Critical Thinking Required

For LBW Book Club, the team read Annie Duke’s “Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts” recently.  A couple of concepts really stood out, and impacted our daily planning decisions greatly.  First, think about your best decision for the past year, and then think about your worst decision… Ready?  I bet you didn’t think about the best and worst “decision”, b...

Estate planning is a crucial part of overall financial planning.  And yet, people often dismiss it because, well, no one wants to face their mortality.  In addition, death and money are two very difficult and awkward topics among most families.  But, if you are a long-term thinker, and especially if you have first-generation wealth, we can’t stress enough the importance of estate planning.  To sta...

Clients ask us about socially responsible investing, or ESG funds (a mutual fund, index fund, or ETF that is constructed using environmental, social, and governance criteria to inform its asset mix) all the time.  We love the concept very much.  As a matter of fact, before this concept became trendy on TikTok, our portfolio manager Nathaniel always believed that two of the most crucial factors tha...

Currently, there is $1.75 trillion in total student loan debt, including federal and private loans.  55% of students from public four-year institutions, and 57% of students from private nonprofit four-year institutions took on educational debt.  At the current pace, “outstanding student loan debt could top $3 trillion by 2035,” according to one expert.  It's not just young graduates - many pe...

We get this question a lot from our high-income young clients - especially the ones who work in the creative industry: should I start an LLC, S Corp, or C Corp for my side business/1099 contract?  In this episode, Nathaniel and Tim discussed the following questions: When does it make sense to set up a business entity?  What types of structures are there?  What are the first steps in determining th...

The recent 2021 Social Security Trustees report finds that in 2034, retirees will start receiving a reduced benefit (78%) if Congress doesn’t fix funding issues for the social program.  That sound scary and urgent.  What then?  In this episode, Caroline and Tim discussed the following questions: What do we think Social Security will look like in the future?  At what age or milestone in life should...

In this episode, the trio discussed Series I Savings Bonds (“I Bonds”).  We have had so many conversations with clients about it recently due to the high inflation.  I Bonds are a type of U.S. savings bond designed to protect the value of your cash from inflation. With inflation hitting four-decade highs of 8.6% in May, investors are more interested in something that is higher than the inflation r...

Horizon Kinetics is one of the mutual funds that follow the value investing strategy.  In this episode, we invited one of its Co-Portfolio Managers James Davolos.  James first explained how he entered value investing: everyone can read a list and see what the cheapest stock price is.  But why it’s cheap, and how does that apply to your portfolio?  That’s the million-dollar question.  James then ta...

We invited Joe Austin and Lloyd Hussey from The William Warren Group to talk about investing in self-storage units.  Compared with general real estate, self-storage has light capital expenditures and is relatively easy to operate.  More importantly, the month-to-month short leases enable landlords to adjust prices quickly and thus perform better during inflationary periods.  In addition, demand fo...

Meet our newest member: Caroline Kahl.  She's a modern Wisconsin girl through and through.  She loves fishing, riding a boat on the lake, gardening, and her darling boy: a yellow lab named "Dash".  Caroline wanted to be a teacher growing up and had worked as a part-time tutor for first and seventh graders.  After exploring more career possibilities in college, she changed her major...

This is Part 2 of the episode where we discuss real estate private equity investing with Moses Kagan.  Southern California, in particular Los Angeles, has a great advantage for real estate investors: Proposition 13.  The law limited property tax rate increases by 1 percent of assessed value in year one, and the assessed value can't increase more than 2 percent afterward regardless of the mark...

This is Part I of the real estate private equity investment chat with Moses Kagan.  Real estate investing has always been on the top of our clients’ inquiry list.  Normally, for real estate investors, they try to buy, fix, and then sell the property as fast as they can.  But Moses is doing this differently: he has a true value investing mindset.  He firmly believes that when investing in real esta...

This is an interview with our newest team member Kennidy Briggs.  Growing up, Kennidy found that she loved puzzle-solving, identifying patterns, and being creative. Her favorite outlets were drawing, designing clothes, and playing games. Kennidy studied at Florida State University where she received her Bachelor’s in Sociology along with a minor in Anthropology and a certificate in Leadership Stud...

What does a car mean to you?  To some, it is just a tool they use to get from A to B; but to others, it’s a passion, it’s a hobby, it’s a lifestyle.  Today, we invited one of our team members, car enthusiast Gary Grosskopf to join us and talk about cars.  First, what to look for in a car?  Gary talked about different cars’ sizes, drive types, seating, quality, and brands.  And then, the forever “g...

This is our first quarterly commentary for 2022.  The team discussed: 1) the potential SECURE Act 2.0, and how will it impact retirement. 2) Inflation & interest rates, and where will they go? 3) Student Loans getting deferred again, and the potential loan forgiveness for some. 4) Taxation on goods over $600. 5) The Ukrainian/Russian conflict. How was the first quarter of your year?

The U.S. House passed the SECURE Act 2.0, which includes provisions to boost retirement savings.  In this episode, Nathaniel and Tim discussed the bill, and expressed their mixed feelings about some of the provisions: 1) Increase catch-up contributions; 2) Increase RMD age from 72 to 75 by 2033; 3) allow employers to place their match into the Roth portion of your 401(k) (Nathaniel is beyond excit...

In this episode, we had a conversation about private real estate investing with real estate guru Jorjio Hopkins.  Jorjio first explained the pros and cons of three different types of investment vehicles: crowdsourcing, syndication, and funds.  A real estate fund can close a deal much faster than crowdsourcing and is more diverse than syndication.  In terms of choosing between a publicly-traded REI...

People ask us very frequently: "I have $ amount in cash, where should I invest it?"  Hold your horses - before you start, let's go through the personal financial asset mapping process.  First, what are your true investable assets?  Investable assets = net income - lifestyle cost - emergency fund - primary home.  Second, where do you invest the money first? Some people are more inter...

People ask us a lot about borrowing from their 401(k): “Why would I want to borrow from banks and pay them interest when I can just borrow from myself?!”  Well, it’s more complicated than that.  It is true that if your 401(k) plan allows it and if you are fully vested, you may borrow from your own account.  But like everything else in the world, nothing is free.  First, you need to pay it back wit...

In this episode, we invited our friend, realtor Lindsay Koch to talk about the housing market, especially in the Madison, WI area.  Madison has been voted one of the top places to have a family, best cities to live, etc. many times.  People choose Madison for the healthy job market, surprisingly diverse restaurants, vibrant yet still cozy city feel, and the ever-beautiful lake views.  For years, t...

In this episode, we invited our dear friend Jon Crawford back to talk about oil and gas again.  As you may know, the Ukraine-Russia crisis has had an enormous impact on oil prices recently.  We were curious: how would this crisis affect supply and demand, both qualitatively and psychologically?  Tim asked, why are oil prices so volatile, and where are the prices going in the foreseeable future?  U...

In this episode, we invited one of our friends Michelle Vande Hey to talk about how to cope with losing a loved one, and what should others do/say to offer support.  First, where do you even begin?  Michelle strongly suggested people not be afraid of reaching out.  If you are the one who is experiencing the loss, set a clear boundary and state what you want from others.  If you are the one offerin...

This is Part 2 of our Self-Imposed Financial Tragedies series.  As we stated last time, almost everyone makes at least one of these mistakes in life, regardless of whether you are the wealthiest person, a scientist with a 180 IQ, or a financial expert.  It's important to be aware of these behavioral tendencies so that we can avoid long-term disasters.  Some self-imposed financial tragedies ar...

In this episode, we talk about self-imposed financial tragedies.  Unlike the inherited tragedies that are caused by things you can't control: race, religion, socio-economic issues, etc., self-imposed financial tragedies happen because we make wrong decisions.  Now, we are NOT saying that you did it because you are stupid - as matter of fact, we made a lot of these mistakes on this list when w...

In this episode, we invited one of our friends David Clark-Sally to talk about his and his husband’s experience of having their daughter Ellie through surrogacy.  David talked about why they eventually did it by themselves after an unsuccessful agency experience.  It’s like online/app dating, you go through hundreds of digital profiles and try to find “the one”: what eye color do you want, what mu...