You can count on your PlanLab® illustrations to provide the proper estate taxes with certainty, even as Congress continues their uncertainty! And when new laws are signed, PlanLab® will be among the first to provide updated illustrations.

Your 401(k) plan is your primary source of retirement savings. In the past year, particularly the past few months, it has dropped in value almost 50%. Everything you read or hear tells you to “sit tight.” Almost every source of financial advice recommends not cashing out, and not replacing your equity assets with fixed income [...]

The economy has gone as sour as a lemon. Investments are severely depressed. Is there anything good about the current Wall Street melt-down? Anne Tergesen thinks there is, as she wrote in an article in the Wall Street Journal:
“Yes, your finances are likely taking a beating this year. Which means it’s the perfect moment to [...]

Creditors may consider an employee to be responsible for the profits that will enable a business to repay loans. If a key employee suddenly died or became disabled, would the business’s creditors hesitate to continue credit? How much cash would be needed to bridge the difficult time following the employee’s loss to reassure creditors? … to read the complete article, click on the article title

First, you always want to take advantage of any employer match—it is free money. For example, if the employer matches $.50 for each dollar you contribute, that’s like earning 50% after taxes for each matched dollar. Regardless of economic conditions, you should always contribute up to the amount that the employer will match.

Advisors who helped their clients establish a retirement investment strategy based on time horizons, have clients who feel more secure this October. The economic crisis of 2008 has many retirees very concerned over what adjustments to make in their retirement plans. The Dow Jones has gone from over 14,000 in October 2007 to under 10,000 at the start of October 2008. Advisors’ phones are ringing with retirees wanting to know, “What do I do?” or “Should we reduce our retirement income?” But, advisors who helped their clients invest using time horizons and retirement phases are telling their clients, “No need to make any changes. Your retirement strategy was built to allow riskier investments to have plenty of time to recover – your plans do not have to be adjusted up and down with market changes.”

The current financial crisis is often described with sound bites such as “Executive Bail Out,” “Wall Street Bail Out,” “Credit Markets Collapse,” or “Failed Economic Problems.” None of these labels or sound bites helps the average person understand what is happening and, more importantly, how it affects them. Granted there are many pieces to this puzzle, but the one that may impact the average person the quickest is the collapse of the credit market.