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I’ve listened to Dave Ramsey's show many times over the years. While I agree with the majority of the things Dave teaches, there is one area that has always stuck out to me as curious. It’s his investment advice.

As I look back over the years I have worked with clients there have been significant things to be concerned with every year - and most of the time we have multiple important concurrent reasons to fret. Sources of angst vary by person, but broad categories include politics, geopolitics, valuations, natural disasters, wars, financial disasters, etc...

In my experience those who are not currently collecting Social Security either completely discount or significantly underestimate the program in their future financial calculations.

There’s an old Wall Street saying that stocks “climb a wall of worry”. Certainly, during the twenty-eight plus years now that I’ve been an investment advisor – that has been a truism! Starting early in my career with the Asian Financial Crisis to this spring’s regional banking failures – looking back almost every year there seemed to be an issue that was seemingly insurmountable. And yet… markets have found a way over and through each crisis.

A Donor Advised Fund (DAF) is a charitable investment account established for the purpose of maximizing flexibility and tax-efficiency of charitable giving. It allows donors to make a charitable contribution of either cash, appreciated stock or even a business or appreciated real estate and receive an immediate tax deduction! The donor gets a deduction on their taxes for the gift in the year it’s contributed to the DAF but is allowed tremendous flexibility on the timing and ultimate charitable destination of those gifts.

Most of my clients have heard me say I like to rely on “dispassionate decisions made with data around the dinner table”.