Stites On Estates
Estate, Trust, and Tax Planning
What Is Your Investor Personality Profile?
Successful investing presents practical and emotional difficulties. Reducing those difficulties as much as possible turns on your answers to two questions:Do you believe markets are efficient?Can you manage your behavioral tendencies?After you have thoughtful answers...
Avoid the Wolves of Wall Street When Forecasting Investment Returns
We live in a world of nearly infinite, nearly free information. That includes financial information, commentary, journalism, and forecasts. Among this clutter, it can be very hard to decide what deserves attention, what's worthwhile, and...
Your Retirement Date: Expectation vs. Reality
Spy Game (2001) is all about retirement: Nathan Muir's last day at work at the CIA. Muir (Robert Redford) has a protege, Bishop (Brad Pitt), who's been thrown into a very unpleasant prison in coastal...
Chuck Yeager, The Right Stuff, and Your Income Growth Trajectory
The Right Stuff (1983) is a movie that's begun to be fully appreciated only recently.One of its best scenes is when the iconic test pilot Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepard) takes a very dangerous...
A Sherlock Holmes Approach to Your Income Statement
I think "budgets" are the reason many more people don't have a sensible strategy for reaching their financial goals. The word "budget" creates obstacles in two ways.First, budgets imply choices, tradeoffs, and the unpleasant word...
Use a Total Balance Sheet for Your Estate Plan, Including Invisible Assets and Liabilities
A financial plan should be a thoughtful alignment of your income, expenses, saving, and asset allocation that makes it more likely you'll achieve what matters most to you. Your estate plan is financial plan's autopilot...
Demography, Destiny, and Your Family's Estate Plan
It's unclear whether Auguste Comte really said that "demography is destiny," but you can and should use demographic data to make better estate and financial planning decisions.As we've noted, an estate plan often represents a...
Improve Your Estate and Financial Planning With an Integrated Life Cycle Perspective
While we're still near the "New Year's Zone", I want to suggest a resolution for clients and their advisors: think about your estate and financial planning in an integrated way, from a life cycle perspective.People...