Archive for December, 2006

Good News About Illinois Bright Start 529 Plan!

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

According to the Chicago Sun-Times the Illinois Bright Start 529 Plan fees will be lowered significantly in 2007. The total fees for the program will range from 0.14% to 0.64%. This is a significant reduction from the 0.99% current fee.

In the past I recommended the Utah plan to some clients due to its low fees. In some instances the lower fees overcame the IL state income tax deduction. Now with the lower fees in the Bright Start 529 plan I strongly recommend this plan to all clients. Clients who are in the Utah plan should transfer their assets to the Bright Start 529 Plan. This is something we will be working on during the first quarter of 2007.

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Welcome

Friday, December 22nd, 2006
Welcome to my blog! My goal for this blog is to start discussions on some of the key issues in personal finance. Many personal finance issues covered by the press don’t address the needs of real people. Most of the focus in on the short term. For example, there is always a daily report on how much the Dow Jones Industrial index went up or down. For most people this has little relevance. Or they report on topics like what would you do with $10,000 today. As if the answer would be different than it was yesterday.I understand why they do this. They need to fill magazines, newspapers, websites, and 24 hour cable channels with content. A lot of this content I consider Financial Porn — the idea is to titillate you and get you to do something foolish with your money based on short-term thinking.In this blog I plan to discuss the things that really make a difference over the long-run. It would be hard to fill a 24 hour cable channel with that type of content (too boring and repetitive) but it’ the stuff people really need to know.Thanks!

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