It’s that time of year, when we start to give thanks in our words, deeds and actions. While total charitable giving increased last year, when adjusted for inflation, it slipped by 1.7 percent to an estimated $427 billion.
Read More
As Thanksgiving fast approaches, the holiday spending projections are coming out of the woodwork. Estimates range from a 3.5 to 5.5 percent increase over last year’s results, despite the fact that the 2019 holiday season is compressed.
Read More
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, time to make money saving and headache-preventing moves before we roll into 2020.
Read More
The IRS finally announced new limits on everything from income ranges of tax brackets to retirement plan contributions for tax year 2020. Some 60 provisions are affected, including the limits for employer based retirement plans.
Read More
It’s that time of year, when you are confronted by open enrollment nudges from your employer and in some cases, from the government. The choices can be dizzying, so to help you make more informed decisions, let’s break it out into broad categories.
Read More
Late last week, we learned that the U.S. budget deficit widened to $984.4 billion in the fiscal year ending September 30, its highest level in seven years. The Trump administration and the Congressional Budget Office expect the deficit to rise over $1 trillion in the 2020 budget year, which began October 1 and the CBO estimates that the deficit will stay above $1 trillion over the next decade.
Read More
Given the fighting in Syria, anti-government protests in Hong Kong, the down to the wire vote on Brexit, the expanding U.S. impeachment inquiry, not to mention ongoing trade conflicts between the U.S. and China, the U.S. and the European Union and South Korea and Japan, it’s easy to understand why people are worried about the current state of the globe.
Read More
The September jobs report rescued what was shaping up to be a tough week for investors. After one measure of U.S. manufacturing fell to a decade low in September and a separate service sector index dropped to a three-year low, the Labor Department reported 136,000 jobs were added in September.
Read More
Impeachment! Brexit! Trade Talks! There’s a lot to take in, and no, you shouldn’t try to game out how any of these events will impact your investments, because these is no precedent for the conditions that exist. Instead of going back in time to recreate what could happen, your time would be better spent focusing on an area that is within your control: the college financing process.
Read More