If you’ve bought a house in the past, you are probably familiar with the underwriting process involved when obtaining a mortgage. You might even have nightmares about the reams of paperwork you had to provide…
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Market Update: Q4 2019
Picture what you were doing on January 1st of 2019. Maybe you were getting an early start on your fitness goals for the year. Maybe you were up early, ready to take in some New…
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Cash is King: Competitive Pressures in the Brokerage Industry & How to Get a Decent Yield
If you’ve been paying attention to financial headlines or the brokerage industry at all, you may know that competitive pressures have been heating up recently. Last year Charles Schwab announced it was reducing commission rates…
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My Top 5 Year End Tax Planning Tips
Happy holidays! It’s now December, and if you blink hard enough (or drink enough egg nog) you’ll wake up & find yourself in January of a new year. For many people, holiday office parties &…
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Is Index Investing Really a Bubble?
Back in September, Bloomberg published an article about index investing that made a few waves. If you read the book or watched the movie “The Big Short”, you might remember Michael Burry. He’s the former…
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I Keep Hearing We’re Nearing a Recession. Are We Nearing a Recession?
There’s been more than a few news headlines recently claiming that we’re on the verge of an economic recession. For many business owners and investors the word recession is a lot like Voldemort. It’s so…
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The Home Office Deduction 101: Simplified Method vs. Actual Expense Method
Even though we don’t currently prepare tax returns for clients at my financial planning firm, tax is a topic that comes up a lot. Many of our clients own businesses, and most of them share…
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The Pros & Cons (and Economics) of Leasing vs. Buying a Car
For most of us in the US today who do not live in the middle of populous cities, driving a car from place to place is a way of life. Some of us share a…
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Market Update: Q3 2019
I’ve written and published quarterly market updates religiously since launching Three Oaks Capital Management back in 2014. At first I had physical newsletters printed out on six thick pages of card stock, and mailed them…
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How to Determine How Much Life Insurance You Need
Many people I work with realize that they need some kind of life insurance once they start having kids. The purpose of life insurance, of course, is to ensure that everyone in your household can maintain…
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