A health savings account (HSA) is an account for you to contribute pre-taxed dollars to later pay for qualified medical expenses. By contributing to an HSA, you can pay for established medical, dental, and mental health services. It can be used to pay for deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, or a variety of other expenses. It may […]
Estate and Financial Planning Guide for Families of Children With Special Needs
Everyone, no matter how wealthy, has an estate — all of your personal belongings, money, and assets — that needs to be taken care of after you pass away. Similarly, everyone has a default estate plan outlined by their state government, but this plan likely doesn’t align with your wishes, benefit your assets, or result […]
What Are Alternative Investments?
An alternative investment is exactly what it sounds like: a financial asset that exists outside the scope of traditional investment categories such as stocks, bonds, or cash. You can still use an alternative investment to contribute to traditional investments, but unconventionally, like shorting a stock or arbitraging a stock between two different markets. From cryptocurrency […]
Investing with a Self-Directed IRA During a Recession
It’s easy for investors to feel invincible during an economic boom. The problem is that this can lead investors to think that nothing can ever go wrong, and there’s no risk of losing all their money. But as we’ve seen over the past few months, things can change in an instant. Technically, we are in […]
Have Retirement Savers Taken Advantage of The CARES Act?
People taking advantage of temporary CARES Act rules that allowed for easier loans and distributions from 401K retirement plans increased slightly through November, a month before the Dec. 30 cutoff. As many as 1.4 million people have taken a CARES distribution from a major retirement savings firm, about 5.7% of participants on their system, according […]
What Happens to Your Unused Retirement Account Contributions?
Do you know what happened to that money you contributed to your employer’s 401K program? Are you worried it’s lost for good? Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered on what happens to your unused retirement money. Did you quit? If you have more than $5,000 invested in your 401K, most plans allow you to leave […]
Control your Investments With a Checkbook IRA
Do you have an IRA or a 401K? According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, in 2013, about 45 percent of households aged 25 to 64 had balances in retirement accounts. Do those 45 percent of Americans know what their retirement accounts are invested in? Most likely not, and that doesn’t bother most […]
Inflation Can and Will Deplete Your Self-Directed IRA Income – How to Fight it
Inflation is something most Americans don’t think about much, but it has a significant influence on all of our financial lives. Not only does inflation impact the prices of consumer goods; but the federal government also uses it as a benchmark in determining whether to increase contribution limits to qualified retirement plans or to raise […]
Owning and Operating a Self-Directed 401K 101
Ever heard of a self-directed 401K? It might be what you need. It’s not very common for employers to offer a self-directed 401K, more than likely you’ve been contributing to an employer-sponsored 401K. While there are similarities, they’re both retirement savings vehicles, and they follow the same rules, but the fundamental difference is that there’s […]
Three Ways a Gold IRA Helps to Improve a Retirement Account
Not a whole lot of people know you can invest in gold, nonetheless, invest in gold with a gold IRA. But you can and for some retirement savers, it’s the answer they’ve been waiting for. If you’re the type that likes to invest in commodities or hard assets, then a gold IRA might have what you’re […]