Danielle L. Schultz, CFP®, CDFA, Author at FIGuide

The Deep Value of Useless Things

Aug 06 2019

At the risk of sounding like an aging baby boomer (oops, that is me), I want to put in a pitch to value highly those things that aren’t worth much. So here’s why everyone else is wrong.

A liberal arts or humanities major

There are an awful lot of parents these days who have a seizure if their progeny announce they are majoring in English or worse yet, French literature, art history, or history. This is close on the heels of recovery from the previous seizure when they saw the tuition bill. In the instant mental computation available to every …

Financial planning for college: should you bother saving?

Jul 09 2019

Nobody wants to pay for something, then watch someone less deserving who gets it for free. A dear friend recently raised this situation: are you a sucker for saving, while somebody else spends freely and their kid gets more money from a college?

I’ll give a very qualified yes to this—there are a few situations where it doesn’t pay (very much, at least) to save for college. Let’s say you make under $75,000 a year and have no investments beyond retirement accounts. Your family probably will qualify for some serious financial aid, and would get less if you saved into …

What I learned at Ukulele Camp that applies to finances

Jun 26 2019

I’m pretty die-hard about DIYing everything I can. Yes, I know there’s a lot of argument that you should pay someone to do things while you’re out earning more per hour at something else, but I don’t buy it entirely. First of all, most of us spend plenty of time scrolling Facebook, binge-watching Netflix, and staring into the refrigerator. None of that is billable time.

There are a lot of projects that just require brute force and minimum skills—I’ll paint my bedroom over a weekend before I pay someone $800 to do it. However, I draw the line at danger …

That other retirement account: Financial planning for HSAs

Jun 18 2019

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) may be the best deal out there, if you can get it. All of us like to beat the tax man, right? HSAs are what’s known as triple tax free: you get a deduction when you put money into the account, the account grows tax free, and as long as you make withdrawals for allowable health care expenses (pretty easy to do), you don’t pay any tax on that either. They’re like a traditional IRA or 401k going in, and a Roth coming out.
But like many good things, there are a few problems and things …

Don’t lose everything…financial planning for the unexpected

Jun 11 2019

I love those articles that tell you everything you’re doing is wrong. Lifehacker had a decent one yesterday on how to wash your hair, swallow pills, do laundry, etc. One of the things you may be doing wrong is your will.

You do have a will, right? If so, you’re the exception to about 75% of the people I see. I see it so often that I have developed a boilerplate recommendation to include in my client reports. So don’t pay me to tell you what you already know! Get a will, health care advanced directive, and powers of attorney …

Author - Danielle L. Schultz, CFP®, CDFA