Blog

New Home Financing Checklist

by Keith A. Rhodus on Feb 25, 2019

While owning a home is the quintessential American dream, not everyone is able to purchase a home when they desire. If you’re fresh out of school with a boat load of student debt, it’s probably best to wait until you’ve been working for at least a year before you start looking to buy. You’ll also want to make sure that your credit score is where it should be, since the higher your score, the lower your interest rate will be.

Start Saving for Retirement Today

by Keith A. Rhodus on Feb 18, 2019

Time certainly goes by fast. One day you’re interviewing for your first job and the next thing you know you’re a few short years from applying for Social Security.

If you’ve planned for your retirement, you’ll likely have a good stash of funds saved.  But the unfortunate news is that according to the ​Insured Retirement Institute,​ 42 percent of baby boomers have nothing saved for retirement, and even those that have saved don’t have nearly enough to survive on.

Top Strategies for Charitable Giving

by Keith A. Rhodus on Feb 11, 2019

We all have certain causes that we choose to support monetarily. In fact, in 2017, Americans gave more than $410 billion to charities, breaking the $400 billion mark for the first time in history.

But anytime that we give our money to an organization, it’s important to do our due diligence, ensuring that the funds that we give will be used effectively.

Finance Financial Missteps

by Keith A. Rhodus on Feb 4, 2019

Personal finance, like just about everything else, is mainly common sense. Advice like “don’t spend more than you make; start investing while you’re young; don’t loan money to friends with the expectation of getting it back,” have been around for generations, and most likely will survive the next few generations as well. Even money mistakes that are corrected early enough will have little impact on your wealth going forward.  What you do want to avoid are money mistakes that can be hard to recover from. Here are just a few:

Why Financial Advisors Are Still Important

by Keith A. Rhodus on Jan 28, 2019

With the rise in popularity of financial planning robo-advisors, many experts predicted the beginning of the end for financial advisors. But as many investors are starting to see, there are distinct advantages to speaking with a live person when determining just how you should invest your money.

While robo-advisors can be a good solution for those with limited funds who want to get their feet wet in the investment arena, the problem is the lack of a personal relationship can prove to be detrimental.

10 Ways to Save Money

by Keith A. Rhodus on Jan 7, 2019

While it may not seem so, there are a lot of painless ways to save money. Not just for those who have a limited cash flow, but also for those with plenty of surplus cash who will appreciate ways to cut back on monetary waste.

Here are just a few things you can do to save:

Financial Management Tips

by Keith A. Rhodus on Dec 24, 2018

There are a variety of financial management tools and applications available today that can be used to help you manage your money. From software applications to phone apps, there’s no shortage of help available.

Unfortunately, those apps and software programs can only do what you set them up to do. And all the apps and software products in the world will make no difference in your financial situation if you don’t do the following: