Medicare Changes You Can Expect in 2023
A New Year brings new changes to many insurances… this includes Medicare. Whether its changes to the premiums, deductibles, and cost sharing (copays and/or coinsurance) amounts to the actual underlying coverage of services it is hard to keep up sometimes. On top of the normal changes, there are some huge changes to Medicare due to […]
The True Cost of Do-It-Yourself Financial Planning
There are many things in life that make sense to do on your own: driving a car, getting dressed, eating, brushing your teeth, shopping for clothes. There are also activities that always are best left to professionals such as filling a cavity, setting a broken bone, or preparing a legal defense to a criminal charge. […]
Is Your Credit Card Right for You?
As I grew up, I always heard bad stories of credit cards. My parents always were against me getting one and if we’re being honest, even getting a debit card was a battle. After not really thinking about it for years, it wasn’t until I was 23 when I thought, hey, I should get a […]
How Can I Stretch My Dollar Further in 2023?
As you go into the New Year, you may be considering what sustainable financial changes you can make. The big picture is very blunt – earn more money or spend less! Of course, it is not as easy to earn more money, so the real focus can be on spending less. Spending less is actually […]
Finding the Perfect Gift this Season
My poor wife. Twice a year I am the source of great frustration, what to get me for my birthday and Christmas. I don’t “need” anything and I’m not the most communicative guy when it comes to “wants.” She doesn’t need to spend money on me. But she wants to do something special, and with […]
Reviewing Your Financial Health
Heading into the end of the year and looking forward to 2023, we here at JGUA wanted to give some insight into some financial considerations for you and your family. Making sure you are aware of and in control of your financial health is important, and we are here to help. First thing to consider […]
Psychology of Money: Protecting Your Wealth from Yourself
When we think of finances, we think of dollar bills, counting change, stock prices, and mathematical precision. What we do not think of is how our emotions, biases, and personal history contribute to all of the financial decisions we make. As Morgan Housel says in his book The Psychology of Money, “Financial success is not […]
Can Your Financial Plan Survive a Disaster?
The headlines have been somewhat alarming lately; it seems as if there is an overarching potential disaster waiting just around the corner. For those of us that did not live through the cold war, the daily threat of nuclear winter is a touch overwhelming. Throw in catastrophic hurricanes, tornados, etc. and suddenly you may find […]
Setting Your Budget for the Holiday Season
With the holiday season just around the corner, I thought it would be helpful to come up with some helpful tips and tricks to curb that spending that is troublesome every year. Whether it’s attending parties, buying gifts, or bringing your family together to celebrate, you need to figure out how you will be able […]
How to Gain From a Loss
You may have heard of the phrase “tax loss harvesting” in the context of sales of stocks or other investments, and wondered exactly what it means. Tax loss harvesting generally refers to selling investments (i.e. capital assets) at a loss, specifically timing them so that they offset gains (both capital and ordinary) in the same […]