Blogs

Educational blogs from SWMG center around the fundamentals of investing and finance.

It’s Open Enrollment Season

employee benefits document with highlighed text

If you are employed, you are likely navigating—or soon will be—Open Enrollment season, a crucial time for making informed decisions about your employee benefits, particularly health insurance. During this period, your employer provides the opportunity to adjust your existing plans or enroll in new benefits that best suit your needs. It’s essential to stay engaged …

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Gifting Limits

Stack of cash

What are Gifting Limits? All this month, I’ve been talking about debt. So why is this blog talking about gifting? Well, here’s my thought train: let’s say you have some debt and your parents or your grandma or your favorite aunt gives you some money to pay it off. Just, out of the goodness of …

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Good Vs Bad Debt

FINANCE CONCEPT: DEBT

So, some people believe that you shouldn’t EVER have debt. I don’t subscribe to this theory. There are times when debt may help. What is the difference between “good” debt and “bad” debt? Well, a simple answer is that good debt helps you finance something that will potentially increase in value, for example, a mortgage. …

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Student Loans

student loan

Forbes published an article about the student loan debt crisis a couple of years ago. Among the concerning statistics shared in the article, there was this little tidbit….student loan debt has now surpassed credit card and auto loan debt, making it the second highest consumer debt category, totaling more than $1.5 trillion. Unfortunately, dealing with …

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Credit Card Debt

Welcome to October, which is National Credit Card Awareness month! There was an article published on the Credible financial website that did a survey of 500 Americans with credit card debt. The survey said that of those survey participants, age 18-34 years, 33%+ said that debt is the scariest thing in their life. Just over …

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Why Do I Need Homeowners’ Insurance?

Insurance Word Cloud on Dry Erase Board

When I prepared for the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® exam, I delved deeply into the nuances of why do I need homeowners’ insurance—its more than I ever imagined! While it may not have been the most exciting study topic, the knowledge I gained can help you make informed decisions about protecting your home. Why You Need …

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IRA Vs. 401(k) Vs. ROTH – Part 2

Last week, we talked about the differences between an IRA and a 401(k). Both are types of retirement accounts, and the 401(k) is typically administered through an employer, whereas almost anyone can open an IRA. Now, we are going to talk about the Roth versions of these same investment vehicles. I described them as different …

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IRA Vs. 401(k) Vs. Roth – Part 1

Retirement Savings I have found that professional, super-smart people, that I personally know, do not know the difference between an IRA, a Roth IRA, and a 401(k). That will simply not do. You need to know this stuff. We’re going to fix that right now. The challenge will be keeping it short and sweet because …

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Long-Term Care (LTC) Insurance

caregiver helping senior woman

Some people think that when they get older and they have to go into an assisted living or nursing home facility, they will just be covered by Medicare or their regular health insurance – wrong! Assisted Living Medicare doesn’t cover much of assisted living or nursing home stays. Your assisted living stay could be covered …

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