Shotwell Rutter Baer

Join Dave and Nick as they discuss the book, The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. Lynne Twist is a global activist and founded The Soul of Money Institute and you can find many of her works on her website there, including her book. This is a great read for people who want to examine their relationship with money and how it affects their lives. We’ve had a lot of conversations on this podcast before.....

Welcome back to another episode, and another MSU case study. Last time we discussed a married couple who are both MSU professors and have two teenage children. You can find that episode here: Ep 114: Retirement Planning Case Study for an MSU Employee. This time, we are discussing the scenario of a young professor in his late twenties with his first full-time college teaching position. Source

Join Nick and Dave as they discuss some of their favorite resources for financial planning and why they like them. You can find links to the resources below. Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Sour...

Twelve months ago, I bonds were the security to purchase. As a refresher, I Bond rates get set at six-month intervals. Basically May to November and then November to the following May or April. A year ago at this time as inflation was raging, the treasury announced the rate on I bonds would be a 9.4% annualized rate of return, and of course that got everybody’s attention. Join us as we discuss how...

In today’s episode, we discuss what is your ideal retirement age. We take a look at retirement in the United States and how it’s shifting. Join us as we take a dive back to where it came from and how we got here. We borrowed a lot of this from an article in The New York Times last week titled What Age Should You Retire? What Health Experts Say We take a look at some of the non-financial issues......

We are going to talk about getting real about social security. This has been an ongoing discussion with clients, particularly younger clients for a while but it seems to becoming more prominent. There are more headlines around social security and its future. Join us as we try to set your mind at ease as to what is really going on with social security, what you should pay attention to... Source

2nd Quarter 2023 Economic Update and Market Review The first quarter of 2023 was largely positive for the markets, but not positive enough to make up for the frustrating previous 12 months. While inflation still appears to be slowing, there is plenty of uncertainty around interest rates and the Federal Reserve’s ability to slow the economy just enough but not too much. As always... Source

In today’s episode, Dave and Nick have an interesting case study of a couple of MSU professors. Join us as we take a look at some of the common scenarios that come up in a case like this when we’re helping people create their financial plans. This is a composite of several clients we’ve met with over the last couple of years to help people get a general feel for how we look at things and how we......

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the housing market. We’ve seen the Fed basically increase interest rates at an accelerated pace over the last year. And they are looking to still continue to do a couple more rate increases. So what do you think about that and how do you think about the different housing choices knowing that we’re in this rising interest rate environment? And we don’t......

Last Week Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. Nuveen’s asset managers noted it was the fastest bank failure in history, the result of management missteps, a challenging interest rate environment, a narrow client base whose businesses were also sensitive to the interest rate environment, and customers who talk amongst themselves. While none of this is great, the good news is that none of this seems to.....

Join Dave and Nick as they discuss Secure Act 2.0 and how it make affect you personally. We cherry-picked the most important points that we felt would impact our listeners the most. Secure Act 2.0 stands for Job Security. Secure Act One made changes to the American retirement system overall. It move the required minimum distribution age out from seventy and a half to 72 for people that hadn’t... S...

We have a very special episode for your today. Join us as Nick interviews Ashley Sajor and discover out why she became a financial planner. Ashley is one of the newest members of our team and started off as an intern while she was still attending MSU. Besides starring in our podcast from time to time, Ashley has also started writing blogs for our website. Michigan First-Time Home Buyer Savings......

Take OUR QUIZ to assess your own risk tolerance. Join Dave and Nick as they discuss the all-important risk tolerance. This is a big subject and comes up all the time when we’re working with clients. How much of a risk do you feel comfortable taking in your investment strategy? When you look at a statement or look at your account online and call me up and say, “I can’t take this anymore. Source

Dave and Nick are joined by Ashley Sajor, Associate Financial Planner here at Shotwell Rutter Baer. Ashley started her career at SRB as an intern and after graduating from MSU became a full-time employee. Check out Ashley’s previous visit to our show in the episode titled, Helping Your College Student Budget. Today, we are exploring the concept of a first-time home buyer savings account for the......

Join Nick and Dave as Nick interviews Dave as to the “why” and the “how” of his journey to becoming a financial planner. Dave, “I started basically looking for a job and did not have a true career path. I happened to meet the right people at the right time who were in the industry and needed help. They told me I was pretty much a nerd and I should be a nerd about this stuff. Source

Nick and Dave discuss the difference between, “I want to be financially responsible” versus “I’m going to try to keep a budget this year.” If you’re starting from the standpoint of already being a financially responsible person, then budgeting is just part of that. Or you are becoming that person and you may not be that person yet. There’s a lot of pressure in the world to spend money. Source

The debt ceiling debate has been front and center lately, so we thought we’d share this article from our partners at Clearnomics discussing this issue and how it may impact markets. Over the past week, there has been nonstop news coverage of the federal government hitting the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit known as the debt ceiling. This once again puts Washington drama on center stage as the... S...

Well, we can all agree that the stock market was not pretty in 2022. What is in store for 2023? Check out the Quarterly Investment Commentary – Q4 2022 from Eastbay Investment Solutions. We received a couple of email questions recently about the debt ceiling struggle. Mario echoed this the other day on our webinar for clients. Check that out here. The overall consensus is that this is not likely.....

This is a pretty common question for our clients t ask in December and January. We’re in an industry where everybody loves to make bold predictions and there’s not a lot of accountability around what happens. Well, we need to be careful with that. If nothing else we are at least filling that void of saying, “Hey you know we put these ideas out there a year ago so let’s see how we did. Source

Nick was asked recently why he liked being a financial planner. He and Dave both agree that this is an important question to ask your financial planner or anyone who is going to help you with your money. Nick tells a story about how he first started thinking about money and saving and how that shaped the career path that he followed. Listen along and learn more about Nick and how he landed a job.....

Michigan is an auto-centric state and people from the East and West coast don’t understand why we still driving the same Subaru we bought in the nineteen eighties. Nonetheless, a very popular question we get asked a lot is whether you should buy or lease a car. A car is a major expense and a big budget item and is usually still a necessity for most of our clients. Ultimately... Source

This is our 100th Episode! Thanks for listening over the past 2 years! Join Nick and Dave as they talk about a topic they bring up with their clients on a regular basis. It’s never too early to start saving for retirement. Financial advisers regularly check it with clients to ensure they are saving enough for their retirement goals. This often corresponds with saving more and spending less. Source

You might have to dig a little deep in 2022 but we found some things outside of football and nice fall weather to be thankful for. Saying it’s been kind of a rough year might be the understatement of the century. It has been a rough year in the markets. But there are a couple of things we can focus on, and it seems we’ve started to see things come back a little. In a year when we’ve been fighting....

Join Dave and Nick as they discuss an Aol Finance article titled Hidden Fees To Watch Out for in Retirement. As fee-only financial planners, we always operate as fiduciaries. This means that we are legally obligated to provide advice that is in your best interest. That is, we don’t profit by selling you a particular product or investment. Many people believe that all financial advisors are... Sour...

Dave and Nick offer tips on how to check that your financial plan is on track to provide the goals you have for your future and retirement. Your plan should include resources for things that may come up that you are not planning for. Such as: People don’t typically come to their financial adviser when things are going great. They usually have a concern or questions. A lot of times it is because......