The Consulate Journal is our written blog, dedicated to educating our audience on a wide range of topics. Sometimes we’ll be sharing our financial planning philosophies, and other times sharing our views of money and its place in our lives. Most often, we’ll be sharing specific and actionable financial planning strategies that we use with our clients.
Search Consulate Journal
Is It the Chicken or the Egg?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This age-old question can be adapted to many questions on origin, including financial planning. Financial planning’s “chicken and egg” question is: Is it about saving or spending less that brings forth financial…
Read MoreHome Equity Credit Line: An Invaluable Tool
For many years now, I have been promoting one of the greatest and most invaluable (but underappreciated) financial planning tools—the home equity credit line (HECL). An HECL is an agreed-upon balance that you can borrow from at your own choosing…
Read MoreUnderstanding Stocks
At the time this article was written, the U.S. stock market had just lost 12 percent in the preceding 2.5 months. This type of market decline causes a serious amount of angst and worry among stock investors. Watching their account…
Read MoreFinancial Planning for the Unexpected Accident
A broken sternum. It turns out that there is a significant amount of financial planning that results from breaking your sternum. One week after my wedding (and the day before I was to leave for my honeymoon), my mother called…
Read MoreThe Higher Purpose of Money
The bee seems like a simple insect, but without its ability to pollinate plants, we would most likely starve. Water seems simple enough, but it is the source of life to all living organisms. Air is nothing more than a…
Read MoreIRS Notices: Potential Waste of Time
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) uses algorithms (i.e., computer program applications) to examine the data that it receives and then fires off notices to taxpayers to explain distributions from individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and other forms of retirement accounts. When…
Read More