While I love statistics, not many people do.  However, if Dr. Hans Rosling was your stats teacher, I bet you would find a whole new love affair with them.  He says, “Having the data isn’t enough, I have to show it in ways people both enjoy and understand.” 

Here is a video put out by the BBC where Hans takes you on a 4 minute cruise of the growth of global prosperity, or lack there of, of 200 countries over 200 years.  Happy New Year to each of you and enjoy this video!

The nice thing about this time of year is that I get a chance to spend more time than usual doing a complete review and evaluation of all our investment managers. I spent most of Wednesday combing through hundreds of managers on our “short lists,” evaluating and comparing them with the managers on our “very, very, short list.”  

Since we are a “fee-only” investment manager, we have no bias in our manager selection as we earn no commissions.  This allows us to be brutal in our investment selection.

After putting every manager in every asset class we use under the microscope, I am pleased to report that I felt no compulsion to make any changes.  Our managers continue to be the “cream of the crop” in their asset classes, delivering the best risk-adjusted performance of their peer group.  I also see no need to alter our model asset allocations at this time.

Indeed, despite of all the economic uncertainty, 2010 was a good year.  Most diversified investment portfolios had upper single-digit returns with some even earning double digits. 

Whatever the future will hold, an investor with a diversified portfolio can breathe easier knowing that, similar to the game of baseball, while they will never hit a home run they won’t strike out, either.

I was very surprised and pleased to learn that an article I wrote for Financial Planning Magazine was chosen by the magazine as the #2 of their top 10 stories of 2010.   The article, Healthcare on the Critical List, appeared in their April edition.  It served as the cornerstone to my latest co-authored book, The Conscious Finance Guide To Health Care Reform and Your Financial Health.  To view a slideshow of all of their top ten articles for 2010, click here.

I recently discovered a new money script I didn’t realize I had: “Overall, owning stuff is better than renting stuff.”

Like all money scripts, this is only partially true. Yet it’s a belief that many of us have. It’s almost as if Americans are hard-wired to prefer to own things. Maybe that’s why so many of us are overrun with excess stuff. Some of this is due to our buying binge of the past 20 years when credit was easy and the economy was roaring. Those days have come to an end for many families. Especially in today’s economy, there are many instances where renting things is the best financial decision. You never know until you do the math.

Let me give you an example. A few years ago my wife and I wanted to stain our deck. When we obtained a few bids to do the project we determined that most of the cost was in the labor, not the materials. We calculated the hours it would take us and the cost of the materials and decided to do the project ourselves. The one piece of equipment we needed was a power washer. We could have rented one, but that would have meant doing all the heavy work of stripping our large deck in one day. Instead, we bought one for around $150.

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All of us at Kahler Financial Group want to wish each and every one of you a rich and full Holiday season.  So we may enjoy this time with our friends and family, too, we’ve posted our Holiday closing schedule below.

• Closed Christmas Eve Day
• Closed Christmas Day
• Closed New Years Day

Families who eat more than four meals together weekly have children who perform better academically, are more responsible, have a lower rate of alcohol and drug abuse, and have healthier eating habits as adults. The research also finds these families are generally healthier and have stronger ties, deeper relationships, and better communication than families who don’t dine together often. 

Maybe enjoying Christmas dinner with your family should happen daily, rather than once a year?  You can read more in the column I wrote for Quizzlewire by clicking here.

Not every homeowner should pay down their mortgage early. In a story in the January edition of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, Seth Feigerman quoted Rick as saying ”Anyone under 40 should be funding a retirement plan, and anyone over 50 should be concentrating on paying off the house.”  However, if you’re close to retirement and paying off the mortgage would mean raiding too much of your savings, it may not be a good idea.

For more great tips on paying off or refinancing your mortgage, read the entire story here.

During this season of shopping, gift-giving, and family celebrations, it’s all too easy to lose control of our money decisions. Our money scripts, or unconscious beliefs about money, can push us into overspending, make us fearful and resentful about giving, or generate all kinds of money stress.

Given the scope of his giving, just imagine the money scripts that must drive Santa Claus. Here are a few of them; you might consider whether any could apply to you.

“I have to give the perfect gift to every person on my list. It can’t be just some small thing that says I care.” Many of us equate “something special” with “expensive.” Yet a practical or wanted inexpensive gift may be more appreciated.

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Stockbrokers at UBS now have it in black-and-white, no garlic soup for lunch.  UBS rolled out a new dress code that contains some good advice, and some advice that would seem to be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

In are grey, blue and black suits on men and light makeup and knee length dresses on women, and time pieces for both.

Out are “showy accessories and trendy spectacles,” dyed hair on males, and strong fragrances. That also includes ”garlic and cigarette breath, the code says. The solution: “Avoid garlic and onion-based dishes.”

Perhaps I need to take a page from UBS and rewrite my companies dress code.  What scares me is that having a written dress code is probably a new SEC mandate I missed.  You can read more here.