Many of our clients recognize the many blessings they have received and are motivated to be generous. This often takes the form of annual charitable contributions to their church and other worthy organizations. Additionally, some individuals wish to leave a portion of their estate to charity after their passing. When considering leaving estate assets to charity, the initial inclination is often to specify a percentage in your will for… Read More

  Trusts come in all shapes and sizes, and many professionals promote them for various reasons. In part 4 of our blog series on risk management, we are sorting through some of the common reasons to have or not to have a trust as part of your estate plan. To start off, we need to discuss the differences between a revocable and irrevocable trust arrangement: Revocable – A revocable trust… Read More

Today’s blogpost will focus on the importance of well-thought-out legal documents and the importance of the persons you will name to fill vital roles within your estate plan. Having current legal documents that accurately state your choices, preferences, and future estate distribution wishes is an essential component of your financial plan, which we review during our 3rd quarter focus on Risk Management. One of the initial estate planning choices that… Read More

As Garry noted in last week’s blog post, the third quarter of the year is when the Master’s team, through our Total Wealth Management planning process, performs a review of our clients’ risk management strategies. In part one of our series, we are exploring the age-old question: “Do I need life insurance?” In its simplest form, the main intent of life insurance is to provide a tax-free death benefit to… Read More

In our Total Wealth Management planning process at Master’s, the 3rd quarter is where we play some ‘defense’, with our focus on estate planning and insurance. More broadly, the theme for this quarter is Risk Management. Over the next 5 weeks, we will cover several different topics regarding risk management: Do you need life insurance? – Life insurance comes in many forms, but at its core, it is intended to… Read More

I recently finished a book about insider trading in hedge funds and the traders involved. Insider trading is taking non-public information about a publicly traded company and profiting from that information. It is illegal and has put several hedge fund managers and traders in jail. On the surface, the individuals in this book sound like the typical greedy and corrupt Wall Street professionals we have read about before. However, when… Read More

Over the past three years, I have had the privilege of personally assisting nine individuals in their transition from full-time employment to retirement. I believe it is essential to delve deeper into these transitions and extract valuable insights that can greatly benefit you in your own retirement journey. Let’s begin by exploring the motivations behind these retirement decisions. Among the nine individuals, four experienced employment disruptions that compelled them to… Read More

“To be smart, spend carefully. To be wise, save regularly. To be genius, give extravagantly.” – Chip Ingram, Author & Pastor The quote shown above happens to be one of my all-time favorite quotes. In just a few words, Chip Ingram’s quote captures a formula that should guide us to productive cash management & personal financial planning success. Simple… yet profound! Join me as we take a closer look. To… Read More

Our weekly blog posts, over the previous 7 weeks, have focused on the changes in the investment markets throughout the past 12-15 months. You have read our thoughts on rising interest rates, bond valuations, the effects of stimulus and government policy, global investing, the dangers of trend following, and the importance of strategic diversification. We hope you have found these blog posts informative and helpful. As we have highlighted the… Read More

When most people think of financial advice, they think immediately of managing investments. While this is certainly a part of what we do here at Master’s, our Total Wealth Management service is much more holistic in nature. Today, I want to discuss what holistic financial advice is and why working with an advisor that provides holistic financial advice is so beneficial. What Holistic Financial Advice Is – Holistic financial advice… Read More