Shotwell Rutter Baer

Join us for Part Two of discussing financial concerns for an 18-year-old, including important financial documents.

We have a special guest, Molly Petitjean, a Lansing area attorney, who joins us to answer questions about preparing an 18-year-old for their financial future.

This episode sparked from the fact that Nick’s daughter, Cameron who is almost 18, and what she needs to have.

Typically, when we think of estate planning and wills, we think of people much older than 18. We are not planning for our 18-year-old to pass away. So what do they need?

When your child becomes a legal adult in the eyes of the state there are some unique challenges that arise. Even though they are still young enough that you feel you want to help them make decisions, you don’t have the automatic default anymore to make medical or financial decisions for them. So, what are the types of documents they need to have in place if you want to still help them make these decisions?

They are Financial, Medica, and Hippa.

Listen to the full episode as Molly, Dave, and Nick review all the important documents for this exciting time in a young adult’s life.

Molly has been a guest on our show before. To read or listen to more invaluable information Molly has provided please click below.

Estate Planning Basics with Special Guest Molly Petitjean

Call us at 517-321-4832 or email [email protected].

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

We have a special guest today, Camryn Nauta. She is Nick’s daughter who is a recent high school grad and is seventeen. She graduated with very high honors and will be attending Michigan State University in the Fall.

Camryn is our special guest and is about to turn 18 there are many things an 18-year-old should consider with respect to finances, budgeting, and savings.

Find out what her biggest financial concern is at this time in her life and how she is planning for them.

Student loans, budgeting, learning how to save money, and more. Camryn rates her financial knowledge on a scale of 1-10 in a variety of areas. Is Nick a proud dad? Find out!

Camryn reveals how she feels about the financial education she received in high school, and what was available to her. She thinks financial literacy classes should be required for all high school students.

The group also talks about the lack of information Camryn has gotten from MSU regarding her student loans and financial aid.

Call us at 517-321-4832 or email [email protected].

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

Join Dave and Nick as they discuss the 60-40 portfolio.

To clarify for people wondering what a 60-40 portfolio is, it is an industry-standard portfolio that contains 60% stocks and 40% bonds. This was considered the Goldilocks portfolio. This is approximately the allocation we use for many of our clients because it fits a lot of different scenarios. The idea is that it’s enough stock exposure and enough risk that you do well in most environments.

Bonds in the portfolio provide some cushion when things aren’t going well in the stock market. This ratio has been a good solid moderate risk profile portfolio. A lot of people have used this for a long long time to not take on all the risk of the stock market but still get
some decent growth throughout the years.

So, is this still effective?

The stock market is down roughly 20% for the year meanwhile the bond market is down 10% for the year. So diversified portfolios have struggled more than they normally do when the stock market’s negative.

Listen to the episode to find out what Dave and Nick suggest you do right now if you have a 60-40 portfolio.

Call us at 517-321-4832 or email [email protected].

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

Join Nick and Dave as they discuss the increasingly high inflation rate.

Here are some other resources for you:

Worsening Inflation, Consumer Sentiment, and the Markets

Bull and Bear Market Cycles

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

Part Two of answering financial questions from our listeners. More of your burning questions are answered here.

Click HERE for Part One. 

In Part Two of Ask A Financial Advisor Anything, these questions are answered:

Can you set up a retirement fund for a child and if so how?

Can you pull money out of a SEP and invest in real estate?

Why don’t financial planners speak of gold or silver as an investment for a balanced portfolio?

What is a good retirement or savings investment option for someone living paycheck to paycheck?

Is a Roth or traditional IRA a better investment for retirement?

Thank you for joining us on our first common Questions for a Financial Advisor. We’d love to answer more of your questions, so please send them to [email protected].

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

Dava and Nick asked people in their network to throw their burning questions about money and finances at them. There were so many great questions and answers, we broke it into two podcast episodes.

In Part One of Ask A Financial Advisor Anything, these questions are answered:

What is the bare minimum I should be putting into savings from each paycheck?

What is the best way to improve your credit score?

Do you think the market will crash soon?

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

Join Dave and Nick as they explore the world of Tik Tok and the recent money challenges that have been going around the popular social media platform. The Wall Street Journal published an article on May 26, 2022 titled, How Hoarding Cash Became a TikTok Meme, and it is now all the rage.

David admits he’s never logged into Tik Tok and doesn’t really plan to. Nick reveals he only watches Tik Tok videos his daughter sends him. However, the new money challenge – where people challenge each other to save money in different ways – is a positive way to use social media.

Find out how you can use these ideas in your own money management or challenge your kids to give it a try.

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

Join Dave and Nick as they review another helpful book about financial planning. The New Retirementality by Mitch Anthony.

You can save yourself the time of reading the book by listening to this episode instead – or it may spark your interest enough to pick up your own copy.

Main Theme: Americans need to re-think retirement, focusing on creating a rewarding, phased-in retirement on their own terms rather than one dictated by outdated workplace norms and government-created age milestones.

Audience: Middle–class Americans who are unsure about the psychological meaning of retirement and who want to look beyond finances and concentrate on the overall quality of life.

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

An I Bond is a savings bond issued by the US Treasury much like EE Savings bonds, but the interest paid by an I Bond is linked to current inflation. They grabbed headlines at the beginning of May when it was announced that the rate on new I Bonds would be a whopping 9.62%. That is an astoundingly high return for a vehicle backed by the government with no principle risk. However, that rate is a bit misleading: The 9.62% is an annualized rate, while the rate advertised is only effective for the next six months. I Bond rates reset every May and November, so while I bonds purchased now will have a high rate for a while, we would not expect that to continue.

To evaluate whether I Bonds are a good idea for your portfolio, it is important to understand how the rates work. I bonds rates have two components:

The fixed-rate on I bonds right now is 0%. It is the inflation component that is high right now. That means that when rates reset in November, the rate on I bonds will be lower. Current inflation is being compared to May 2021, before inflation became an issue, but by the time inflation is measured this fall, it will be compared to last fall instead when inflation was already ticking up. Furthermore, we expect inflation to settle down as the Federal Reserve increases interest rates and as the supply chain issues from the pandemic work through the system.

If you do think I Bonds make sense for you, here’s how you purchase them:

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

There are a lot of folks out there right now on financial cable channels, on the internet news outlets, social media, and even print media talking about the markets, the economy, and where things are headed. Most of them are making exciting predictions of some sort and often they’ll produce charts and graphs that are intended to support their prediction and lend authority to their position. Some of them are quite compelling, and no doubt at least a few of them will end up being correct when we can look back with the advantage of hindsight.

In the meantime, I want to share what I feel are the two most important stock market charts to keep in mind, now when the market is struggling as well as when the market is on a stronger footing. Neither of them is useful for making any sort of predictions, but I believe they do put market volatility in perspective and remind us that investing is all about the long–term.

The first chart shows the annual return of the S&P 500 index (the 500 largest American companies) for the last 42 years, along with the worst pullback during the year. This chart is very important to keep in mind during volatile times as it shows that, almost every year, there is a period when being in the market felt horrible. In fact, the average intra-year pullback during that timeframe was – 13.5% Yet the average annual return during that period was a positive 9%. That’s right: at some point during the year, you should expect to see your stock holdings drop by double digits yet received a nice average return over that time. Stomaching that volatility is the price you pay to earn that return.

The second chart is a simple graph showing the annual value of $1000 invested in 1928, the year before the most famous market crash, through today. The chart is punctuated by recognizable moments from the last 90 years of history, including the Great Depression, World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Stagflation of the 1970s, the Tech Crash, and the Financial Crisis. There are good times and bad on the chart, but the overall theme is that our economy and stock market are resilient. Along the way, that $1000 in 1928 would have grown to $4123 through last week (May 6, 2022). The chart also serves as a reminder that in EVERY phase of our history, there were plenty of things to worry about and plenty of risks out there. The short-run is unpredictable, but the patient long–term investor has always been rewarded with growth.

The next time you are watching the cable news or reading a headline that crosses your media feed with someone showing graphs and pictures to predict what will happen over the next few weeks of market action, remember these two charts and what it means to be an investor.

Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period.

Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future.

Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.