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Thursday, December 31, 2020

As I get older, I find I am increasingly aware of how quickly time goes by. I wish it would slow down. Having said that, I cannot wait for this year to be over. We all have bad days from time to time. Our favorite sports teams or...

 

Monday, November 30, 2020

In every movie I have ever watched or book I have ever read, I have been the hero. I hid Anne Frank in my attic and valiantly battled the Germans during WWII. I fought for the Union Army. In fact, I enlisted. I have been every...

 

Thursday, November 19, 2020

A good friend of mine once said “The world has been coming to an end since the day after the world began.” I would add that, folks often talk about the fall of Rome, but Rome still stands. 200 years ago, London was the...

 

Sunday, November 1, 2020

What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet. William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet The way our political system works is simple. People vote for the politicians they prefer. If that...

 

Sunday, August 30, 2020

We all know and love that friend who is the life of the party. They are glib, relaxed, and fun. Everyone thinks so. They light up every room they enter and they always seem to have people eating out of the palm of their hand. These...

 

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Wednesday, July 22, 2020

I recently finished a book on engineering titled, Structures, or why things don’t fall down, by J. E. Gordon. It is one of the best books, on any topic, I have ever read. For several years now, I have enjoyed playing a thought...

 

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Everyone who has ever played baseball, softball, golf, tennis or any contact sport, knows the sweet spot. In baseball the sweet spot is the middle of the bat’s barrel. In tennis, it is the middle of the strings. In boxing, it is...

 

Saturday, May 30, 2020

The stock market has been nothing if not durable over the Covid-19 pandemic and its attendant lock-down. From the all-time high reached in mid-February to the recent bottom in mid-March, the S&P 500 stands at 3,000 as of this writing....

 

Thursday, April 30, 2020

I served the City of Bayonne, New Jersey as a Firefighter and more recently as a Fire Captain for over 20 years. I was on shift, just across the Hudson River from New York City, when the planes struck the Twin Towers on 9-11-2001....

 

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

For those who follow my blog, you have probably noticed a number of recurring themes. Spend less, save more is certainly one of them. That effective investing requires both offensive and defensive strategies, simultaneously, is...

 

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Thomas Sowell is an American economist who was born in North Carolina. He grew up in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City. After enlisting in the Marine Corp and serving our country during the Korean War, Sowell enrolled at Harvard...

 

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I am often at odds with virtually everything “they” say. Ah the ubiquitous “they.” I am sure you have heard of “they.” “They”...

 

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

To all our wonderful family and friends, we at Unified Planning Group wish you a happy and healthy holiday season. 2019 is coming to a close. At this time of the year, we often reflect on the year that has passed. Some of you have had...

 

Saturday, November 30, 2019

I watched an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast recently on YouTube. One of the guests, a public intellectual with a popular podcast of his own, spoke of the desire to arrange society to maximize what he referred to as,...

 

Friday, November 1, 2019

Before proceeding, I want to make a statement about what is to come. None of what I am writing here pertains to everyone all the time, though it has all pertained to me at various times in my life. And, indeed, some of it might not...

 

Friday, September 27, 2019

Abraham Lincoln once posed the following question, along with providing an answer to it:“How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg? Four. Counting a tail as a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” Recently,...

 

Monday, August 5, 2019

Late last year the stock market dropped approximately 20 percent. Through the first 7 months of 2019, it has recovered all of that lost ground. In fact, the S&P 500 made a new all-time high this past April, to retreat quickly, only to...

 

Thursday, July 25, 2019

Invert, always invert. Karl Jacobi Mostly, our decision-making process follows a predictable arc. We decide that we would like to achieve some good end, like financial security, effective estate planning, a plan to retain key employees...

 

Monday, June 24, 2019

“There are two types of people in the world, those who want to know and those who want to believe.” Friedrich Nietzsche I love whole life (WL) insurance as an asset. I think of it as a sort of Swiss Army knife of financial...

 

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

I have written about, devoted whole seminars to and discussed privately with clients, friends and family the importance of saving more money. Meanwhile, we have been sold the idea that our return rate is more important than our...

 

Sunday, March 31, 2019

James Bond or 007, the British spy created by author Ian Fleming, was one of favorite characters and is perhaps my all-time favorite movie franchise. One of my earliest childhood memories is seeing The Spy Who Loved me at the Lyceum...

 

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

I love sweets: cookies, cakes, pies, etc. I often struggle with my desire to eat them. I have read that excess sugar can cause unwanted consequences like inflammation, weight gain and even cancer. Worse, the confections that I...

 

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

For the past 20 years I have played tennis recreationally and competitively. I love the sport. Once upon a time though, I was a boxer. To be more specific I was a novice level, amateur boxer with only a handful of official fights. If I...

 

Friday, December 21, 2018

I read recently that "Some of the best days of your life haven’t happened yet" and said to myself; gosh that is an encouraging and optimistic thought. And, I believe that it is true! In fact, I believe, with the proper steps...

 

Friday, November 30, 2018

Random thoughts on the interesting times we live in. - Why do so many folks who are not close to retirement get so hot and bothered when the market drops and their investments lose value? Even if the market dropped 50%, you still have...

 

Monday, October 22, 2018

Here, for your consideration, are three concepts worth considering that might just leave you wealthier and healthier. 1.) Save More – In our society, wastefulness has somehow become the rule instead of the exception. This, I...

 

Friday, September 14, 2018

I recently watched the remake of the movie True Grit, starring Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld and Matt Damon. Bridges plays Rooster Cogburn, a trigger happy, U.S. Marshal (played in the original by John Wayne.) Hailee Steinfeld plays...

 

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

A few decades back, someone driving a fancy car, wearing a fancy watch and decked out in expensive clothes might have been thought of as someone who was financially successful. And they might have been. However, today, it seems to me...

 

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

I wonder how many investors are financial tourists. What do I mean by a financial tourist? Well, that would be someone who has an interest in investing and, consequently, kind of sort of, window shops a bunch of different investments...

 

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

When it comes to investing, I believe in diversification. Sure, when the bulls are running and the stock market is strong, many people seem to believe the answer to all investing questions is buying equities. If only life were that...

 

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Together, let’s think of all the things we have in the world which make our lives better. To simplify this task, let’s organize these things by tiers, from most important to least important. In the first tier I would put...

 

Monday, May 28, 2018

There are all kinds of terms and abbreviations associated with investing.We have: ROI – Return on investment P/E – Price earnings ratio IRR – Internal rate of return Alpha – The return on an investment above...

 

Friday, May 25, 2018

A placebo, as most of you know, is an inert substance that is administered to medical test participants in place of a drug, during the process of evaluating that drug. Traditionally, a placebo is simply a sugar pill. In pharmaceutical...

 

Thursday, May 24, 2018

It’s not our fault that life can be challenging at times. It is our responsibility to rise to life’s challenges. It’s not our fault that we might become sick or injured. It is our responsibility to plan for temporary...

 

Friday, May 4, 2018

Abundant good news exists for people desiring to build wealth. This good news is predicated on a number of things, chief among them, self-control. If we are willing to act logically and not simply on impulse, if we are willing to take...

 

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Imagine I told you that for the majority of Americans an investment plan where they lost three percent every year on their money would benefit them tremendously! Now, you might be wondering about the sanity of a person who thinks that...

 

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

I suspect that most people, perhaps save for children, understand the inherent frailty of life. Maybe, it is because we understand just how fragile life is that we, on some level, work so hard pretending it’s not. Many of us eat...

 

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

If you have an investment portfolio and a significant portion of it is in equities, you probably rejoice when the stock market is running strong and you see the value of your stocks rising. When things are going our way, it is natural...

 

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Dolores O’Riordon, the lead singer for the Cranberries, is dead. She died at 46 years of age. For many of us, who came of age in the 90s, Ms. O’Riordon and the Cranberries provided significant entries on the soundtrack of...

 

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

My friends, we, as a society, are on the wrong path when it comes to personal finance. Before the rise of easy credit, we did something interesting. If we wanted to buy something, we saved our money until we could afford it....

 

Monday, January 8, 2018

I have written about, devoted whole seminars to and discussed privately with clients, friends and family the importance of saving more money. I believe we have been sold the idea that the rate of return on our investments is more...

 

Monday, December 11, 2017

I do not believe that any professional can tell you, with any degree of certainty, what the future holds. There, I said it. Does this mean that when it comes to wealth accumulation and plotting a course for our economic future that we...

 

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

I have four children that, beginning about 10 years from now, will most likely be heading off to college. Owing to this, I've been reading up on college in general. The articles I have looked at discuss things like school rankings,...

 

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

“America is like the people's republic of spring break, everyone is in pursuit of happiness and not fulfilment.” Bobcat Goldthwait Bobcat Goldthwait? You are quoting Bobcat Goldthwait in a piece about wealth building? To...

 

Monday, October 30, 2017

A few moments before you take your last breath, what will run through your mind? Hopefully, it won’t be one of the saddest thoughts imaginable, “I thought there’d be more time.” Before you start thinking in the...

 

Monday, September 18, 2017

Stored Freedom Why save? We all know we should be saving a significant portion of our income, but in recent months there have been media reports claiming that the average American cannot write a check for $500. Clearly, what we know we...

 

Monday, September 18, 2017

The Tricks our Minds Play The ability to help folks implement plans for their family's prosperity is attributable, in part, to spending a lot of time understanding why I do the things I do. That also encompasses giving careful...

 

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

5+5= 10 Certain things in life are obvious to virtually everyone. The difference between day and night, land and sea, mountain and crater, etc., is immediately clear. As people sometimes say, you don’t need to be a genius to tell...

 

Monday, July 31, 2017

One Weird Trick We have all likely read the title of this post, hundreds of times online in click bait advertisements. You know those ads making outrageous promises related to dozens of desirable outcomes. They run the gamut from acne...

 

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Hail Mary Investing Jeff Goldblum, playing the role of Michael, a magazine journalist, in the 1983 movie the Big Chill said, “I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations.”...

 

Monday, July 10, 2017

The American economist and political philosopher Thomas Sowell said, “When you want to help people you tell them the truth, when you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” He was talking about...

 

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Here is something to think about. At times, when it comes to people's finances, the concept of future planning comes up. Future planning, stated another way, is planning for the future - future needs, future events, future desires....

 

Friday, June 16, 2017

Max Planck was a physicist who lived about a hundred years ago. He is considered by many to be one of the most intelligent human beings who has ever lived. He invented what we know today as quantum mechanics. To the best of my...

 

Monday, June 5, 2017

A friend of mine once told me the following story: It seems two people met in a chess club, to, unsurprisingly, play a game of chess. One of the players was a renowned chess master. The other was not well known and had come in off the...

 

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

“To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season turn, turn, turn and a time to every purpose under heaven” You may already recognize the above quote, which is from one of my favorite folk songs, the Birds Turn! Turn!...

 

Friday, May 12, 2017

Have you ever put your keys, or some other small item, into your pocketbook, gym bag, attaché case or carryall only to have them seemingly disappear? You know what I mean. You drop your keys into the bag and, literally seconds...

 

Monday, May 1, 2017

The economist Thomas Sowell says that when considering the value or lack thereof in any policy, plan or premise, you should ask three questions. Compared to what? At what cost? What hard evidence do we have (supporting the premise)? It...

 

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The intelligent want self-control. Children want candy. Rumi. Why do we act surprised when the stock market crashes or a bear market occurs? The stock market does not move in a linear progression upwards. Historically, however, over...

 

Thursday, March 16, 2017

"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty." Socrates Recently, I gave a seminar. The topic I covered was Save More, Spend Less. The reason I chose this topic is simple. It seems to me that investors, as well as folks...

 

Monday, February 13, 2017

Back to the Future "The bad news is time flies. The good news is that you are the pilot." Think about all the people that you love. Think about the way they make you feel and the memories that first appear when their faces form in your...

 

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Bigger is Better vs. Less is More "You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy." Eric Hoffer Frequently, both individually and as a society, we are obsessed with having more. More is often viewed as superior to...

 

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

“While the vessel is safe, whether it be a large or a small one, then is the time for sailor and helmsman and everyone in his turn to show his zeal and to take care that it is not capsized by anyone's malice or inadvertence; but...

 

Friday, January 13, 2017

Investing and Confirmation Bias Consider, if you will, some of these phrases: “Buy low, sell high.” “The trend is your friend.” “Buy straw hats in winter.” “The bulls make money. The bears make...

 

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

This year, the day after Thanksgiving, which most folks know as Black Friday, fell on November 23rd. For many people it has become a day of unrelenting shopping. For me, however, it will be known forever more as a day of reflection and...

 

Friday, November 25, 2016

Visualize, if you would, the following scenario. You are in your early twenties, looking great and feeling great. You have on your best clothes and you are out at a local hotspot with your best friends. You have no idea what it is like...

 

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

I recently read an article in The Opinion Pages of the New York Times titled, Ignoring the Debt Problem. The piece ended with this sentence, “Take some advice from two observers who have been around for a while: The long term...

 

Monday, October 3, 2016

Some time ago, I read a wonderful book chock full of wisdom, called Poor Charlie’s Almanac – The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. The title is a play on Benjamin Franklin’s book, Poor Richard’s Almanac, which...

 

Friday, September 30, 2016

Let’s make this easy. All human endeavors carry some degree of risk. Investing is a human endeavor. Investing carries some degree of risk. Now, certain forms of investing are riskier than others, but I want to be clear, every...

 

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Let’s examine the following fictitious example: There are two people. They both hate the rain. The first person spends a lot of time and energy, daily, trying to predict the weather by reading tea leaves, consulting psychics,...

 

Friday, September 9, 2016

What is financial literacy? To get to its meaning, we can break down that phrase into the two words composing it. Doing that, we get financial and literacy. So first we look at the word financial and we understand we are talking about...

 

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Things to remember: 1) The worth of character; 2) The improvement of talent; 3) The influence of example; 4) The joy of origination; 5) The dignity of simplicity; 6) The success of perseverance. - Marshall Field The other day I was...

 

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The other day I am speaking with a friend of mine. He’s a regular guy, a plain spoken guy like me. He is unpretentious. He likes to enjoy his life, yet at the same time he does not like to waste money. Like me, my friend needs...

 

Thursday, July 28, 2016

We are taught that an investment portfolio should have balance. Balance comes, in large measure, through diversification. In simple terms, we should not put all our eggs in one basket or all our baskets on one truck. Simple! Well,...

 

Friday, July 1, 2016

The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. What does this mean to individual investors, particularly in the United States? Let's start from the beginning. I have no crystal ball. Whatever I say should not be taken as...

 

Thursday, June 16, 2016

The other day I heard an expression, "Down on it, without being up on it." Immediately, the words resonated with me. How many of us have formed opinions about something with scanty little if any information and come to the conclusion...

 

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

With the passage of time, I realize more and more how little I know. Gone are my younger days, when I was convinced that I knew it all. The years roll on and prove to me, over and over again, that I still have much to learn. I’ve...

 

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

We have all heard terms like risk/reward ratio or cost/benefit analysis. These are the concept of weighing what we are risking against what we hope to gain by assuming that risk. When dealing with risk and cost, we want those elements...

 

Thursday, April 28, 2016

A famous expression has it that, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I believe this to be true. However, I also believe that it is even better to have loved and not to have lost. Yet, this...

 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Are you interested in what something is called or what something does? This is an important question when it comes to investing. Imagine the following scenario: A person goes to a financial services professional for advice. During...

 

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Cost of Cool Recently, I watched Napoleon Dynamite on cable television. It’s a 2004 comedic movie about an awkward high school kid, named Napoleon, and his attempt to get a date for the prom. It certainly wasn’t the...

 

Saturday, April 9, 2016

When it comes to investing, it seems like every time you consider a potential vehicle to help build your wealth there is some type of disclaimer. These disclaimers should most certainly be there. Investors should enter into any...

 

Monday, March 28, 2016

Please consider keeping an investment idea journal. What exactly is an investment idea journal, you might ask? It is a pretty simple concept really. Keep a book, like a diary or a document on your computer or smartphone where you can...

 

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Let’s look at a story of a young, imaginary entrepreneur. This fellow, let’s call him Joe, lives in a town by the ocean. Being an enterprising young man, he decides to start a business. He gets a permit from his town to...

 

Monday, March 14, 2016

Try as we might, we cannot contemplate every specific way in which economic factors might affect our investments. However, we can develop an understanding of the interconnectedness between general economic factors – on a national...

 

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

As we get older we are supposed to get wiser. Let’s focus on the operative words here, “supposed to.” Unfortunately, just because something is supposed to happen does not mean it will happen. We only grow wiser with...

 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Any human activity is tied to risk. Walk outside your home in the morning and who knows, you might slip on a crack in the sidewalk. Or, you might cross the street and get hit by a car. Those things do not sound appealing. At the same...

 

Monday, February 15, 2016

January seemed tough. The beginning of the month saw the stock market follow a steady trajectory downward. On a social front, big name stars were dying one after another. Between January 10 and January 18, rock star David Bowie, actor...

 

Monday, February 1, 2016

We do not spend a lot of time in society focusing on philosophy. Sometimes, I think, people believe philosophical discussions are not productive. However, I believe that if you want to lead a successful life, a congruent life, a life...