If there’s a lesson we seem to learn the hard way every holiday season, it’s the insidious effect of compound calories. A taste here, a nibble there … hey, somebody’s got to lick that bowl. The next thing you know, those numbers have taken on an exponential life of their own, and you’re going to have to put your Fitbit into overdrive to get back on track. Fortunately, compounding has its...

Perhaps I should have known on that day more than 18 years ago, when I caught my own breath listening to my son Devon’s beating heart for the first time: I was about to give birth to a talented and enthusiastic drummer. Regardless of where the future takes him, I hope Devon will always march to his own beautiful rhythm – the one that we celebrated recently at his Seniors...

As my niece Jessica and many of her peers get up and running in their new careers, they face one more important financial challenge. In school, there are the three Rs: Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Post-graduation, most young adults must manage one or more of the three Cs: College loans, car payments and credit cards. This can get in the way of your otherwise-solid head start on saving and investing...

When my niece Jessica arrived home recently from her first day in her first career as a journalist, she brought a bounteous stack of “homework” along with her. Nope, this wasn’t her first writing assignment. It was the enrollment forms for a variety of employee-sponsored insurance plans. Let’s review some of the advice I offered her on how to make the most of the benefits now available to her. HEALTH INSURANCE: Resources:...

I’m so proud of my niece Jessica Iannetta.  She graduated from Syracuse University’s S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in May 2015 with degrees in newspaper and online journalism, and political science. She is now working as a reporter and photographer at the Cecil Whig, a newspaper in Elkton, Maryland.  Today I helped her enroll in her company’s benefits plans, which got me thinking that some of my advice to her...

Should a boutique firm like SAGEbroadview take on student interns? It’s a question we posed to ourselves a while back. After weighing the considerations for our clients, ourselves and our would-be interns, it became clear that the answer was YES, we should. We love educating – not only ourselves and our clients – but those who represent the future of our profession. That said, Chris Annello, who is overseeing our internship...

It’s official. Last week, my days as a legal guardian came to an end when my younger son Devon celebrated his 18th birthday.   Any parent can relate to my need for some extra oxygen just to share this news, let alone believe it myself. It’s also hard to accept that it’s been 19 months since my eldest son already reached adulthood. At the time, I used the milestone to remind...

My son Dominic is 18 and a high school graduate, as of this week! Knock on wood, he’s had only one near-miss since he began to drive. Only days after receiving his permit, he and his dad were driving to school when a kamikaze deer leaped in front of the car. Devon, his younger brother, was waiting at the school bus stop and witnessed the event. Unfortunately, the deer had...

In our last post, “The Ins and Outs of Insurance Coverage,” we described some of the ways an objective advisor can help you select from the wide range of good, bad and occasionally ugly insurance possibilities available. In this post, we share a case study, revised with permission from an original, advisor-oriented piece by Low Load Insurance Services, Inc. "I'm Covered with Group Disability at Work." Really? Look again...

A recent question from one of our clients struck me as excellent inspiration for a blog post of wider appeal. It went something like this: “My son is now 18 and tells me he wants to invest in stocks, or mutual funds, what do I think, etc. He has $1,700, so not really enough to shake the markets, but I am happy he is developing an interest. Before I respond to...