I recently read an investment article that listed five life-changing events that will impact your finances. It was a good list. There were sound reasons behind every item on the list and I’ll share them with you here: • Beginning a new career • Marriage • Starting a family • Retirement • Losing your spouse Not to be too cynical, but perhaps the list would have been a little more complete if the author would have added a sixth item right after marriage: divorce. It’s not a topic we like to think about, but it certainly has a major financial impact on all parties....
It used to be seen as completely insane to stuff the money you manage to save in your mattress. Why not put it in the bank and get some interest on it? As the saying goes, “That was then, this is now.” If you’ve studied the meager interest rates banks and savings and loans are paying on deposits, it can be very disheartening. The mattress is looking better every day. This is especially true if you look at the various fees you’re probably paying on your checking account in the very same financial institution where you have your savings. There’s a winner and a...
Have you ever watched one of those shows on a cable TV business channel where they have the heads of the investment “experts” stacked up on the screen like the old “Partridge Family” sitcom? In the world of investing, the one thing that is more important than anything else is predictability. But, if you watch any of these shows, you’ll soon realize that there’s only one thing about what the experts say that is truly predictable—they always disagree. One expert will see the healthcare sector going up in value in the coming weeks only to be followed by the next...
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” – David Brinkley I suppose few of you know who David Brinkley was. He was a newsman and together with Chet Huntley was a pioneer in the world of nightly, national news broadcasts. They were active when Walter Cronkite was probably the biggest name in television journalism. And with the history lesson over, let’s look at what Brinkley was saying. He was talking about overcoming adversity. We like that theme here at Evoque Lending because we’re essentially in the...
In both the investing and real estate worlds we talk a lot about assets. Usually it’s pretty easy to attach a dollar figure to those assets and those numbers in turn fit neatly into the cells of an Excel spreadsheet. The most important asset we have in our lives, however, isn’t so easily plugged into cut and dry math calculations. I’m talking about our time. I don’t think I’m wrong to say that time, in fact, is our most precious asset. The assets that use dollar figures to measure can go up and down through the years. In a similar way, the quantity of those...
