Losing a spouse is one of life’s greatest challenges. Whether it’s expected or sudden, one of the most trying aspects is having to deal almost immediately with household expenses and personal finances. The toll grief takes on your emotions can cloud judgement and turn even minor money decisions into overly strenuous events.

One of the most difficult questions you have to answer as a surviving spouse is if you wish to stay in the family home. If you and your spouse owned a mortgaged home, it is now your full responsibility to ensure payments are made per the loan agreement.

We are living in challenging times. Economically, personally, spiritually—there have been no shortage of life-changing events impacting our lives over these last few years. 

This past month is no exception with the tragic unfolding of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It goes without saying that we are deeply saddened by this conflict and hope that a diplomatic resolution will be reached sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, no one knows what the future will hold regarding this conflict and the impact it could have on our future both as Americans and as citizens of humanity. And also, of course, as investors. 

Many investors are understandably looking for answers. Can a link be drawn between current events and market performance?

While no one can assuredly predict what will happen in the coming weeks or months, we can look at the market’s behavior over recent history to assess some potential outcomes.

What’s better than working with one amazing financial advisor? Working with a team of them, of course.

Over the past couple decades, the rise of the Independent RIA has taken the financial services world by storm. When Sam Hull first founded Northstar Financial Planning back in 1994, there weren’t nearly as many options when it came to finding a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional to work with. Luckily, for consumers, this has all changed.

The 2020 Retirement Confidence Survey results revealed that while Americans had near record-high levels of confidence in their ability to live comfortably in retirement, just 43% of divorced women felt the same. A lot of reasons are given for this disparity. Among them are:

• Divorced women have fewer assets than divorced men entering retirement.
• Women, in general, live on average five to six years longer than men.
• Women earn about 20 percent less than men, translating to smaller pensions and fewer contributions to their retirement plans.
• Divorced women are less likely to have calculated their retirement needs.
• Divorced women tend to be behind the financial learning curve.
• Women also often take time out of the work force for family obligations

Having been "blessed" with longer life spans, divorced women face an uphill battle against time and money to create enough capital to last for the time they have been given. They need to save more money, yet they have less time and money to do so. Many women who have worked most of their lives to produce a decent income face financial insecurity in their retirement.

But there is good news. Once you're divorced, you finally have complete control of your own financial destiny. No more arguing about finances and money. That can either be liberating or intimidating. What matters now is taking the right steps to secure your financial future.

If you have read much of our work, you have probably noticed we embrace evidence-based investing. But what does that mean?

1) Evidence-based investors build and manage their portfolio based on what is expected to enhance future returns and/or dampen related risk exposures, according to the most robust evidence available. This includes Nobel prize-winning theory, historical evidence, and scholarly research.

2) Evidence-based investors maintain a long-term investment strategy, despite market volatility and uncertainties along the way.

Evidence-based investing is more than meets the eye. Behavioral strategies must be in place to support the evidence-based approach. Investors who take the evidence-based approach to investing do not try and time the market by jumping in and out of investments whenever volatility strikes. They also do not gamble their income on short-term, fad “investments” that come and go out of fashion.

In the wake of the unprecedented year 2020, we entered into 2021 with loose expectations, not sure what to expect. There were still so many uncertainties about where we were headed, how the markets would react, and what we’d be thinking right about now as we look back in retrospect.

Over the past two years, we have seen history through the creation and rollout of vaccines, inauguration of a new president, and even billionaires going to space. Was the Suez Canal blockage really only in March?

But in the midst of all this, we have found a few key investing principles that help our clients achieve long-term financial success.

Looking to year-end

The holidays are always hectic, but we hope you'll consider carving out some time for year-end financial matters.

A number of questions about proposed changes in the tax code have come our way. As the Build Back Better Act winds its way through Congress, early proposals have fallen by the wayside.

Changes in individual income tax rates, increases in rates for long-term capital gains, and updates to estate taxes are unlikely to be enacted into law.

But we may see a big increase in the cap for state and local tax (SALT) deductions, and a surtax for those with very high incomes may land in the tax code. As currently proposed, a 5% surtax would apply to individuals with income over $10 million, increasing 3% above $25 million.

There is also bipartisan support for updates to retirement rules—what’s being called SECURE Act 2.0. Recently, however, the legislation has lost momentum, as Congress deals with tight deadlines on taxes and new spending.

But let’s not leap too far into the future. Perhaps the SECURE Act 2.0 will pass next year. Comprehensive bills don’t pass quickly, even if support is bipartisan. Instead, let’s focus on tying up loose ends as the year comes to a close.

A great man once said to use reason before passion. This could not possibly ring any truer than in the world of long-term investing. While emotions are very powerful tools that can be harnessed to help us unlock deeper potentials or connect with one another in new ways, they are less advantageous in the investing space.

When it comes to major money decisions, emotions can sidestep rationality and make the investment ship remarkably difficult to steer through market volatility. Frenzied media headlines and apprehension from other investors can trigger potentially harmful panic-mode emotions that cause investors to make costly—even life-changing—investment errors.

In this unprecedented time of global market upheaval due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen stocks take some swift and unexpected turns. At one point, economic shutdowns resulted in investor portfolio values dropping by as low as 30%. But, after the shortest bear market in history lasting only from February 2020 to April 2020, stocks rebounded in 2020 and 2021 to notch record highs for seven or more months in a row.

In times like these, especially, it’s no wonder investors are emotional. But, emotional decisions aren’t always the best ones. More often than not, taming your emotions is the key to better investment returns.

We spend much of our working lives saving, planning, accumulating, and preserving in preparation for our golden years. Sometimes, our wishes are to leave a legacy both financially and personally to the next generation and to causes that are dear to us.

While that might be our ideal, few people complete the planning to ensure it happens. Often times, we fail to address difficult and emotional issues, either because they're too uncomfortable or it's an easy topic to put off. An Ill-carried out estate plan can lead to more difficulties than no planning at all.

By considering these questions now, it's possible to make difficult periods of illness or a sudden passing a little more manageable at the time.

Approximately 70 million Americans will see a 5.9% increase in their Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments in 2022. Federal benefit rates increase when the cost-of-living rises, as measured by the Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index (CPI-W).