We are happy to have Alan Moore, Financial Analyst with the Kahler Financial Group guest blog for us today.

According to a recent study, 45% of Americans didn’t pay any federal income tax last year. Many of those Americans not paying any income tax actually received money from the government through refundable income tax credits.

I was shocked at the number of Americans not paying tax largely because I sent Uncle Sam a check for $1,463, even though my wife and I were students last year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average household in 2009 (2010 numbers aren’t available yet) earned $43,460. In 2010, my wife and I were graduate students earning $1,000 each per month, plus some money for additional summer work, totaling $35,664. We made less than the average household, and yet did not qualify to be in the 45% group that didn’t pay federal income taxes. Continue Reading »

According to Warren Buffet, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”

It might be more accurate to say, “Value is what you believe you get.” Price can be a fixed amount, but value is a matter of perception.

In the middle of a stock market crash, then, does the value of financial advice go up or down?

An April 3 article by Andrew Osterland in Investment News discussed a recent survey of financial adviser’s fees. Researchers found that in the middle of the stock market crash, 33% of advisers surveyed actually raised their fees.

The article didn’t explain the rationale for advisers who increased fees while client’s investment accounts were falling. Yet, whatever their reasons, the advisers who raised their fees opened 25% more new accounts than the advisers who lowered their fees.

It seems counterintuitive that raising your fees in the middle of a financial crisis would bring in clients rather than discourage them. The increased business that came with higher fees may have to do with clients’ perception of value.

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We’re pleased to feature a guest post from Tom Simmons, a partner with the Rapid City law firm of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore, LLP.

A Caregiver Agreement is a formal written contract, usually between family members, to provide housekeeping, meal preparation, medical supervision, bill paying, transportation and other services for a fee.  Typically, for example, an adult daughter may enter into an agreement that specifies what care she will provide for her aging mother.  In most circumstances, family members may provide varying degrees of care and assistance to their parents without a formal agreement.

So when would a formal written agreement be necessary or advisable? Continue Reading »

Spammers who try to get your financial information by sending fake emails pretending to be from banks. Fund-raisers from fake charities. Hit-and-run roofers, landscapers, or driveway resurfacers who do poor work with inferior materials and then leave town. Salespeople who promise their schemes will make you rich. And, of course, all those people from Nigeria who need your bank account number so they can share a million dollars with you.

These are all financial predators. Just like predators in the wild, they stalk the vulnerable and unwary.

We tend to think of scammers and con artists taking advantage of the poor, the elderly, and the uneducated. To some extent, this is certainly true. But while financial predators might be unscrupulous and evil, they aren’t stupid. In order to make money from their schemes, they need to target people with enough money to be worth preying on.

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Since North Dakota is in North America, then South Dakota ought to be in South America. At least that seemed logical to one of my friends, back in kindergarten when she was just beginning to learn there was such a thing as geography.

Maybe she wasn’t the only one to use that logic. When I travel, I’ve become accustomed to being the only person from “Sout de Cota.” From comments I hear, a lot of people seem to regard it as a third world country.

I’m a second generation South Dakotan, born and raised in Rapid City. While growing up I heard over and over from friends, teachers, and the local press that to make anything of my life I would someday need to go elsewhere. “To get a good education, to earn a good living, to ascend to the top of your field, you’ll have to leave,” they said.

This assumption, I now realize, was a money script: “You can’t make a good living in a small, rural state.”

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I’ve known Bari Tessler Linden for a number of years.  She is one of the early pioneers in financial therapy and  the creator of the Conscious Bookkeeping.  I had Bari come up to Rapid City several years ago to present to KFG clients.  She has recently created a new Home Study Program that I am excited about.  She will host  a free 90 minute teleclass on April 19^th, at 6:00pm MT.

The teleclass will provide a gentle walk through of:

• How to build your financial house on a foundation of clarity, intimacy, and ease
• Find out which money tools can help you end your unconsciousness around money
• How to do self-guided Financial Therapy to transform your relationship to money
• 3 ways to turn boring bookkeeping into an enlivening spiritual practice
• Secrets to making finances fun (hint: your values will guide your spending)
• How to get clear on the big vision for your life and how to align your finances to make it happen
• How a healthy relationship with money can make the other areas of your life glow

I highly recommend Bari to anyone who is wanting to get more our of their money.   To sign up, click here.

Do you believe most investors lost half the value of their portfolios in the market crash of 2008/2009? If you know better, you’re ahead of much of the financial press.

Recently, I read a Wall Street Journal story about three couples nearing retirement. All of them had lost 50% of their retirement portfolio in the crash and were facing extraordinary challenges.

What upset me was the way their 50% losses were presented as a matter of fact, leaving readers to believe all or most investors lost 50% of their portfolios. The reporter either left out, or worse, didn’t know, that the majority of people who lost 50% of their portfolios in the crash were those who sold during the first quarter of 2009.

Let’s set the record straight. According to the March issue of Financial Planning, if you owned a diversified portfolio of US and international stocks, bonds, and real estate investment trusts, today you have three percent MORE money in your portfolio than you had near the market top in September 2007.

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