4-minute Money Ideas

What You Need to Know About Start-Up Investing By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® In a dramatic repeat of what I saw many times in the late 1990s-2000, another start-up company just collapsed, taking with it millions of dollars from investors’ pockets. Not only are the founders’ dream shattered, but its investors’ profits are destroyed and cash lost. As a financial advisor, I review many new companies from the investor’s viewpoint. In almost every case, the story ends badly. Don’t invest unless you know how The main cause of these disastrous results stems from investors putting their money into an idea instead of into a team. Many great ideas fail because of bad management, but lots of new concepts – even mediocre ones – turn into solid businesses when handled properly. Venture capital professionals won’t even consider investing in a company unless they’re convinced that the team running it is qualified and has a robust business plan. How to analyze a business plan If this article is your only lesson on how to evalua

What to Do With Your Money at the End of the Year By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® As the fiscal year draws to a close, it’s time to review your financial plan. Here are three important aspects that you need to look at: Savings goals What are your long-term and short-term goals? Are they the same as they were last year? If your goals are both time and dollar specific, it’s easy to tell whether you are on target to meeting them. Take a look at your pension plan. Is the division of funds among its saving and insurance component still relevant to your current stage in life? Asset allocation Apart from saving your money, you also need to grow it. So let’s look at your investments. Are your funds properly invested? Your investments should reflect your risk tolerance, growth objective, and time frame. Recheck your asset allocation to ensure that everything is in order following the movements of the markets over the past year. Often funds can change focus, requiring you to rebalance your portfolio. Furthermore, if a stock

Do You Suffer from “Inheritance Loyalty Syndrome?” by Douglas Goldstein, CFP ® It is common to feel emotional angst after receiving an inheritance. Inheritors may have doubts as to whether they are “allowed” to use the assets as they wish, or whether they somehow have to use them in a way the benefactor would have chosen to use them. There are two ways to approach a sudden influx of money into your control: Spend it on things you would never have been able to afford otherwise. The downside of this is the risk of increasing your overall cost of living and finding yourself none the richer. For example, if you choose to upgrade your car, would you be able to afford higher insurance payments, gas, and upkeep in the future? Incorporate the assets into your overall financial plan. You could use the inheritance to pay off debt (including your mortgage), fund your emergency account, or increase your savings. Other factors to consider are whether you should use the funds for charitable projects or earmark them for an

Don’t Leave Tax-Loss Harvesting to the End of the Year By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Many investors optimize their portfolio to minimize capital-gains tax. One popular strategy is to do tax-loss harvesting. What is tax-loss harvesting? Tax-loss harvesting is the practice of selling a position at a loss, and matching the loss against a gain of different stock that you sold. By offsetting losses against gains, capital growth taxes are only paid on the net profits. While this may be a tempting tax-savings strategy, there are three reasons to avoid the end-of-the-year market selling frenzy. The wash sale If you sell a security and buy it (or a substantially similar one) back within 30 days of selling it is called a “wash sale.” Wash sales negate any tax-loss selling strategies, and your attempt to harvest a tax-loss would be disallowed by the IRS. Don’t be the short-sighted individual who sells at a loss, and then, the next day when the stock begins creeping up, wants a piece of the action and buys it again. This s

What Should You Do When You Get An Inheritance? By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Many of my client relationships began as a result of receiving an inheritance. The sudden infusion of money is a good impetus for a review of one’s goals. The first thing to do when you get an inheritance is – nothing. There’s usually no rush to spend or invest the money. Let the pain you may feel at losing a loved one and the excitement of “coming into money” die down. Before you make any decisions about what to do, make sure you’re in a calm frame of mind. Explore your options Once you are ready to make some decisions, the next step is to figure out what you really want. Some people immediately use an inheritance to realize a material dream and buy a house, car, or go on a luxury vacation. The problem is that many of those who rush into spending an inheritance often find that in the flurry of excitement, they end up spending more money than the original bequest. While there may be nothing wrong with spending an inheritance, be wary

How to Help Your Children Become Financially Independent By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® A client told me about her married daughter who is in a financially dysfunctional marriage. The young couple finds it hard to make ends meet, and often applies for help from charitable organizations. Yet despite their lack of funds, they still live a fairly extravagant lifestyle. Occasionally, the daughter asks her mother for money, but the mother refuses. My client realizes that she doesn’t have the means to bail them out – and even if she did, they would never learn to stand on their own two feet. Teaching financial responsibility is one of the toughest lessons a parent faces. Close the Parental Bank Saying no to a child in fiscal trouble is difficult. I know many parents who support an adult child still living at home, or married children who can’t quite make the month. These parents tell me, “What can I do? They’ll starve without my help!” Sadly, these well-intentioned parents don’t realize that rather than helping their

How To Break Your Bad Habits And Get Rich By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Money woes are generally not due to a market gone awry or a low salary. The number one cause of most money problems is bad financial habits. Do you spend without tracking what is leaving your wallet, neglect to make regular deposits in savings, and overlook regular financial reviews and discussion of financial goals with your partner? If so, you may be guilty of harboring negative financial habits. Bad financial habits can be as deadly as smoking. Some habits are so ingrained that it seems impossible to break them… but it can be done! I spoke with James Clear, an expert in habit creation, on The Goldstein on Gelt Show about how people could improve their finances by replacing negative habits with positive ones. Why stopping cold turkey doesn’t work Stopping a bad habit by simply not doing it anymore doesn’t tend to work since nature hates a void. Instead of just stopping your bad habit, find a good habit to substitute for the negative one. F

Are Bonds a Good Investment for You? By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Bonds are a very popular investment, but before you buy any, let me tell you what I share with my clients about them. Think of a bond as a loan between you and a company or government. Assuming all goes normally, here’s how it looks: You lend them a sum of money They pay you interest periodically until “maturity.” They return the principal of the loan on a specified date. Why buy bonds? Investors looking for steady current income (perhaps to supplement a pension) and wanting to diversify their portfolios often purchase “fixed income” securities (as bonds are often called). Owning bonds may give the investor a sense of security because the issuer guarantees to pay back the principal of the bond. However, bear in mind that the “guarantee” is only as solid as the guarantor, so if the issuer defaults you could lose money. Government bonds are generally considered to be safe investments, since the government has the ability to raise taxes and print

Problems With Your U.S. Brokerage Account? By Douglas Goldstein, CFP®   Many readers have recently contacted me because they received a letter from their U.S. brokerage firm informing them that either “You can no longer purchase additional shares of mutual funds in your account,” or “We will no longer provide investment advisory services to you and/or you may only enter liquidating orders or non-solicited orders in your account.”   This letter is not a result of new American legislation; rather it means the brokerage firm handling your portfolio is no longer interested in working with clients living outside the United States. Don’t despair. There are solutions that can possibly even improve your situation.   What action step you should take Even if you can’t continue to work with your existing brokerage firm, you do not need to cash out your American account.  Rather, work with a firm that specializes in opening brokerage accounts for clients who have an Israeli address (see www.profile-financial.com/faq for

How Quickly Should You Invest The Money You Inherit? By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Though I often advise people to wait before investing an inheritance, sometimes you must take quick action. When do you need to act quickly? If you inherited a risky position, you should consider liquidating it. For example, the grandfather who always managed the stock portfolio passes away, leaving large amounts of money invested in a few individual stocks. Unable to live on her own, the grandmother who now owns the stock portfolio needs to move to a nursing facility. What would happen if she waited 12 - 18 months to deal with the account and then, just before she sold in order to pay her bills, the stock market crashed? How much money do you need now? If you inherit a portfolio of stocks, ask yourself if you are in a position to wait (possibly for years) to use the money. A fancy car or a luxurious vacation is not an emergency expense. On the other hand, paying for home health care or other medical procedures may very well be a

Are You Getting The Social Security You Deserve? By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® The “Greenberg Settlement,” the resolution of a class-action lawsuit brought against the Social Security Administration (SSA), changes the way American olim receive their American Social Security payments. Under the SSA’s Windfall Elimination Provision, if you receive a foreign earnings-based pension, your American benefits are reduced. Until now, claimants of Social Security living in Israel who also received Bituach Leumi old age pension had their payments from Social Security reduced under the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).  This was because Bituach Leumi was considered as an extra pension and counted as a “windfall.” In 2013, Ephraim Greenberg, a U.S. citizen living in Israel, brought a class action to change this situation because Bituach Leumi pensions are not dependent on earnings and therefore don’t fall within the criteria of the WEP. Now you can claim your money back In July 2015, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer

When Should You Give Trading Authority to Your Children? By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Recently, one of my clients had a serious fall at home, breaking his hip, and ended up in the hospital. As a result of his injuries, it was clear that he could not deal with his finances for the foreseeable future and had to hand over trading authority to his daughter.  As this all happened suddenly, decisions had to be made in a hurry, leading to mediocre results. If my client, who is over 80, had agreed to hand over trading authority earlier, he and his daughter would have been better prepared for a scenario where he could no longer make financial decisions. What is trading authority? A trading authority form is a legal document that allows someone else to act as your agent over your account. Your agent can have limited trading authority, which means that he can make transactions on your behalf but not withdraw any money, or full trading authority, which means he can make withdrawals from your account. A trading authority i

What You Need to Do After You Inherit an IRA By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® If you receive an inheritance, it might come in the form of property, a bank account, or brokerage account. But what if you receive an inheritance from someone’s individual retirement account (often called an “IRA”)? IRAs are different from regular brokerage accounts A regular brokerage account is normally structured as either an “individual” or a “joint” account, and a person’s will determines how the assets will be distributed upon his death. An IRA, on the other hand, is normally distributed via a “beneficiary designation.” That’s actually much easier because when a person sets up his IRA, he instructs the brokerage firm or bank to list the names of primary beneficiaries (and contingent beneficiaries if one of the original ones has died). It’s a comparatively easy procedure to move the money from an IRA to the proper beneficiary. Make sure you read this before receiving an inheritance from an IRA One of the great benefits that the Uni

By Douglas Goldstein, CFP® Regardless of the more modern way people look at gender, there are significant differences in how men and women should invest their money. Here’s why: Women’s pensions tend to be smaller Women’s pension payouts tend to be lower than men’s payouts, because most women work fewer hours and have lower salaries than their male counterparts. Even though “paternity leave” is becoming more common, most women still take additional non-paid time after having a baby. And, when they return to work, they may return to a part-time position. All this means a lower salary, and a proportionately lower contribution to a pension fund. Women live longer than men In Israel, the average lifespan of a man is 81 years, while a woman’s life expectancy is 84. In the United States, average life expectancy for a man is 76 and for a woman 81. As women generally retire earlier than men and live longer, this means a lengthier retirement and more bills. Furthermore, if a pension doesn’t increase with inflation, th

Non-Americans who want to invest internationally often use U.S. brokerage accounts. While it may seem counter-intuitive for a non-American to open an American brokerage account from overseas, there are several reasons why this is a good move. 2 reasons why non-U.S. folks use American accounts Efficiency – U.S. securities markets may be the most efficient and individual-investor friendly in the world. American regulations place customer protection and transparency at the top of their concerns. You can have a diversified basket of global assets within a “regular” U.S. brokerage account, and do it cost effectively. Diversification – A U.S. brokerage account can host a variety of investment vehicles, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and bank deposits (CDs). American brokerage portfolios can hold investments in both American and global companies. Do non-American heirs need to pay U.S. Inheritance Tax? One of the issues that non-Americans face by opening an American brokerage account is the possibility of th

Are bonds safe as an investment? Explore how they can provide safety and increase diversification in an investment portfolio.