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The passing of a loved one is an exceptionally difficult time in life. It has been more than five years since my parents passed away, and at times the feeling of loss is so acute it catches my breath. I was honored to be their personal representative and executor, and had the time and experience to be sure their finances were well prepared for such a transition. Despite this preplanning, the process was still painful and cumbersome.  

Running a successful business takes a considerable amount of time and effort, and it can leave business owners without much of an opportunity to think about an eventual exit. However, a well-crafted exit strategy can make for a smooth sale or handover of the business, and it can also help ensure that you move forward to the next chapter in your life with the financial security you’ve worked so hard to build.

In this article, we will discuss the 5 steps that can help you exit your business in style.

There’s nothing easy about divorce. It feels as though your entire life changes overnight and it’s hard to manage the whirlwind of priorities as you look for your next right step.

And while there are a lot of steps to manage, an important one is to ensure that your financial plan matches your “new normal.” By this I mean making certain that your needs, newfound priorities, and redefined goals are reflected in your plan, and a great way to start this is by updating (or creating) your estate plan. 

But where do you start? In my experience, there are eight key issues you should think about and discuss with your estate planning attorney as soon as practical following a divorce. As part of this, please give your divorce decree to your estate planner to make sure they are aware of your obligations.

As a Retirement Plan Advisor at Strategic Wealth Partners, my role largely focuses on advising retirement plan sponsors on the myriad and complex aspects of retirement plan management.

To facilitate our work, we are members of the Retirement Plan Advisory Group (RPAG), a national alliance of retirement plan advisors and institutions. RPAG augments our team with CFA® Charterholders that focus on Plan Investments, ERISA Specialists, Plan Benchmarking Specialists, and Plan Consultants. These relationships allow the plan sponsors we serve at Strategic Wealth Partners to access opportunities that might not be available otherwise.

I recently attended the RPAG National Conference, an opportunity for RPAG members to share best practices and learn from industry thought leaders. This article will discuss some of the takeaways from the conference and several ideas to help retirement plan sponsors reduce plan costs, improve participant outcomes, and mitigate risk.

#1 Collective Investment Trusts (CITs)

Investing is not supposed to be easy. If it was, I might not have a job (or at least this job). Undoubtedly though, this summer was as confusing as ever. The stock market reversed course when…

Has this ever happened to you? I went to pick up a prescription from a large pharmacy chain, and they told me that my insurance no longer covers that medication, and the out-of-pocket cost will be $160. Standing there trying every discount I could find on various apps, I managed to reduce the cost to $130.
Knowing that I was researching this topic, I did not fill the prescription and went home to apply my research to a real-life situation.

One of the aspects that I like most about my job is learning about the unique objectives of families. Interestingly enough, many financial planning goals of my clients are not always apparent from the onset of the relationship. One area of consistency, though, that I find among affluent families is a focus on preserving generational wealth.

There is certainly a large degree of complex planning needed to ensure your hard-earned assets are distributed according to your wishes and kept out of the hands of the government. In this article, I share five strategies I use when helping affluent families preserve their generational wealth.

Every family we work with is unique. However, over the years, I have found one common denominator: all have built wealth through sacrifice, hard work, and a strong set of financial values that includes monitoring spending and prioritizing saving.

These values, coupled with a thoughtful investment strategy, have allowed many families to accumulate more wealth than they could ever spend in their lifetimes. As a result, a significant portion of this family wealth will be passed down to the next generation at some point in time, and many family leaders feel anxious about this wealth transfer: How will this wealth transfer impact family dynamics? Are the kids ready to assume the financial responsibility? Will they manage financial opportunities appropriately? Will the values that built this wealth live on?

In honor of Financial Literacy month in April, SWP Wealth Advisors shared money lessons they have learned throughout their lives.  In this piece, you will find a compilation of these lessons.