Written by Marcus Dusenbury, Financial Advisor So, your employer offers an Employee Stock Purchase Plan . . . now what? Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPPs) have continued to gain prominence over the past 20 years. As with many stock incentive programs, they first gained popularity in the...
Written by Marcus Dusenbury, Financial Advisor So you just got restricted stock from your employer . . . now what? Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) have become an increasingly popular corporate benefit over the past decade. Companies recognize that their stock can effectively attract and retain talented employees....
Written by Marcus Dusenbury, Financial Advisor So you just got stock options from your employer . . . now what? Employee stock option plans (ESO plans) have been around for a few decades now. They are an employee benefit plan through which companies offer employees “options” to...
IRA contribution limits The maximum amount you can contribute to a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA in 2018 is $5,500 (or 100% of your earned income, if less), unchanged from 2017. The maximum catch-up contribution for those age 50 or older remains at $1,000. You...
Introduction Investment planning during retirement is not the same as investing for retirement and, in many ways, is more complicated. Your working years are your saving years. With luck, your income increases from year to year as you receive promotions and/or pay raises; those increases offer some...
Women are increasingly taking responsibility for managing their own money. That includes those who in the past may have left investing to a spouse because they were busy raising a family or had no interest in the subject, but who have since found that divorce,...
We all know men and women are different in some fundamental ways. But is this true when it comes to financial planning? In a word, yes. In the financial world, women often find themselves in very different circumstances than their male counterparts. Everyone wants financial security....
The terms immediate annuity and deferred annuity simply indicate when the distribution phase of the annuity begins. Both allow unlimited contributions, and both can provide, upon election, a continuous stream of payments for life. Immediate annuities Immediate annuities allow you to convert a lump sum of cash...
With the wide variety of stocks in the market, figuring out which ones you want to invest in can be a challenging task. Many investors feel it's useful to have a system for finding stocks that might be worth buying, deciding what price to pay,...
In a perfect world, both halves of a couple share the same investment goals and agree on the best way to try to reach them. It doesn't always work that way, though; disagreements about money are often a source of friction between couples. You may...