

Ballast team

One of our mantras in planning is to “Know What You Own.”  Peter Lynch popularized this term during his management of a Fidelity mutual fund in the 1980’s, and we think it applies to more than just investments.  Your home, your health insurance, your business, and yes, your investments each have features, risks, and opportunities […]

The Ballast Roth Manifesto: Why We Believe Roth is for the 99% AND the 1%

Ballast team

Join us for a live discussion about Roth savings on January 27th, 2022 at 4 PM on ballastplan.com/live. Our advisors will be discussing this article and answering any questions.   One of the biggest mistakes a retirement investor can make is to believe the common wisdom that Roth savings are only for low income-earners. Yes, […]

Optimizing Required Minimum Distributions

Ballast team

Key Takeaways The IRS made a retiree-friendly tweak to its RMD schedule for 2022 When to best take retirement distributions can be opposite for two similar investors Engage Us: We do our best work when we know your updated situation     We’re only a week into 2022 and I have already spent a few […]

Getting Creative with College Funding

In our previous discussions about college planning, we’ve discussed where and how much to save while acknowledging that these questions require several assumptions.  Is it sensible to make saving for college a major financial goal when there’s no guarantee the child will attend?  That’s a tough question for families and for this reason, we favor educating […]

Stock Market Bubbles are Inevitable – Are You Prepared for the Next Burst?

In addition to this commentary, we would like to extend an invitation for you to join us on a live video feed where we will discuss the attached article and answer any questions in real-time. Watch the video discussion about this article here.   It was our second week of remote work, COVID-19 had just […]

End of Year Financial Planning

As we officially enter the month of November, it is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just three weeks away.  Hopefully, this year brings back the celebration of holiday traditions and family gatherings.  However, before the sugarplums start dancing, we need to stay diligent and focus on year-end planning to ensure we are making sound […]

Tax Management in Bull Markets

How do we manage accounts when everything is up? With cooperative markets, many investors have accumulated substantial capital gains in their investment accounts. We analyze the trade-off between ideal allocation & paying tax to achieve it. In general, we advocate paying tax along the way to avoid over-concentration. When I was growing up, my granddad […]

Retirement Saving Myths and Misconceptions

We are fortunate to have a very educated and knowledgeable client base, but we are consistently surprised by the myths and misconceptions clients and prospects bring to the conversation. Below I have listed my Top 7 Myths and Misconceptions About Retirement Savings; it is by no means a complete list but highlights the most common […]

Finding the Best Order for Funding Retirement

Ballast team

With a task as important as funding your retirement, determining which accounts to fund and in what order should not be taken lightly.  Whether it’s a company plan, individual retirement account or taxable account, there are a lot of ways to save for retirement.  So how do you decide where to put each dollar you […]