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Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there!!  June is the special month that we honor our Dads who were there for us all our lives.  I am fortunate to have a great father, father-in-law and husband that are great dads to their children. Every Father’s Day we celebrate with a big cookout that has to have steak or ribs in it. The men in my life love meat! This brings me to your asset portfolio. The meat of many of our portfolios is our house. Big or small this is where our stability lies as we pay it off. For many of us, it can become one of our biggest assets. 

The plan to pay off your house early can be one of the best ways to work towards having a good retirement. In some cases, just paying an extra $100/month on principal has the potential to reduce the amount of years by half. It is good to go online and use a mortgage calculator to figure out how soon you can pay off your mortgage. When a house is paid off and the home-related expenses you have consist of property taxes and upkeep, it can make it much easier to retire.

Happy Father’s Day! Remember on Father’s Day as you are taking a big bite of the meat right off the grill that the meat of your portfolio is the house you are paying for every month and that may be one of your best assets. Enjoy!

Saving money is as easy as drinking water…This is the most important thing you can do for yourself. I want you to think of saving money like drinking water. For optimum health you should drink eight glasses of water each day. Likewise, for optimum financial health you should be saving money all the time.

Water!  Water!  Water! ….. Save!  Save!  Save!

I just sent my oldest son off to college in the big city. He came home this weekend with a hand full of bank receipts and an overdrawn bank account. I had a teaching moment with him to help him add. He has a job, but spent everything that he had and didn’t know where it went.  I went through budgeting to teach him the importance of adding right and not forgetting something you spend. His one hundred in purchases cost him two hundred. We talked about the importance of saving some each pay period to build up his savings. Now we can only hope he does it.

Lori Geiss, Financial Advisor and Financial Chef
lgeiss@wsfg.com

Disclosure:  This material has been reviewed according to applicable securities regulations, and is not for use in foreign jurisdictions. Health and other non-variable insurance products are not offered through Wall Street Financial Group Inc. Only securities and advisory services offered through Wall Street Financial Group, Inc., Registered Investment Advisor. Member FINRA/SIPC. Wall Street Financial Group, Inc. and The Affluent Investor Source are separate entities, They are independently owned and operated.

Spring is here, the clocks have moved forward and we are looking forward to summer. 

This is a good time to evaluate your portfolio. The market is at the highest point since 2007.  I believe it has to have a pull back in order to get the valuations back in line. This is a time to sell off what has done well for you and keep the profits.

One expense that I feel is important and I call my bread and butter is insurance. Every good plan starts with the insurance that is necessary to guarantee your plan will be there, even if you can’t. Insurance is the bread and butter in your financial recipe. As children, we start out with mushy white bread. Life insurance is the mushy white bread.

I just started my 25th year as an independent financial advisor and now an owner and executive chef of the San Fran Grille, located in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin. In helping clients put together their financial plan and cooking full course meals, I have found many similarities. In fact, if you follow the same process, you can have a successful meal and financial plan.

As an investor, 2012 ended with a great deal of uncertainty. The country awaited the solution to the fiscal cliff. The questions at the end of the New Year were would the tax increases happen and how would they affect the market? As the days ticked to the start of 2013 we saw the government with no solutions. Taxes did increase and the law maker’s solution was to move the date until March. Our retail sales numbers over Christmas did not increase and corporate profits are still under pressure.