Secure Act 2.0: What You Need to Know
The Secure Act 2.0 was signed into law on December 29th, 2022. SECURE stands for “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement”. While the bill itself is not easy reading, it is important to understand the direct ways in which the legislation affects TWG clients. Below are a few provisions from the bill that impact […]
Part 7: Education Planning
There are a lot of ways to pay for college, and not all of them are good. Student loans are following college grads around for years after graduation, delaying wealth-building and the ability to achieve financial independence. As of August 2021, 43.2 million student borrowers were in debt by an average of $39,351 each (educationdata.org). […]
7 Ways to Teach Your Children About Money
My wife Krista told me a great story from her trip to Costco yesterday with our two sons, Ford (age 3 ½ ) and Teddy (age 2). Krista bought yogurt for each of the boys. Our younger son Teddy quickly finished his yogurt and immediately began to cry for more. Ford responded by feeding his […]
Purdue University’s Success Story
When Mitch Daniels (former Indiana Governor) took over as President of Purdue University in 2013, the school had increased tuition 36 years in a row. Since then, Purdue has not raised tuition once. By graduation day in 2020, Purdue will be able to boast the total cost of “going to Purdue will be less in […]
Paying Your Children for College Credits
If you’re planning to contribute to your children’s future earning potential (i.e. by paying for college), you are committing to a big expense. But you already know that. Here’s a good gut-check question to kick off this discussion: how much research time did you put into your last purchase of an iPhone, a computer, or […]
On Having a Financial Safety School
Is your child or grandchild familiar with the concept of a “Financial Safety School”? High school students know well the concept of a “safety school”: a college that is almost certainly going to accept them. There are also “reach” colleges where acceptance is far from guaranteed, and “target” colleges where acceptance is likely but not […]
College
A few charts, presented without comment (click charts to enlarge them):
My Always-and-Forever, Never-Changing, Very Best Encouragement for College Students
When entering the “real world”, at least from a financial perspective, you will hear a lot of noise about the best way to handle your new responsibilities. You might hear things like: Listen to me… BE WISE TO THE LIES! Take a different viewpoint and attack that debt with ferocity. Get rid of it and flee from it […]
3 Ways to Teach Your Kids About Money
Here are three quick ways to help teach your children the value of money: 1. Working hard equals earning money. One potential problem is that children never grasp the concept that you have to earn money, and instead just rely on others to provide it to them. Set tasks for young children to do which […]
The College Conversation: Part 2
Somewhere along the way college became a taboo topic in most households. I’m not talking about the idea of attending college; rather I’m talking about the costs involved, whose responsibility it will be to pay for it, and the coordinating plan to go along with those intentions. College planning is an on-going active conversation we need to […]
