Do bad money habits constrain your financial progress? Many people fall into the same financial behavior patterns year after year. If you sometimes succumb to these financial tendencies, the New Year is as good an occasion as any to alter your behavior. #1: Lending money to family & friends. You may know someone who has…

CRUNCH TIME IN WASHINGTON After a bipartisan meeting failed to produce a deal to avert the fiscal cliff, President Obama had a terse message for Congress Friday evening: if the Senate couldn’t come up with a new proposal during the weekend, he would urge its leaders to arrange a simple up-or-down vote on a small-scale…

This is the year! Yes, you can make 2013 the year you alter your financial life for a better financial future. Let’s look at some steps you might think of taking with the goal of financial freedom in mind. No, we’re not talking about those ridiculously obvious steps the usual articles recommend, like “write your…

64% of Americans have no financial strategy at all. That’s right – no plan whatsoever to build wealth or keep it. That finding comes from the 2009 National Consumer Survey on Personal Finance conducted by the Certified Financial Planner Board (CFP®Board) of Standards, Inc. (The survey collected data from 1,700+ U.S. residents.) Only 17% of…

Any investor would do well to call on three friends during the course of his or her financial life: diversification, patience and consistency. Regardless of how the markets perform, they should be a part of your investment philosophy. Diversification. The saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” has real value when it comes…

What is enough? What is not enough? If you’re considering retiring in the near future, you’ve probably heard or read that you need about 70% of your end salary to live comfortably in retirement. This estimate is frequently repeated … but that doesn’t mean it is true for everyone. It may not be true for…

Robert Pagliarini, an expert in wealth management, inheritance planning, financial planning, and sudden wealth™, writes a financial column for CBS News MoneyWatch that is also syndicated in newspapers across the country. The following is a column Robert wrote for CBS: Alcohol, crack and heroin are known to be highly addictive, but can something as innocuous…

Shouldn’t you delay IRA distributions for as long as you can? According to conventional retirement planning wisdom, you should structure your retirement withdrawals so that money comes out of your taxable accounts first, then your tax-deferred accounts, and then finally your tax-free accounts. Roughly speaking, that means withdrawing income from investment funds, CDs, money market…

Robert Pagliarini, an expert in wealth management, inheritance planning, financial planning, and sudden wealth™, writes a financial column for CBS News MoneyWatch that is also syndicated in newspapers across the country. The following is a column Robert wrote for CBS: Last week I wrote a popular column titled 10 Free Christmas Gifts That Won’t Cost You…

As you retire, there are variables you can’t control; investment performance and fate are certainly toward the top of the list. Your approach to withdrawing and preserving your retirement savings, however, may give you more control over your financial life. Drawing retirement income without draining your savings is a challenge, and the response to it…