Attention, all parents and students! We bid farewell to Sheri’s Summer Refresher Series and bring you an important, good-news announcement that you might have missed in all the back-to-school action (including all the obligatory “first day at school” social media posts and pics). As reported in a New York Times article, “Earlier Date for Filing Fafsa Form for College Aid,” the national Education Department just made it easier to apply for...

The lessons learned from our 2013 post on health and wealth seem like an excellent way to wrap Sheri’s Summer Refresher Series, before we move on to new ideas and fresh posts for the rest of the year. If there’s one piece that gets to the heart of what we’re about at SAGEbroadview, this one just might be it. We love its central theme, and try to live by it...

September 2016 Back to School Higher education may come with a high and increasing price tag, so it makes sense to plan well in advance. With school back in session in most of the country, many parents are likely thinking about how best to prepare for their children’s future college expenses. Now is a good time to sharpen one’s pencil for a few important lessons before heading back into the investing classroom to...

Today we revisit one of the most refreshing investment ideas we know: the randomness of near-term market returns. Pick a year, any year. If you’re ever tempted to guess how capital markets are going to fare in the year following, all you have to do is take a look at this crazy quilt chart, updated here to reflect 2015 year-end data. That should quickly refresh your memory on how impossible it is...

In some respects, we wish this piece weren’t worth re-posting. We’d prefer it if today’s investors no longer needed to be on the look-out for the opaque fees and conflicts of interest described. Unfortunately, with only a few minor updates, the information is still as relevant today as it’s ever been. So even if you’ve read this before, we recommend revisiting this important message again. For extra credit, you may also...

One favorite guest re-post deserves another. This next one originally arrived just in time for Halloween. Authored by Larry Annello (shortly before our two firms merged into SAGEbroadview), the witching season went well with the theme of the then-new, potential 3.8% Medicare surtax on portions of an investor’s income. At least for the foreseeable future, the Medicare surtax remains alive and well. Fail to plan for it in any given tax...

This post may be one of Sheri’s favorites because it represents one of her own earliest financial challenges as well as the inspiration behind her current career. In an earlier career, Sheri was employed by General Electric for 15 years in a variety of roles. As she accumulated company stock options and other executive benefits, she realized how hard it was to find good advice on how to make the best...

Let us count the ways that we still love this post about the benefits of youthful investing in a Roth IRA. First, there are few investment lessons more powerful than the importance of starting to save and invest when you’re young, with time, compound returns and tax sheltering opportunities on your side. Second, it’s been heartening to see how far guest author Chris Annello and Sheri’s niece Jessica (who inspired the...

In early June, several of us at SAGEbroadview shared our recent adventures in the college admissions process. In particular, Sheri described some of the college admission challenges  that she, her husband and her youngest son Devon encountered as they sought a good fit for his higher education ambitions. It would be comforting to say that it will be easier for Sheri this time, since Devon is their second son to head...