Welcome! Bridget Sullivan Mermel and John Scherer talk introduce themselves and talk about why they started the channel, Friends Talk Financial Planning.

Spending for Happiness: There are some easy ways to spend some money and get more happiness. In this video we talk about the ins and outs of one way--celebrating successes. It turns out that celebrating both big and small is a great way to improve relationships. We talk through the risks involved in telling people good news, celebrating with trips, big and small celebrations, plus why sharing the good news helps. #acpmemberwisdom #happiness 00:00 Welcome! 00:45 Beginni

Year End Bear Market Tax Moves--The stock market has been down this year, and we're approaching year end. It's a great time to take a look at your portfolio and make the best out of a situation that you might not like that much--your portfolio being down. We talk through the best ways to make the best out of the situation--through your taxes. We discuss how to two tax strategies that can help you make the best a bear market. #acpmemberwisdom #financialplanning #tax 00:

Knowing if you want investment management vs financial planning is a key element in finding the right advice. In this episode, we gently sort out the marketing from the reality. You know the financial industry jargon zone: wealth Management, investment management, financial planning, fee-only, fee-based. These words mean something specific to regulators, but marketers throw them around to get your attention. What's a real person to do when the powerful combination of th

Two Emotional Hurdles of Retirement: Retirement is great, but can feel a lot different than you expect, especially at first. We see that retirement presents some significant challenges. In this episode, we’ll be teaching you about what Wall Street advisors don’t tell clients about retiring, the two biggest challenges we see, and give you tools to work with these hurdles so that you can feel happy and free in retirement. We talk about retiring at 40 or 50 as well as at 70.

Smart Charitable Giving is relevant during this time of year. In this video, we talk about how to give money and save on taxes. Give more money in donations and pay less in tax; we love this formula. Be smart about your charity. If you're smart about charitable giving, you'll think before you give gifts of cash. We've got three tips that you should be aware of before you make any gifts of cash to charities. The tax savings could be huge. By the end of this episode, you

I Bonds News: I bonds are one of our favorite investments. But now, with the new rates as of November 1st being down over 3% compared to the past, is it too late to invest? Have you missed out? By the end of the episode, you’ll know what’s changed with I- Bonds, what has actually improved, and why it can still be a smart place to invest some of your money. Plus, at one point, Bridget has a brain-freeze and forgets the news! John gently tries to cover but ends up with a

When the stock market goes down, we can immediately think--I don't like this. Someone must be to blame! We proceed, finding a blame-worth party. Bridget Sullivan Mermel and John Scherer take contrarian positions in this episode. First, is the stock market really bad? We talk through how we tell clients to judge the stock market. Second, who is to blame? Surely, the politicians, either Democrats or Republicans, are at fault here. One party must be better than the other

Understanding QCDs, or Qualified Charitable Contributions can save you big on your taxes. As a practical matter, there are important reasons to do QCDs before December. Many people know that at a certain age, the law requires you to take RMDs, or Required Minimum Distributions out pre-tax accounts. But did you know there are ways to take Required Minimum Distributions, or RMDs, and pay no tax at all? It sounds to be too good to be true, but the IRS explicitly approves

CDs, or Certificates of Deposit, Treasuries, and TBills are paying higher interest than they have been in years. You can start earning 3-4% interest on money that is safe and guaranteed. When we talk about parking cash, we think—what money might I need in the next 1-5 years. We want to make sure that it’s safe. In the past 10 years or so, there hasn’t been much variance between different types of safe investments. With interest rates going up, there are opportunities to

Should I buy I bonds now? There's an incentive because interest on the series I bond changes November 1st. In this video we'll explain: * what you should know about the interest rate change, * why if you're procrastinating you should probably act now, * and see if our attempt at comparing I bonds to Old Fashions makes sense! We talk through the advantages to buying series I bonds when interest rates are going down. We also discuss if I bonds might be appropriate for y

October 20th, 2022 is World Values Day. Everybody agrees that they want more happiness in their life. In honor of World Values Day, John Scherer and Bridget Sullivan Mermel talk about one of the keys to uncovering more happiness in your life while making the same amount of money (or more!): focusing on your values. Researchers have found that finding prioritizing your values and setting goals leads to a more meaningful life. Bridget puts this in terms of a deceptively simp

In fourth grade, my niece’s teacher started a “genius hour.” Once a week during that hour, the students worked on whatever project they wanted to. Inspired by genius hour, I’ve researched and applied the nerdiest part of my brain to figuring out how to get more money, meaning, and happiness in life. This year, we’ve brought this to clients so that they benefit, too. On Friday’s Chicago Money Show, to celebrate World Values Day (October 20th this year), I’m dedicating the s

Buy A New Car from Dealer? This video, tells you everything Bridget Sullivan Mermel learned from her Dad about the process of buying a new car from a dealership. Buying a new car can be difficult. It's a large ticket item that you don't buy very often. The sales staff and dealer know a lot more about the transaction than you do. They do this all the time, while you do this every 3-20 years. This means you can be at a serious disadvantage when buying a car. We talk about

When it comes to how to save money for a college fund, John Scherer and Bridget Sullivan Mermel are unconventional financial planners. Here, they discuss the hows and whys of why they think that saving for college is over rated. It's not that you shouldn't save anything for college. It's that there are more things to consider than people usually do. From their perspective on what actually happens, they see a lot of options when it comes to college planning. 00:00 Welcom

Inflation= Opportunity. There are upsides to inflation. Sure, inflation increases uncertainty and that makes people feel bad. But we're going to flip the script. We’ve got 3 ways to take advantage of inflation. In this video we’ll talk about how you can take the focus away from “I feel bad,” and switch the focus to “I’m making best use of the situation.” You’ll learn how to act on the things you can control. First tip: travel overseas. The dollar is high and other curr

Should I Take Student Loans If I Don't Need Them? Are you missing out by not taking student loans? We’re going to talk about the pros and cons of getting student loans in the new era of student loan debt forgiveness. You don't want to feel like you're missing out because there's free money out there now. You want to make sure that you're being smart while you go to school. There's a lot to consider. We talk about the potential downsides to depending on debt forgivenes

3 Student Loan Mistakes To Avoid. With the new rules on student loans, there is a lot of confusion, and a lot of opportunity. But, you want to avoid mistakes. Student loans can be tricky. By the end of this episode you’re going to know three mistakes that you can avoid. We’re joined by Patti Hughes, CPA, CFP® and Certified Student Loan Professional. In this episode, we discuss both the major things that people should know from the "old" rules, but also what opportunitie

We both have a No Budget No Problem philosophy. However, if you have this approach, you'll want to keep in mind the things in this video. At different stages in your life, budgeting is different. Figure out what your goal is. People's personalities and strengths differ, too. Some people have no problem tracking each expense. Other people feel like a failure when they, once again, fail at the process. At different income levels, the same person can take different app

Avoid These Estate Planning Mistakes. You can only do estate planning when you're alive. When you're dead, it's too late. Not wanting to think about dying, many people don't check their estate plan. In this episode, we discuss three big estate planning mistakes that we've encountered with clients recently. We also discuss how often we suggest people check different elements of their estate plan. 00:00 Welcome 01:11 Mistake 1 07:42 Mistake 2 09:25 Mistake 3 12:50 Ho

When you have to chose employee benefits, there's a lot to consider. First-- on most people's mind--is what is a must have, one to consider, or a benefit that I can safely skip? You want to use the benefits that are the best and skip the ones that are a rip off or don't make sense to you. To make things more complicated, your choices of which benefits to pick sometimes change over time! Bridget Sullivan Mermel and John Scherer will discuss employee benefits, how to pick

Happy retirement planning is about more than the financial aspects of retirement. It's also about planning not just to retire, but to feel the happiest possible during your retirement years. Money, happiness, and meaning, is a particular area of interest for Bridget. She discusses how the latest research in what makes people happy before and during retirement can help you think through your own plans to retire. First, she talks about the latest from Carolyn McClanahan. Ca

The pros and cons of group term life insurance through work can be classified into good, bad and ugly. We talk about it all, with no more movie references on this episode. Thank you to our alert viewer who inspired John to riff on this question! He has a lot to say and has been holding all this information in for way too long. Many workplaces offer group term life insurance. You can get it through membership associations, too. These plans have unique plusses and minuses.

Investing in (safe) bonds: that's the strategy that rich people and people who are nearing or at retirement share. By the end of this video, you'll know what types of bonds to buy and what account to buy them in. If you're looking for bond funds and ETFs, we'll detail the three top items to look at when researching bond funds. We are asked often, but probably not often enough, what are the best bonds to buy? How do you buy them? Where should you buy them? It can be confu

Welcome guest-poster to our website April Cowell! She's got a lot to say about money. We love the smartphone because it makes our lives...