Category

financial planning

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 and newer plan designs. I like having permanent coverage with high...

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 believe to be successful. The financial planning process helps...

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 makes a lot sense, but it’s hard to translate into action due...

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 you put together a nice mid year review. Income and taxes. If your...

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 license. Just prior to going off to college. After graduation...

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 must not realize Social Security benefits are approximately 75%...

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 all learned traits. Accomplishing these things effectively...

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 has grown and changed tremendously over her college years from a shy...

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In most of my recent client meetings I am being reminded that retirement is an outdated term.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. However; finding the right word is not the real issue rather...

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 dad had built and peek over the edge to the water just below. I had...

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 Financial Fitness puzzle. Media bias and aggressive sales tactics...

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 accounts and trusts squared away; there is always something...

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 condition, the vacation budget can be one of the largest cash...

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 absorb while taking me to the maximum effort my heart and lungs could...

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 down Main Street.” My friend became a fast food cook. Before long...

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. Life hits us from all directions so it is hard to be consistently...

Feel the Burn

Ten minutes into my spin class last night, clipped in with beads of sweat forming along my forearms, Dianna our instructor said exactly what I was anticipating: “add significant resistance and feel the burn”. I turned the evil red knob below me...

Never Worry About Money

  Many years ago I wrote “Never Worry about Money” along with some other personal goals on a small laminated card that I carried around in my wallet. That was, and remains today the primary focus with regard to my own personal finances. For me,...

Situational Awareness

  Over twenty years ago, I remember standing on the bridge wing of the USS John Rodgers, a US Navy Destroyer. As Officer of the Deck, I was in charge. We were cruising at 15 knots, receiving fuel and supplies from a tanker alongside just 150...

Giving Gone Wild

I love Christmas. I love all of the Christmas music, getting together with friends and family, and of course giving and receiving Christmas gifts. However; the gifting tradition intrigues me as a financial planner and father to four kids.  There...

Pumpkins and Planning

It is pumpkin carving time at The Schulz house. My youngest daughter is old enough to carve on her own and the other night we prepared for the annual ritual with craft paper on the kitchen table and all of our carving tools at the ready. G has a...

6 Easy Mid-year Steps to a Better 401(k)

As a plan sponsor, many of the important administrative tasks associated with your plan’s operation happen behind the scenes with your vendors. Because of this, sometimes it’s easy to be lulled into complacency. If left unchecked the Plan can...

Values: A Key Ingredient for Success

I recently read about Vince Young’s Bankruptcy Filing “From 25.7 million guaranteed to Chapter 11”. Like most people, it amazes me every time I see something like this. At the other end of the spectrum, I am fortunate to have a good number of...