Once you’ve realized that hiring a financial advisor is worth it, the next step is choosing the right one for you. When you began your search you may have noticed that there is a wide variety of different acronyms that come after their name. For investors of all types, the alphabet soup of financial credentials can be confusing, especially if you’re searching for a wealth manager or financial advisor with a particular skill set. Read on to learn about the difference between a Certified Financial Planner®, a Certified Wealth Strategist®, and a Chartered Financial Analyst®. [+] Read More

If you’ve ever called WrapManager and been welcomed with a crisp British accent, you’ve had the good fortune to speak with Katie O’Connor, Director of Client Services, over the phone. In her role, Katie works to ensure that our team is utilizing the best technology available today. By combining this technology with a white glove client experience, Katie has helped our customer service approach one to be admired and shared within the industry. As she says, “[because we use] the best technology to deliver a white glove customer service, advisors from around the country want to learn from our experience. And that’s why TD Ameritrade invited me to participate on a panel at their annual National LINC conference [which is for financial advisors] in San Diego this year.” The panel discussion “Leverage Workflows in Your CRM” focused on how financial advisors who use best practices in their customer relationship management (CRM) tool can provide better service to their clients. After the panel, we sat down with Katie to hear more about why this topic and this conference, should matter to WrapManager clients. [+] Read More

If the answer is “yes,” you are among the 67% of parents who said that saving for their kids’ college education is more important than saving for retirement, according to an August 2016 T. Rowe Price Survey. The survey also produced some other insightful, “you’re not alone” data: T. Rowe Price found that 28% of parents have student loan debt (either for their kids or themselves), and 5% have student loan debt for both. The survey also revealed the average amount of student debt for parents that participated in the study was $27,078 – and that’s just for the parents themselves. The average amount of student loans for their kids was $10,768.1 [+] Read More

529 plans are college savings plans sponsored by state or educational institutions. Congress created them in 1996 to provide a tax-advantaged way for people to save for college or other post-secondary education. There are numerous features of 529 plans and a wide variety of options when it comes to choosing one, so it’s prudent to consult a financial planner before making a decision. Below are some questions to help you understand the basics of 529 plans to help you get started. Who qualifies for a 529 Plan? Any U.S. citizen over the age of 18 and of any income level can open a 529 plan, and the beneficiary of the plan can be anyone with a Social Security number or tax I.D. The beneficiary can be a future college student of any age—the plan isn’t necessarily limited to people under the age of 18 who haven’t attended college yet. The owner of the 529 plan may also change the beneficiary (for example, to a different family member) if they wish. How do 529 plans work? Contributions to 529 plans are after tax, but the earnings grow tax-free on the federal level and may also qualify for state tax deductions. Once the beneficiary goes to college or a qualified post-secondary institution, distributions from the 529 plan that are used for qualified education expenses are not subject to federal tax. [+] Read More

The Olympics ended with a spectacular closing ceremony, the event showed competition is alive and well and the United States topped the medal table once again! Thinking about sports does not generally equate to thoughts about retirement or saving for retirement, but a new TD Ameritrade study demonstrates how the two can actually be closely related. The findings of the study may surprise you. [+] Read More

Planning for a multi-decade retirement requires planning and tax planning should be one of your major considerations. Wise retirement investors create a plan that will provide adequate income year after year, but if you don’t take taxes into consideration, your income may be significantly reduced over the long run. [+] Read More

Transitioning from the working world into retirement brings a wealth of exciting new opportunities – having more time to spend with your family, traveling the world with a loved one, or perhaps devoting fresh time to an old (or a new!) hobby. If there’s one challenge though, it’s making sure you have sound wealth management strategies in place to support all of your income needs. The good news is that it’s a challenge you can easily address with the help of a financial advisor, and it essentially boils down to four easy steps. [+] Read More

There’s no disputing the fact that women live longer than men, but, according to a Nationwide Financial survey, only 3 percent of women wait to take their social security benefits until they’re qualified to receive the maximum amount. The decision to start receiving social security benefits at the full retirement age of 66, or even to start collecting them early at age 62, means that women can miss out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of much-needed retirement income - a social security mistake to avoid if possible. One in four women reaches the age of 92, and with rising healthcare costs, it’s increasingly important that women work with a financial advisor to create and monitor a retirement income plan. However, only 33 percent of women currently work with financial advisors. Those who don’t work with financial advisors are nearly three times as likely to report that their Social Security payments are less than they anticipated.1 [+] Read More

“Phishing” attacks have been on a steady rise since 2005 and are used to steal sensitive information like Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and passwords. According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), over 70% of the phishing scams detected this year involved hackers pretending to be banks.1 Cybercrime is an unfortunate byproduct of the digital world, but there are steps you can take to protect yourself and lower your chance of falling victim to online scams, which we’ll walk through for you below. [+] Read More