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 ...

Bachelor of Free Swim

Bachelor of Free Swim

The Schulz family will be proudly in attendance at College Park Center in Arlington today for our oldest daughter’s graduation from college. One down…….three to go. Our daughter ha...

For Entertainment Purposes Only

For Entertainment Purposes Only

As a parent, I watch a LOT of volleyball. I sometimes think I know the game and start making suggestions to my oldest daughter who plays competitively in college. She reminds me qu...

5 Tips Towards a Successful Retirement

5 Tips Towards a Successful Retirement

In most of my recent client meetings I am being reminded that retirement is an outdated term. We try to use the term “transition” but that does not fit as a good description either...

We Should Try to be as Intentional and Deliberate as we Can

We Should Try to be as Intentional and Deliberate as we Can

“If you had actually read it, you would have noticed the second signature line”, declared the man across the counter. My immediate response was “it’s not intended to be read, just ...

Catchin' Perch

Catchin' Perch

Nobody has ever accused me of being a great fisherman, but when I was seven or eight I knew how to catch perch by the bucket load. I would lie down flat on the sun-warmed dock my d...

Life Insurance Can Be A Beating

Life Insurance Can Be A Beating

Buying and maintaining life insurance policies is a pain. On the surface, it seems like a pretty simple transaction but it is actually one of the most complex pieces to the Financi...

6 Easy Spring Cleaning Tips for your Monthly Bank Drafts

6 Easy Spring Cleaning Tips for your Monthly Bank Drafts

My how things have changed. Inflation is at an all time low but our household budgets are swollen with monthly obligations that did not exist twenty years ago. It is amazing what w...

Topics to Address to Heirs upon your Death and How

Topics to Address to Heirs upon your Death and How

We spend a lot of time and effort in my practice helping our clients build a solid Estate Plan. After all of the legal documents are complete, beneficiary designations changed, and...

Vacations Do Not Have To Be Fancy Trips

Vacations Do Not Have To Be Fancy Trips

When my clients come in for a visit, more often than not the first thing we talk about is where they have been and what trips they have planned. For those who are in good financial...

Financial Fitness

Financial Fitness

Several years ago I took a test at Lifetime where they put me in a mask on a treadmill and tried to kill me. The trainer measured through my mask how much oxygen I was able to abso...

The Kitchen Perspective

The Kitchen Perspective

I had a friend in high school who went to work for the new McDonald’s that came to town. It was a big deal in Taylor, Texas. My dad liked to joke, “they paraded the Golden Arches d...

Willpower is Way Overrated

Willpower is Way Overrated

When it comes to saving and investing money, many times we are our worst enemy. Successful people learn to rely on good systems and processes to achieve their goals, not willpower....