Nest Egg Guru’s Retirement Simulation Software vs. Traditional Monte Carlo Apps
A video showing what makes Nest Egg Guru’s Retirement Simulator Software better than traditional Monte Carlo applications. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZEL3bosYzo
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We Fix Bad TikTok Advice Part II – 529 Plan Roth Rollovers
Three TikTok Videos About 529 Plan to Roth IRA Rollovers That Are High on Drama and Low on Fact-checking By J.R. Robinson, Founder/Financial Planner (December 2024) My September 12, 2024,…
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Legacy – Where to Turn If There Is No One Qualified to Serve as Your Successor
J.R. explains why he is not a fan of trust companies and urges people to consider independent third-party trustees. READ MORE
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New Beginnings: Need-to-know Resources and Tax Law Changes for 2025
New year tax changes, JR’s favorite cheat codes, new IRA and 401(k) limits By J.R. Robinson, Founder/Financial Planner (December 1, 2024) The purpose of this post is to help you…
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Is Bitcoin a Legitimate Asset Class? IMO, Yes.
The author explains two roles he believes Bitcoin may play in consumer portfolios. By J.R. Robinson, Financial Planner Before I begin, there are two important items I need to address. …
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Time Is Running Out: Year-End Planning To-Dos
Don’t overlook the items on Financial Planning Hawaii’s year-end tax planning checklist. It is also time to think about rebalancing. READ MORE
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My two cents: JR’s views on the stock market, interest rates, bond investing, and hedging against calamities
J.R. Robinson offers his usual irreverant commentary on investment planning with a surprising twist at the end. READ MORE
Looks Like the TCJA is Not Sun Setting. What That Means for Your Tax Planning.
It looks like the TCJA will not be sunsetting. That doesn’t make Roth Conversions less appealing, only less urgent. READ MORE
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New Login Requirements for Social Security Administration
Establish your Login.gov andID.me credentials before a hacker does! READ MORE
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Roth Conversion Advice is Easy to Find. Sound Advice Not So Much.
Two IRS Rules that Could Torpedo Your Tax Planning READ MORE
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Corporate Transparency Act on Hold for Now
Every person who has an LLC, S-corp, C-corp, Irrevocable trust or other legal entity needs to know about the CTA… READ MORE
News from Kaka’ako
Three news items for our Hawaii Clients – Hawaii Tax Cuts, Free HMSA Group Life, Bankoh not playing nicely. READ MORE
Many Personal Finance Gurus Are Recommending TIPS to Hedge Inflation. We Do Not.
Financial journalists love Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. I do not. READ MORE
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How Not to Choose a Financial Planner
The CFP Board’s new ad campaign to recruit new members is seriously funny – and an epic fail. READ MORE
CD Rates Just Plummeted.
This is Where to Find Yield Now. Two months ago, 1–5-year CDs were paying 5% or more. Today yields are in the 3.8-4.25% range. The author suggests that investing for income…
4 Great Reads!
NestEggPF’s Editor’s Picks feature articles on tax optimization, Medicare Advantage, crypto, and solar tax credits. By John H. Robinson, Financial Planner (July 2024) As the owner/found of Financial Planning Hawaii,…
Move Over Chat GPT. There’s a New AI Sheriff in Town and its Name is Perplexity
Perplexity AI offers better conversational generative AI than Chat GPT and better search than Google. By J.R. Robinson, Financial Planner (August 2024) Readers of our newsletter may recall that I…
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How Much Savings Do You Need to Retire?
Saving for retirement is a ubiquitous financial planning objective for working Americans, but most Americans have no idea how much they will need and have no way to gauge if…
Are you the Only One Not Listening to the Acquired Podcast?!
Dreading an Upcoming Long Drive or Flight? Tune into Acquired and you will wish the trip was longer! Like millions of others, I started listening to podcasts during COVID when…
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States Partnering with Insurance Companies to Sell LTC Policies? Bad Idea.
States such as NY and CA pitched “Partnership Plans” issued by Genworth and other LTC policy as a way to keep consumers off state Medicaid roles. The states’ failure to…
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Accountability? Here is our Interest Rate Guidance for the Past 5 Years
In a recent introductory meeting, a prospective client asked why they should follow my guidance on interest rates. This challenge to my credibility was a legitimate question, particularly since my…
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Why You May Wish to Amend Your 2023 State Income Tax Return
The individual states and the federal government have long had a reciprocal agreement not to tax the interest paid to investors on each other’s debt obligations. For this reason, municipal…
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A Finance App to Replace Mint? eMoney is Superior and Available for FREE!
By J.R. Robinson, Financial Planner (May 2024) Millions of consumers who have been disenfranchised by the closure of popular personal finance app Mint.com may do well to consider migrating to…
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T+1 is Coming on May 28th, 2024
When I first entered the investment business in the late Pleistocene Epoch, investors had five business days after the trade date (T+5) to pay for purchases. In 2004, the settlement…
IRS (Finally) Gives Definitive Guidance (Kinda/Sorta) on Required Minimum Distributions from Inherited IRAs.
Last week, the IRS issued Notice 2024-35, which provided long-awaited guidance on whether non-spouse and not-eligible designed beneficiaries (NEDBs) who inherited IRAs and/or retirement accounts from decedents who passed in…
HELOC Sticker Shock
In the course of my financial planning reviews, I often encourage clients to establish a home equity line of credit as a ready source of liquidity/emergency reserves. HELOCs typically cost…
Hawaii Insurance Commission Does No Favors for Genworth Long Term Care Insurance Policyholders.
In December 2023, the Hawaii Insurance Commission approved premium increases of 71.7% (to be phased in over three years) for Genworth Choice LTC policies with limited benefit periods and 131%…
Estate Planning Tales from the Darkside
Two harrowing recent client experiences exemplify why I am relentlessly pestering people to gather ALL their signed beneficiary designations and upload them to eMoney for safekeeping. Most people believe they…
Is It Time to Redeem Your Series I Savings Bonds?
Spoiler alert: For many consumers, the answer is “YES” – but not for the reasons you might think. You do not need throw too many proverbial darts at the financial…
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Gone Fishin’ – Where to Fish for the Best Fixed Income Yields Today.
I am starting to feel sorry for the pundits who keep urging investors to dive back into bond mutual funds. Someday, perhaps they will be right. As I express in…
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Fixing a Common Misconception about IRMAA
Many consumers errantly believe they need to keep their income low in the two prior years before applying for Medicare at age 65. This can result in missed opportunities for…
The CFP Board is the Quintessential Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Last month, the CFP Board cozied up to Congress and made a big public display of its support for the Department of Labor’s push for a fiduciary standard for all…
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Big Changes are Coming to the Tax Laws
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is slated to sunset on 12/31/2025. Unless Congress agrees to extend some or all of the provisions, many of the 2017 tax…
Tax Planning Rules Investors Should Know in 2024
Keeping up with ever-changing tax rules is a challenging task, even for financial and tax professionals. To help make planning easier for Financial Planning Hawaii clients, at the beginning of…
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The Best Tax Planning Cheat Sheets of 2024
Each year, we help clients keep up with recent tax law changes and inflation adjustments by sharing links to some of the best, most concise codes. In recent years, I…
DID RISING DIVIDEND STOCKS JUST HAVE A BAD YEAR?
It’s a fair question that some investors in dividend stocks are asking, and it deserves a circumspect response along with a bit of perspective. The source of this query is…
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Interest Rates on CDs Plummeted in November. How to Invest Now?
In a September 8th FPH Blog post, I explained that there are two schools of thought on how the current inverted yield curve anomaly will revert to its normal shape with shorter…
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3 Villains, No Heroes -The Genworth Long Term Care Insurance Saga
Over the past couple years, I have written a few articles for the Financial Planning Hawaii Blog offering advice to Genworth Long Term Care Insurance policy holders about how to…
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Confusion Reigns Supreme with Respect to RMD Rules
Every year since COVID-19 (2020) has seen confusion over who is and who isn’t required to take a required minimum distribution. The CARES Act, which was signed into law on…
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Massachusetts Delivers Some Welcome Estate Tax Relief
While Financial Planning Hawaii clients are scattered across the U.S., in terms of geographic distribution, Massachusetts holds the highest concentration, after Hawaii, of course. With respect to tax policy, Neither…
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Why Your Local Bank Offers Low Interest Rates – They Know You Probably Aren’t Going to Leave
Ever wonder why your local bank pays so little interest on savings, checking, and CDs? The reason is your bank knows that customer assets on deposit are sticky. Convenience is…
Why Financial Planners Have Nothing to Fear from AI
Now that the bloom is off the crypto rose, artificial intelligence – “AI” for short & trendy – is, to borrow from the title of Michael Lewis best-selling 1999 book…
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How to Invest When the Yield Curve is Inverted
As of this writing, 90-day T-bills are yielding around 5.4% while the 10-year Treasury sits at around 4.8%. Historically, inverted yield curves like this have been both rare and ephemeral.…
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Index Annuities are Hot Selling Insurance Products – Should You Buy?
I will not force you to read to the end of this article to glean where I stand on one of the hottest selling products in the investment and insurance…
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How to Fund Your Revocable Living Trust
Failing to fund one’s revocable living trust is one of the most common mistakes/oversights we catch in our comprehensive financial planning reviews. Part of the problem is that people often…
Where is the safest place to have money if the U.S. Treasury defaults on its debt?
I cannot believe we are actually having this conversation, but we are. Over the past few months, the topic of the debt debt-ceiling has increasingly come up in client communications.…
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AI and the Financial Planning Industry – An “Old School” Financial Planner Takes ChatGPT for a Test Drive
Artificial Intelligence (AI) software is a hot topic and portends to be a disruptive force on par with the advent of the Internet and e-commerce. Scarcely a day goes by…
It’s Time to Start Laddering Certificates of Deposit Again!
Last week saw an unusual and much-welcomed flattening of the CD yield curve. For the past 15 months or so since interest rates began rising, short-term CDs (18 months or…
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Should you redeem your Series I savings bonds now that the 6-month annualized rate is just 3.38%?
From late 2021 through October 2022, I was among the legions of financial planners who were proactively encouraging consumers to purchase Series I Savings Bonds to take advantage of the historic high…
J.R.’s Commentary Featured in U.S. News and Smart Asset
This article highlights an SSRN research paper I co-authored in 2022 on the consumer annuitization decision in a low-interest rate environment. It is important to note that interest rates were…
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How the Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Revealed a Dirty Secret About Corporate Cash Management
The FDIC takeover of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is a fascinating story that should serve as a cautionary tale for consumers and businesses. I say “should” because the bailout announced…
Is Your Cash Working as Hard as it Should Be?
Yesterday, I received a message from a financial journalist asking me what advice I am giving clients in the current investment environment. I told him succinctly, “Pick the low-hanging fruit.” …
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How Will the SECURE Act 2.0 and Other Recent Tax Law Changes Affect you?
The purpose of this article is to raise awareness of the many tax rule changes that were introduced at the end of 2022 that are likely to impact the planning…
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Should You Accept a Genworth Long Term Care Insurance Class Action Settlement Offer
Beginning in the 1990s, life insurance companies began to view the Baby Boomer generation as a marketing opportunity for a new form of insurance that would help retiring consumers address…
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What if the U.S. Treasury Defaults on its Debt?
This is a question that has appeared recently in the national news media since Congress failed to approve a lifting of the U.S. debt ceiling in January. The answer to…
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An Irreverent “State of the Investment World” Address
The financial news in the first few weeks of each new year is replete with articles recapping the highlights and lowlights of the investment markets over the previous year along…
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Timely Tax Season Tidbits
Hooray for Tax Season! … said no one ever. While we cannot make the unpleasantness of completing and filing your tax returns go away, we can at least keep you…