Piggy bank bubble "Passive Income"

The Holy Grail of Passive Income

There is plenty of buzz out there about passive income. I hear it from clients. I hear it from friends. I see blog posts and social media posts and even major news outlets enchanted by the idea of passive income. It’s easy to understand why. Investopedia defines passive income as “money being earned regularly with little or no effort on the part of the person receiving it”. Who wouldn’t want that? Money coming in without having to do anything sounds good to me too. Most of the time, when the […]

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dollar bill in a cage

Tax Loss Harvesting or Cost Basis Churning?

I’m often asked about the benefits of tax loss harvesting and how this strategy can be used advantageously. In some circumstances it makes sense, however, I think this strategy is oversold. Let’s define these terms and take a deeper look. Tax Loss Harvesting Tax Loss Harvesting is a practice that can be executed throughout the year that involves selling poorly performing investments within your taxable accounts to generate capital losses and reduce your taxes. Those proceeds would then be reinvested back into the market. The tax rules currently allow you

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roller coaster

Historical Perspective on Market Volatility

I am being inundated with new headlines about market declines and volatility. The last time I wrote about this topic was in 2016. Since that time, the S&P has increased by almost 50% even factoring in the bear market losses we have seen this year.  During the last six years, we have experienced declines of greater than 10% four times (in December 2018, March 2020, February 2022 & June 2022). Each time we experience a market downturn, it feels unprecedented. However, historically, market downturns have happened with surprising frequency. Not

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bills circling around in the air

Maximizing the Happiness of Every Dollar

What if every dollar you made was put to work with the goal of maximizing your happiness? What would that look like? It’s honestly hard to imagine. In our consumer-driven culture, we’re constantly inundated with ideas about things that should make us happy — a bigger house, a nicer car, the newest gadgets — and it’s easy to waste a lot of money chasing the next dopamine hit. It takes a conscious effort to step back from all of that and figure out which parts of our lives provide a

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glass jar labeled Budget

Budgeting App Showdown: Mint vs. You Need a Budget

Most of us have tried and failed to stick to a monthly budget at least once in our lives, and many of us have come to have a strong dislike for the word “budget” as a result. But we all have important financial goals that we want to achieve, and one way or another we need some kind of system that helps us both put money towards those goals and have enough for daily necessities. There are a lot of budgeting apps that can help you do this and today

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