The P&A Blog
5 ways we bring clarity to retirement planning
Retirement planning is a big concept with many moving parts, from identifying retirement income sources to calculating a safe withdrawal rate to reducing taxes. Newly retired clients often want to know how to create a retirement paycheck, maximize their Social...
SHIP Medicare Minute – August 2020
Diane and Elizabeth are Nebraska SHIP (Senior Health Insurance Program) volunteers here to help with your Medicare enrollment, questions, and drug coverage reviews.* P&A will be posting articles of interest and Medicare-related documents to our blog. You can find...
Delaying retirement, go south or west, and ‘best interests’?
Here are three articles that caught our eye in the last week. Two retirement-related, and one that’s industry-specific. 21% of Americans now say they'll retire later than planned Charles Schwab is out with a new survey of 401(k) participants. According to the...
12 ways an excellent financial advisor adds value
Is the role of a financial advisor to pick the best investments for you? What about making sure your investment mix is appropriate for your risk profile? While these are essential aspects of the job, they tend to represent your baseline expectations when entering an...
SHIP Medicare Minute – July 2020
Diane and Elizabeth are Nebraska SHIP (Senior Health Insurance Program) volunteers here to help with your Medicare enrollment, questions, and drug coverage reviews.* P&A will be posting articles of interest and Medicare-related documents to our blog. You can find...
Watch out for these 7 investment biases
"Investing is overwhelmingly a game of psychology." – Morgan Housel As humans, we're all guilty of biases. Some affect the way we treat others, our religious or political beliefs, and of course, financial decisions. Here we present seven of the more prominent...
10 money quotes that make you think
There are hundreds of great quotes about money, investing, and personal finance. We've whittled these down and plucked out 10 with a deeper meaning than just dollars and cents. - "Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow." PAUL SAMUELSON...
2020 – 2nd Quarter Letter – Glad to Have You
The latest P&A quarterly letter to clients is available in PDF form. You can download it here. Topics include the content of our very first quarterly letters sent back in 1995, how these letters have evolved to where they are today, and why we believe in sending...
Happy 25th Birthday to P&A!
P&A was born on 6/30/95. We have faithfully forgotten to celebrate every year since then. This year was no exception, but so far, the faux pas has not exceeded 24 hours. I have never been good at calendars or birthdays, but this one should...
Book Review: “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein
If you’re a golf or sports fan, you’ve probably seen the video of a 2-year old Tiger Woods showing off his skills on a late-night TV show. And when you think of a violin prodigy or young chess champion, you probably assume they’ve spent 8 hours a day for years...
What is ESG investing?
Are you interested in aligning your money with your values? A recent study shows 71% of investors are very or somewhat likely to make investments that do just that. But before we introduce ESG investing, here’s a question: Do you think a company has a responsibility...
What is the best way to time the market?
What is the best way to time the market? In the sheepish words of Tow Mater from Cars, “To not to…” The ‘experts’ say that people need to see or hear a message at least seven times before they might believe it. Going back to 1994, we at P&A are well past the 7x...
What to expect when you visit P&A
Due to the 2019-2020 outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, we at P&A are taking extra precautions as we invite our clients and prospective clients to come visit us in person. Along with a modified staffing approach to maintain 6 feet of separation, on-site...
Grateful
Based on the popularity of Blake’s COVID-free blog post last month, we’re following up with two more related topics. First, we asked our team to tell you how they’re spending their time differently now, i.e. activities they’ve picked up or rediscovered during the...
A paperwork story
A husband and wife met with us a couple times and they’re ready to become our client. P&A has checked the boxes for a simple pricing structure, a fiduciary relationship, and full transparency. They’re also drawn to our financial planning services and being able...
How we’re spending our time
Based on the popularity of Blake’s COVID-free blog post last month, we’re following up with two more related topics. For this post, we asked our team to tell you how they’re spending their time differently now, i.e. activities they’ve picked up or rediscovered during...
The market isn’t the economy
Over the last six weeks, 30 million people have filed for unemployment…a staggering number. Yet over the same time period, the S&P 500 is up 22%, and from the March 23rd low, the stock market is up 31%. How can this be? Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had...
A look back
In our 25-year history, we’ve never been busier than we were from late February through early April 2020. The markets provided us with plenty of portfolio work, not to mention the number of client conversations we’ve had over the last 60 days. Our team has done a...
