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“Make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened and keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.”  This is what you hear as you get on an amusement park roller coaster. Maybe your stock broker or financial advisor should also say this when you begin to invest in the stock market. In the spirit of full disclosure, should we formally address the stock market by its thrill ride name? There is Disney’s The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror , Kings Island’s The Beast , Six Flags Great Adventure’s Kingda Ka , the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has Insanity , and the king of amusement park roller-coasters, Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio has Disaster Transport , Iron Dragon , Maverick , Mean Streak , Millennium Force , Raptor , Top Thrill Dragster and Wicked Twister . Any one of these names fit the gyrations, the ups and downs of the stock market. Even with your seat belt securely fastened, it is a good time to reassess your risk tolerance and which investment optio...

This was the year long debate in our household. In 2010, the federal government dropped the income limit for moving savings from a traditional to a Roth IRA. Additionally, you had a one-time option to pay taxes on the current value of the converted funds over a two-year period. The converted asset then grows tax-free. To get this tax break off any future earnings of the converted funds, you have to pay income tax on the value of the funds moved. From Kelly Greene's Wall Street Journal article on 9.30.2011 , "The federal government allows the tax-law equivalent of a do-over, says Maria Bruno, an investment analyst at fund giant Vanguard Group, whose customers converted more than 230,000 traditional IRAs to Roths last year, and which has processed 3,900 do-overs this year, as of Monday." We are one of the 3,900 who converted back. This was a highly contested move in our household. Bob is sure with the current level of the national debt, that by the time we withdraw the reti...

In my Senior Seminar class at Mount Mercy University we are reading "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Chapter 2 is on Level 5 Leadership. As I read this chapter, I couldn’t help but to think how each one of us can be a leader in personal finance and how we can take some of the principles from Jim Collins and apply them to our daily lives. Collins describes a Level 5 Leader as someone who “builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.” We all want our families to be successful and I want my kids to be more successful than me (building enduring greatness). A central theme of this chapter is setting up the company for future success and not worrying about individual success. Our last blog entry was on how much money it will take to retire so I naturally put the two together. I want my kids to be able to retire and live successful lives, so I want to set them up for future success. The questions are how do I do that and am I doing...

“ New Bank Rules Sink Stocks”, “Turn at the Capitol Rocks the Market”, “Stocks Set to Bounce” -The stock market and individual stocks are susceptible to headliners, rumors and speculation. Daily monitoring of the ups and downs can be disheartening or exhilarating. Remind yourself that stock market fluctuations are relatively short-run and investment in stocks should be for the long haul. Historically, prices recover over time. If volatile stock investments are too stressful for you, consider growing your investment portfolio through low-cost index funds (i.e. check out Vanguard 500 Index at Vanguard.com ). Index funds reduce the effects of individual stock fluctuation by diversifying your portfolio and have performed comparably well. In order for your savings to outpace inflation; you will need to take on a certain amount of risk with your investments. Low-cost index funds are an option for the road-weary.