When You’re Ready, Come and Get It

By Kristan L. Anderson, CEBS®, CFP®
We tend to get a lot of questions regarding Social Security. Some older clients are interested in claiming strategies to maximize their benefits, while younger clients ask whether Social Security will even be around when they reach full retirement age.
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Young at Heart

By Glen Buco, CFP®
Last month we celebrated the day of my 40th anniversary with West Financial! How did that happen? To be honest, it hardly seems like it's been 40 years – and that is a gift. As I have aged, the clients have aged with me. We now have 95 clients aged 85 and older. The oldest client I have worked with was 104, and was she a character!
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In Support of Music

By Kristan L. Anderson, CFP®, CEBS®
Anyone who knows me, knows that I love music. I sent both of my kids through the School of Rock program from elementary school through high school. My daughter still works for them during her college breaks and is in a band, herself. So, I’m very interested in how music is made and shared, and how artists profit from their efforts over time.
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Prioritizing Yourself

By Rick Gibson, CFP®
Panic! At the Disco sings about having high hopes, shooting for the stars, and having a vision. It often can be easy to lose sight of your goals in the midst of a busy schedule. Shoot, it is even easier not to set goals for yourself in the first place. Between work obligations, family commitments, and the occasional global pandemic, you may not even think about giving yourself the time to set goals.
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Hey Gen X! Life has come at you pretty fast!

Laurie Kramer, CFP®
When I stop to think about it, I find it amazing that most of my friends and family (and myself!) are getting within striking distance of retirement. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I started my career in this industry
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I Owe How Much?

By Kristan Anderson, CEBS®, CIMA® | Dir. Of Retirement Plan Services & Dir. Of Financial Planning
For the past few years, we relied on my husband’s start-up business losses as a “saucepreneur” to offset any tax payment shortages throughout the year. In 2021, that strategy failed, for a number of reasons. It never occurred to me that we would have any issue with underpaying our taxes.
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Back to the Basics

On the first Sunday in May, Waitara and I competed in our first horse show of the season at Turner Farm in Great Falls. It rained. It was cold. We had fun, mostly. Dressage is a bit like portfolio management, part art and part science.
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What Got Me Interested in Bitcoin

By Kristan Anderson, CEBS®, CFP® | Dir. of Retirement Plan Services & Dir. of Financial Planning
I recently attended a Fidelity sponsored webinar in which they presented their new whitepaper on bitcoin. In general, I’m skeptical of digital assets such as bitcoin and other digital currencies, as well as Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the like.
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Pets: They are an Investment

By Rasti Nikolic, FPQP® | Associate Financial Planner
We Americans love our pets and are spending more and more money on their care and wellbeing. Based on the May 2021 ASPCA 1 survey, 23 million American households acquired a pet during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerns about potential challenges of pet ownership as people’s lives return to normal, post-pandemic have not yet reached a critical level, according to the survey.
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Need more space? One family’s journey to their dream home…

By R. Jonathan Stolz, CFA | Portfolio Manager
There are many reasons to look for a larger home – feeling cramped in your current space, family changes (marriage, kids, family moving in), increased work from home, and desire to spend more time with loved ones. My lovely wife and I, and our 5 kids, had several of these squarely on our minds when we started our home upgrade journey in 2019.
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