Year: 2011

  Mortgage interest rates continue to hang around historical lows with a thirty-year loan under 5% and a 15-year loan under 4%. In addition to low mortgage rates, you receive a deduction for your interest payments from the federal government and, in many cases, the state as well. For example, if you have a 4.5% interest rate […]

  A restaurateur friend of mine recently opened a new restaurant in North Shelby County. When I asked him how it was going he was very excited and especially pleased with the friendliness of the customers that frequent his restaurant. His biggest problem? “Stewart, it is nearly impossible to find people who are willing to work,” he told […]

  I was recently visiting with a client who’s heading for a European dream vacation in a couple of weeks. It got me thinking about how to make certain the dream doesn’t turn into a nightmare. Here are my top 10 tips for a great trip overseas: Leave your itinerary and copies of your passport with a […]

  April is kick-off month for the wedding season…a time when many young folks commit to each other ‘until death do us part’. Well, about half of the time, it’s not death that does the parting, but rather divorce. Why is it that so many marriages fail and is there anything that young couples can do to […]

  Recently, Lawrence, a reader from Canada, asked about the advisability of borrowing money to buy an electric car. Lawrence read one of my books where I explain the debt rule: Don’t borrow money to buy a depreciating asset. However he reasoned that the thousands that he would save on gasoline would make it worthwhile. This got me […]

  The good news is that, because of limited resources, the Internal Revenue Service audits only about 1% of the tax returns filed each year. The bad news is that they use a very sophisticated computer system to ‘red flag’ returns that have the best odds of containing errors. Here is a list of the top targets […]

Research that was spearheaded by the Federal Reserve suggests that those pre-retirees, ages 60-62 are significantly unprepared for retirement. Here are some of the basic facts: The median income for couples in this group is $87,700 with a median 401-k account of $149,400. If we assume a retirement income need of 85% of pre-retirement income, […]

Last week I began a discussion of the new estate tax law and how some of the provisions my affect you. • Make Gifts During Your Lifetime. Last week I discussed that at death, you can leave up to $5 million in trust or outright to heirs free of estate taxes. You don’t have to […]

It’s hard to imagine that Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso have anything in common but it turns out that they do…each of them died without having a properly executed last will and testament. One was an attorney and president of the United States, one was a musician whose estate has produced over $200 […]

Years ago a group of tobacco executives appeared before a congressional hearing, placed their left hand on the Bible, raised their right hand and swore that tobacco products were neither addictive nor harmful to your health. Of course everyone including smokers knew this was a big lie. Unfortunately, many young people still believe that smoking cigarettes is […]