It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone. For a lot of us, open enrollment season is just wrapping up for most benefits. We know that you have been bombarded with lots of information and decisions that need to be made. As the end of the year approaches, we want to give you a few housekeeping items for your financial life. Give yourself a raise – In some cases at the end of the year, there are bonuses given and sometimes there are pay raises. This is a great time to think about yourself, to be more exact, your future self. The reason this is a great time to do that, is that you haven’t seen the money yet, so it is a great way to save a little extra for your future-self, and
Volatility or big moves in the stock and bond market have been occurring regularly over the past few months. We don’t seem to mind the big moves when they are pointed in a positive direction – it’s the big moves with a negative sign in front of the number that causes us consternation. Given the big moves in the financial markets and that they have often been of the negative variety lately, it is useful to step back a bit and look at volatility or risk associated with returns for a few different types of investments. To frame this discussion, we are going to look at the average rate of return for three different types of investments: Stocks – using the S&P 500 Index, Intermediate Bonds – u
