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Schulz Wealth Blog

5 Questions to Consider Before Current Market Conditions

5 Questions to Consider Before Current Market Conditions

As an investment adviser, people ask me all the time “how’s the market doing”, and I always try to answer politely. Believe it or not, I never watch CNBC and unless I’m trading tha...

Long Term Care Dilemma: 7 Mitigation Steps

Long Term Care Dilemma: 7 Mitigation Steps

One of the first things I realized when I started in this business was the need for long-term care insurance. It was clear then, and is still true today, that living longer increas...

Life Insurance Agents: Where Did They Go?

Life Insurance Agents: Where Did They Go?

Life insurance agents created the financial planning community, and sadly their own was damaged in the process. Can recent regulation spur a rebirth? Needs-based selling, where an ...

Advisors: It’s Time to Drop your Series 7

Advisors: It’s Time to Drop your Series 7

You’ve still got time. Think of the DOL’s new fiduciary rules as a shot across the bow. Heed the warning, change course, and discover how rewarding this business can be without the...

New DOL Regs: Business as Usual?

New DOL Regs: Business as Usual?

It’s inevitable, from working over twenty years in an industry like mine, you tend to get a little cynical. The ink is hardly dry on the new “fiduciary” standard promulgated by the...

5 Reasons to Fire your Financial Advisor

5 Reasons to Fire your Financial Advisor

updated April 25, 2018 If your advisor is not on the same page with you, it makes it harder to weather downturns. There are five very basic service points your advisor should be hi...

Reality Check: What is Stock and Why Own it?

Reality Check: What is Stock and Why Own it?

With billions of dollars exchanging hands each day, continual fluctuations in prices, and constant media chatter about the “market”, it’s easy to lose sight of what we are actually...

Bear Market Planning: The Steps You Should Take

Bear Market Planning: The Steps You Should Take

We headed into our first semi-annual client reviews of the year last week with a certain level of apprehension. A big drop in the market right out of the gate wore heavily on my mi...

Step 1: Benchmark your Retirement Plan to Avoid Litigation

Step 1: Benchmark your Retirement Plan to Avoid Litigation

For many years now, the Department of Labor has been steadily attacking business as usual in the retirement plan selling business. Based upon the Pension Protection Act of 2006, fi...

Tornado Drill lends a Fresh Perspective

Tornado Drill lends a Fresh Perspective

Last Tuesday, we pretended like a tornado hit the office. All day we worked from home, testing our communications and computer systems to make sure we would be able to do our jobs ...

Good Steps for Planning your Christmas List

Good Steps for Planning your Christmas List

Without a plan it’s easy for things to get out of hand. Here are some steps you can take to make sure all of your gifts get handled reasonably and efficiently. Make a list: Write o...

Security Measures - Your Investment Adviser and You

Security Measures - Your Investment Adviser and You

Like all Registered Investment Adviser Firms, we maintain cyber security policies and procedures to protect sensitive client data from theft and fraud. Many of the measures we take...

Cashiering and Money Movement Basics for Advisory Clients

Cashiering and Money Movement Basics for Advisory Clients

As you invest and save more, the movement of money between accounts becomes a larger part of your financial life. Here is some good information on the process, safety protocols, an...

No-load Life Insurance is a Game Changer

No-load Life Insurance is a Game Changer

With four kids to raise, I have always maintained a good amount of life insurance coverage. Over the years, I have made changes from time to time to take advantage of lower costs a...

Finding Your Own Definition of Financial Success

Finding Your Own Definition of Financial Success

We have all formulated strong ideas of what success looks like since childhood. In many ways, personal financial success gets defined FOR us by the outward appearances of those we ...

Moments of Truth and Texas High School Football

Moments of Truth and Texas High School Football

The hot August sun was starting to make itself known as morning advanced. There were just a few plays to go until the first Freshman inter-squad scrimmage of the season would be ov...

Practical Investing with a Blood in the Streets Mentality

Practical Investing with a Blood in the Streets Mentality

“Buy when there’s blood in the streets” – Baron Rothschild During the Panic of 1871 in Paris, when everyone was selling, Baron Rothschild (according to the story) was buying. This ...

Sea Stories on Leadership: Part II

Sea Stories on Leadership: Part II

On the Fo’c’sle of the USS John Rodgers in the warm sun of Valparaiso, Chile we watched as command passed from one captain to another. We knew little and had learned less about our...

Sea Stories on Leadership: Part I

Sea Stories on Leadership: Part I

This is a two part series about two Captains I served under consecutively aboard the USS John Rodgers, a Spruance Class destroyer, shortly after the Persian Gulf War. The first cam...

Mid Year Financial Checkup

Mid Year Financial Checkup

It’s hard to believe the year is halfway over. Now is a good time to review and determine what steps need to be taken to finish out the second half. Here are five topics to help yo...

Greek Economic Crisis is a Democracy Crisis Too

Greek Economic Crisis is a Democracy Crisis Too

World markets shuddered today as the Prime Minister of Greece acted in a very unpredictable manner. Prime Minister Tsipras called for a vote by the Greek people on whether or not t...

Variable Annuities can be Costly

Variable Annuities can be Costly

Back in the 90’s I sold a lot of variable annuities. I worked for a large financial services company that strongly encouraged the use of variable annuities and there were some adva...

Financial Meetings with your Kids

Financial Meetings with your Kids

The last several weeks we have been busy meeting with our client’s children. We recommend what we call “kid meetings” at a few critical stages: Just prior to getting their driver’s...

Thoughts on Social Security Benefits

Thoughts on Social Security Benefits

More than half of retiring Americans today opt to take Social Security before their Normal Retirement Age, and less than three percent of filers wait until age 70. Many retirees mu...

Financial Maturity

Financial Maturity

Real personal financial success cannot be accomplished until we have achieved a certain level of financial maturity. I believe proper spending, saving, investing, and planning are ...