I just learned through a message from Bob Veres that David Drucker’s wife Susan died unexpectedly. A community blog has been set up at the following site where you can communicate your thoughts and compassion to David and his family.
http://virtualofficenews.blogspot.com
David is an incredibly influential figure in the financial planning community, and it’s a privilege to be a part of that community which can offer support in this tragic time.
I was flipping through the July 2008 issue of Financial Advisor magazine today, and what do I find on page 69?
It’s the Twitter whale! I wonder if the image was used with permission…
Part of what I have been working on over the last week is a presentation I’m going to deliver in July to a group of specialty physicians. Since I consider myself technologically savvy and a creative user of presentation software (ok, yes, I still use PowerPoint due to my history with it), I’ve looked for resources on how to design and deliver effective presentations.
Most of us are very familiar with the common characteristics that plague most one hour presentations. There’s a title slide, introduction, an outline overview, all followed by a gratuitous spray of bullet points, hard-to-read graphs, and concluded with yet more bullet points. Thank you, the end!
Financial Advisor Magazine is reporting today that the CFP® Certification requirements are going to “get tougher.” I read through the brief article but I didn’t get the sense that the obtaining and maintaining the certification is necessarily going to become more difficult.
From the article, Dr. Ivan C. Roten, CFP®, director of the Financial Planning Center at Appalachian State University had this to say:
Since education is one of the four cornerstones of the certification process, we intend to provide an unshakeable foundation for CFP certificants to apply their financial planning knowledge most effectively to their clients’ ever-changing financial situations.
The rising cost of goods and services impacts clients in more ways than just their cash flow. Last week I referenced an inflation graphic published by the New York Times that illustrates the effect of inflation on various spending categories. Rising inflation not only leads to potential changes to spending, it can also leave clients under insured by surprise.
Rising Replacement Costs
According to data published by the BLS, material prices for construction projects (including diesel fuel) have increased a cumulative of 30.2 percent from December 2003 to January 2008. This is more than double the reported increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 14.5 percent for the same period.
With most taxable money market vehicles yielding under 3%, I have my eyes out for safe and painless opportunities to earn a higher yield. Also, the IRS has begun sending the economic stimulus payments via direct deposit this month enabling taxpayers to take advantage of incentives with extra cash flow.
One national grocery company, The Kroger Company, has announced an incentive for all of its customers to receive an additional 10% bonus amount when exchanging tax refunds or stimulus payments into gift cards.
The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) said today that beginning May 2, 2008, customers can receive free groceries through a gift card program available exclusively in Kroger stores. The program allows Kroger customers to exchange their tax refund or economic stimulus checks for a Kroger gift card with an extra $30.00, $60.00 or $120.00 added to it. Gift card amounts correspond to the payment amounts outlined by the Internal Revenue Service for the federal economic stimulus program.
I encountered a unique resource on the New York Times website over the weekend. They created a graphical representation of the most recent CPI data provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. The graphic provides a simple interface to determine which categories exhibit high inflation versus those where prices are deflating.
Follow the link to the New York Times inflation graphic. Hover your mouse pointer over any of the sections of the chart to see detailed information about that category.
It’s fairly clear to see which categories are placing pressure on clients’ cash flow: gasoline, oil (heating and automotive), and basic food staples. Whether or not advisers place much faith in the BLS data is one thing, but the graphic is a great concrete way to illustrate how inflation affects clients’ cash flow.
Davis Janowski over at Investment News highlighted a few blogs in the financial adviser service space in his weekly column, Tech Bits. He identified a new blog called Money Bytes authored by Edmond J. Walters, CEO and Founder of eMoney Advisor, Inc. I had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Walters about eMoney at an FPA annual conference and I’m happy to see the product doing well in the adviser marketplace.
The first thing I did was hop over to Money Bytes and try to add an RSS feed to my Google Reader. Oops, no feed exists for the Money Bytes blog. Also conspicuously missing is the ability to leave comments on blog posts. Hmm. Does this really qualify as a “blog” in the Web 2.0 sense, or is it simply a standard advertising page supplied with weekly commentary?
This morning when I arrived at work I received a notification from the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) regarding a new publication for its members. The booklet is titled A Financial Professional’s Guide to Working with Older Clients and is filled with quite a bit of information that nearly all financial professionals will find useful.
As an active member of the FPA and also a volunteer with AARP (see my former posts about working with Tax-Aide), I am pleased to see the collaboration between these two organizations. I can say with certainty that most CFP Board-registered education programs do not prepare students for the unique challenges of working with these diverse clients.
After several notices this year, I finally received my first phishing attempt by folks masquerading as the IRS. Here is their note below:
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $2839,49. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-9 days in order to process it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.To access your tax refund, please click here <link removed>
Best Regards,
Tax Refund Deparment
Internal Revenue Service
© Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.
TAX REFUND ID: IRS822513
