Financial Planning Truths

I am often asked this question, or put in a position of having to answer this question by people that tell me their collections are part of their investment strategy or estate plan. For everyone that has ever asked me the question or suggested to me that their “collections” were part of their investment strategy the answer was an unequivocal no. Kind of like any luxury, if you have to ask the question you can’t afford it. If you have to ask if your collection should be considered part of you financial plan, you probably don’t understand enough about investing in collectibles to make it a good investment for you. Yes there are rare exceptions of collections that may be considered and investment. The operative word is rare! We will get into what collectibles could be considered an investment shortly, along with some of the pros and cons of that type investment. But investment grade collectibles are not what most people have in their collections at home. So I want to start by addres...

In an earlier post I talked about whether investing in a college education is still worth it but I only talked a little about how to pay for it. This article is designed more for those who have decided it is a worthwhile investment but are trying to decide how to pay for it. First you have to decide who is paying for it, the parents or the student , or some combination of the two. Everyone’s beliefs differ on how much of this responsibility should fall on the parents and how much of it should fall on the children. The government clearly thinks middle class and above parents should be contributing to the cost of a child’s higher education as all financial aid is based in large part on the parent’s income and net worth. Some parents feel they have no obligation, while others feel 100% responsible regardless of whether they can afford it or not. Regardless of your personal feelings and ability to contribute to your child’s education it is important that you are honest with yourself...