There's truth to the old adage, "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations." According to many studies, 70% of families lose their wealth in two generations; 90% lose their wealth in three. And while the reasons for these dramatic losses vary, open communication and clear planning can go a long way towards helping a family sustain its legacy. Whether your family will be gathered around a crackling fire or a virtual yule log this year, the holiday season is an ideal time to reflect on what you've all accomplished in 2020 and start looking ahead to a brighter 2021. Sharing your answers to these three questions can help you create a family mission statement that will prepare the next generation to be generous and thoughtful stewards. Read More >

As we get closer to the end of 2020, The Distillery gets a bit more reflective. If we’ve done our jobs as advocates for your financial lives, today’s piece should read nice and easy as you consider whether you have a healthy view of money. Enjoy! Read More >

This week’s The Distillery is a pretty fascinating look at the returns of the top 30 stocks over the last 30 years, and while the returns are obviously phenomenal, the lesson is in how painful the drawdowns that preceded those returns were. We all want the upside, but we shouldn’t forgot the perseverance through the downside.

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This week’s The Distillery is an interesting opinion piece from Jared Walczak of The Tax Foundation regarding the recent buzz surrounding a “Work-From-Home Tax.” He does a good job not only explaining what it would be, but talking through the logistics of the government rolling something like this out. While the tax is an interesting concept, it’s nothing to get worried about yet.

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This week's The Distillery won't be for everyone, but for those looking for a somewhat deep dive on global stock market valuations with nice visuals to support the data, this one's for you. As the title alludes to, the investment environment is eerily similar to that of 1999, and although we have no certain way of predicting what the future holds, it does help to look back at history for guidance. Enjoy!

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This week’s The Distillery is another timely piece regarding the impact to the financial markets (or lack-thereof) when either party is elected to the White House. We often search high and low for clues or answers to more wealth, but often times, they aren’t where we’re looking or where we want them to be found. I hope you enjoy this sensible read reminding us to separate our politics from our portfolios.

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This week’s The Distillery is a nice piece to review after the investor experience we were all gifted this year by Mr. Market (is it 2021 yet?) When it comes to portfolio construction, there’s theory….and then there’s reality. Theory seeks to maximize risk-adjusted return, whereas reality acknowledges a human is involved in the equation and that that human’s money in the portfolio represents way more than just a dollar sign.

I hope you enjoy the read. I think the best takeaway from this piece (at least for me) is to become more comfortable with your own risk tolerance and feel better about accepting lower projected returns as a tradeoff.

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The title for this week’s The Distillery reads like an obvious statement, but the interviewee, Carl Richards of The Behavior Gap, offers a deeper look into why we attempt to judge people based on their money and what we can do to improve our feelings around it.

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This week’s The Distillery is a relatable piece in that it reminds us not to seek perfection in our lives (specifically personal finance), but to focus on doing important things adequately. Often times we try and optimize a specific scenario or area of our lives, when all we truly need is a shift in our attention back to the fundamentals.

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This week's the Distillery discusses an acronym I kept hearing in the headlines over the last few weeks: SPAC. Why did I keep seeing this acronym and do I need to know what it means? The short answer to this question is that the headline and subject material makes for a good story, and no, I do not need to know what it means. Yet, it is an interesting concept (that is not new), but is a great reminder of the inherent risk-reward relationship that investors must come to terms with around every financial decision they make. 

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