Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Before Retiring?

Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Before Retiring?

I get this question a lot from my own clients and from others nearing retirement who own homes on which they still hold a mortgage.  There’s a widely-held belief that you should eliminate all your debt before you retire.  Is that true? And does that include paying off your mortgage?  The answer, as is common…
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More Bad News About Wall Street Ethics

In 1989 author Michael Lewis, in his book Liar’s Poker, revealed that the role of a bond trader at Salomon Brothers, the biggest trading firm on Wall Street during the 1980s, was “to call someone he doesn’t know and try to sell that person something he doesn’t want.”  Dan Wheeler, the founder of Dimensional Fund…
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Have Your Bond Holdings Become Too Risky?

There has been much speculation recently as to when the Fed will raise interest rates.  The concern is that volatility in bond prices will spike and investors that have become used to bonds as a stable source of income will freak out.  If you haven’t started to worry about this, is now the time to…
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What Do You Pay Your Investment Advisor To Do?

Are you paying your broker or the manager of your actively-managed mutual fund to generate a higher return for you than you think you can get from lower-cost passively-managed index funds?  According to Larry Swedroe and Andrew Berkin, authors of a new book entitled “The Incredible Shrinking Alpha,” you’re wasting your money. The term alpha…
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One Way To Choose Between Mutual Funds

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a magical way to invest the cash in your IRA or 401(k) and know the return you will get in advance? When it comes to equities, returns are extremely difficult to predict. That’s because returns on stocks or stock funds can vary widely from year to year. If…
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Five Tips on Supporting Your Boomerang Child

The Pew Research Center found that some 36% of all 18 to 31-year-olds were living at home with their parents in 2012.  As the parent of one such child I fully understand what life is like under those circumstances.  I want to offer a few financial planning tips to those of you who are in…
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