Your Life, Simplified

In this episode of Your Life Simplified, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Michael MacKelvie, wealth advisor, talk about pensions and how you can use your pension to elevate your retirement plan. Mike and Valerie discuss the factors to consider when thinking about your pension, risk factors and the other pension options that may be available to you.

In this episode of Your Life Simplified, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Michael MacKelvie, wealth advisor, discuss the ins and out of tax-loss harvesting. Topics discussed include the selling of a security, capital gains brackets and tax deferrals.

Compensation for executives can come in different forms and be more complicated than simply earning a salary. In this episode of Your Life Simplified, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Natalie Haggard, senior wealth advisor, discuss the different retirement plans that are advantageous to executives, compensation in the form of stock and strategies to effectively make the most of your executive compensation.

Long-term care insurance can be complex and costly. With so many different plans available, it can be difficult to know which one is right for you and your family. In this episode of Your Life Simplified, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, discuss the thing you should consider when searching for a long-term care insurance plan and how to have a successful long-term care plan in place to save money and have the essential care required.

In this episode of Your Life Simplified, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, discuss the complexity of college funding and strategies to tackle to rising cost of college. Mike and Valerie weed through the complexity of paying for college talk about effective ways to pay for college including 529 plans, Roth IRAs, brokerage accounts, and things to consider before applying to a school.

How do you, as an investor, sift through all these choices that you have when creating your wealth plan? What’s the order of operations when building your financial plan and managing your cash flow? In this week’s podcast episode, Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, is joined by special guest Abby Foster, associate wealth advisor, as they discuss tips to help maximize your wealth through this order of operations as you pursue your financial goals.

The one constant in life is change, and the investment world is certainly no exception. As the world changes, more investors seek to invest in a socially responsible way. In this week’s podcast episode, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, talk about how you can invest in a socially responsible way. This area of investing can seem overwhelming and complicated, but we break it down for you: SRI=Socially Responsible Investing – This is typically religious or moral principles. We’ll screen for things people like to avoid and exclude them from investment. ESG=Environments, Social, Governance – This could be pollution, green energy initiatives, labor relations or customer satisfaction. SCI=Socially Conscious Investing is a combination of SRI and ESG.

Inflation is unavoidable right now. You see it every where you look and on the news, but what can we do to combat this inflation? Is there anything you can be doing differently in your portfolio?  In this week’s podcast episode, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, talk through several different variables affecting inflation.  

An estate plan can play an important part in your overall wealth plan and can make a large impact on your spouse and children. Taking a few steps can help ensure that your estate doesn’t end up in probate and your family isn’t left with a headache. On today’s episode, Mike MacKelvie is joined by special guest Drew McDowell, attorney and senior wealth advisor at Mariner Wealth Advisors, as they talk through 5 costly estate planning errors that celebrities like Prince, Whitney Houston and James Gandolfini made in their own estate plan and learn what you can do to help make sure you’re not making these same mistakes.

When keeping up with the, sometimes sensational, media coverage of the markets, things can seem bleak without proper context. In this week’s episode, Valerie Escobar and Mike MacKelvie talk us through how to assess the information we glean from these news story headlines, and how it might impact our investing plans.

Are you thinking about retiring early? In this week’s episode of Your Life Simplified, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, discuss several things you should think about before retiring early. Considerations discussed include Roth conversions, capital gains, when to take social security and how much income you should take during retirement.

In this episode of Your Life Simplified, Mike Mackelvie, wealth advisor, and Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, discuss bond alternatives and the pros and cons of bonds. Valerie and Michael talk about the basics of bonds, bond alternatives that you can invest in, rates of return and how impactful bonds can be in the market.

In this episode of Your Life Simplified, Mike Mackelvie, wealth advisor, and Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, discuss volatility in the stock market and strategies to embrace the up and down rollercoaster that the stock market can be. Valerie and Michael talk about the history of markets, rates of return and impactful days in the market.

In part 2 of Your Life Simplified’s real estate series, Mike Mackelvie, wealth advisor, and Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, discuss how REITs, or real estate investment trust, and ETFs, or exchange trades funds, have performed in high interest rate environments and the advantages of investing in real estate assets.

Are you looking to invest in real estate? In this week’s episode of Your Life Simplified, Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, and Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, talk about the things you should take into consideration before investing in real estate. The topics discussed include interest rates, return on investment and the advantages and disadvantages of investing in real estate.

Often times, we only look at the short-term cost of owning a pet such as adoption fees, toys, food and vaccinations. However, other costs, such as pet insurance, additional vet bills and housing need to be considered before adopting a furry friend. In this week’s podcast episode, Valerie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, are joined by very special guest Lucy as they talk about the real cost of owning a pet.

How do we get our kids to make better decisions with money? In this week's podcast, Valorie, senior wealth advisor,  and Mike, welath advisor, will be sharing with you tips and insights to help you teach your kids how to become financially literate.

In this week’s podcast episode, Valorie Escobar, senior wealth advisor, and Mike MacKelvie, wealth advisor, walk through 5 tax planning strategies and opportunities like Roth conversions, backdoor Roth IRA conversions, asset allocation, tax-loss harvesting and making qualified charitable contributions. They’ll also discuss considerations for each of these strategies and why it’s important to consult with your wealth advisor.

Should you or should you not be doing your own investing? In this episode, Valarie and Mike will be covering the 5 most common financial pitfalls of a DIY investor.

When there are so many outside factors affecting our well-being, it can be very beneficial to take a moment and focus on what’s happening inside you. In this episode, we invite Briana Struemph to help us understand what meditation is, how we can benefit from practicing and lead us through a simple breathing exercise.