Rick Kahler's Financial Awakenings

By this time next week I fully expect we will have a new health care bill.  With the full court press from the President and the Congressional leadership being put on wavering representatives to pass this legislation by using any means available, I fully expect they will get the last four votes they need. 

It will take weeks, maybe months, for experts to read the 3,000-page bill and make sense of the consequences. As they do and I get bits of information about how this bill will reshape the lives of Americans, I will  inform you of items you need to pay attention to that will affect your financial planning.   Continue Reading »

The past few months I’ve pondered the effect of the most recent financial and political events and how they will impact a person’s portfolio for the next decade.  The question I’ve attempted to answer in light of the soaring sovereign debt and global instability is, “What does a portfolio need to look like going forward to produce sufficient returns?” This is a piece of financial advice that I think is both timely and useful. Continue Reading »

One of my “broken record” themes over the years has been the importance of requiring financial advisors to have a legal responsibility to act as a fiduciary. This simply means the advisor is required to put your best interest first.

Like attorneys and accountants, financial planners who register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Registered Investment Advisors (RIA) have such a fiduciary responsibility to their clients. However, not every “advisor” or “financial planner” is registered with the SEC and required to act as a fiduciary. Continue Reading »

My warts are showing.  I recently did an interview with Lisa Shidler, InvestmentNews, about my biggest professional mistake.  I hesitated before I did the interview wondering, “Do I really want to share my shortcomings with the whole world?”  I then remember I had already shared many more of my financial shortcomings in Conscious Finance, so I took the plunge.

You can read the full article here.

Sound investment advice in a downturn is crucial, so I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at what I was posting at this time one year ago today, which turned out to be the day both the S&P 500 and the Dow stock market indexes bottomed.  Of course, no one had any way of knowing that then! On March 10th I posted a link to an article in Kiplinger, “Time to Say Goodbye to the Bear?”  In hindsight, indeed it was.

On March 12th I hosted a “Town Hall Meeting” in our offices which was also available to clients by phone and on the web.  In that webinar, I urged clients to hold the course and gave a plethora of statistics about past market crashes and the ensuing rebounds. Continue Reading »

How bored can you get waiting for your flight at an airport? Bored enough to think it’s a good idea to let someone stick a needle in your arm.

No, I didn’t get a tattoo, just a flu shot. The inoculation business was a little slow right then, so I had time for a conversation with the young man giving the shots. When he found out I was a financial planner he said, “I am just graduating with my nursing degree. What do I need to do to take care of myself financially?”

I didn’t shut up for 15 minutes, and he took down every point.

Here is some of what I told him, plus a few things I thought of after I had to leave to board my flight:

Continue Reading »

One of the major functions of life insurance might be more accurately described as “income insurance.” It provides funds that replace the earning power of the deceased.

Parents with young children and not a lot of financial resources probably have the greatest need for life insurance. It is just as important for a stay-at-home parent as it is for a wage earner. My rule of thumb if you have children is that you should have a minimum of $500,000 to $1,000,000 of life insurance. Continue Reading »

I just returned from attending and presenting at the Technology Tools for Today conference in San Diego.  The conference is one of the best in the profession for helping advisors like me keep abreast of the dynamic world of technology.

One of the best features of the conference is the ability to talk directly to the decision makers of software companies I rely on.  This makes it easy to give them suggestions on software improvements and bounce between two of them to resolve interface issues.

I won’t bore you with a complete write-up of the conference, but Russell Dunkin has a great one on his blog if you want to check it out.

Financial consultant Rick Kahler says there are still many good reasons to stay away from credit cards.

Kahler says, “I’m a great advocate of not using credit cards, especially for anything consumer related. The best use of a credit card is to pay if off every month. And I recommend to people, when you hit that first month when you can’t pay it off, you cut up the card.”

Card companies now have to give 45 days notice before raising interest rates, but they can close your account or lower your credit limit at any time and for any reason without telling you.

Watch Rick’s complete interview with KEVN Black Hills FOX here.

“It isn’t how much money you make that matters; it’s how much you get to keep.”

Recent years have shown most investors that an unfavorable stock market or global financial crisis can threaten their nest eggs. A potentially greater threat, however, is less obvious. Stock-market losses won’t ever wipe out a diversified portfolio. A lawsuit could. Continue Reading »