Blog

A Decade to Forget

What if everything you think is going to happen… actually does? Wars will continue—and escalate, A U.S. President resigns, Unemployment doubles, Taxes triple, Inflation quadruples, Oil prices rise 1,000%, And the market? Completely flat

Learning as we Go

As we close the book on 2025, it’s natural to look back on the months behind us—what we learned, what we overcame, and how we grew. Every year carries its own challenges and blessings, my hope is you are able to focus on the blessings...

Comin' from Nothin'

Investing in Small Planes - Thank you Grandpa

Say it Now

In this video, Jared and I sit down to talk about a topic that’s not always easy, but incredibly important—having a conversation about what you’d like to see happen with your belongings, assets, and legacy when you’re gone.

Is a Roth Conversion right for you?

As retirement planning strategies evolve, one question keeps popping up: “Should I convert my traditional IRA to a Roth IRA?” Like most financial decisions, the honest answer is: it depends. I know, that sounds like a cop-out—but in...

What's the Point?

August 2025- Tax Changes

July 2025 - Iran-Israel and other Geopolitical Events

Other videos of interest: The US Bombed Iran. Now What? | TED Explains the World with Ian Bremmer https://youtu.be/GvG40fNtd2E?si=WeaT8gLkVkbdaU5m Israel’s planned to attack Iran for years, so why now? | Start Here https://youtu...

May 2025 - Where should I take my money from?

April 2025 - Navigating Presidential Transitions

 2025 Market Update: Navigating Presidential Transitions In this market update, we analyze the key economic shifts occurring during the transition to a new administration.

2 Minute Tax Tips - March 2025

March 2025

What are you waiting for?

What Are You Waiting For? For many of the people we work with, saving has always been the priority. They’ve built solid financial habits, made smart decisions, and now find themselves in a position where they can start spending—but...

A couple of things for the New Year

Increasing Contributions

This video talks about the power of increasing contributions over time.

Are You Spending Time or Passing Time?

Everyone is busy. Just ask them. But the truth is we waste hours each day on varying things that add very little or no value to our lives. Time is our most finite resource, and how we use it defines whether we’re spending it intentionally o

'Tis the Season

101%

Open Enrollment

How Much Do I Need?

Is life insurance right for you?

Life is Hard Enough

Making Good Decisions

The first week in August, my family and I had the opportunity to spend in week in New York City. For most people the first thought of NYC brings 9/11 to the forefront of your mind. The night before we visited the memorial, we decided...

August 2024 - Riding Shotgun

August 2024 - Intro to Financial Planning: Essential Steps for Beginners

July 2024 - What are you thankful for?

June 2024 - Helping Lower your Lifetime Tax Bill

June 2024 Newsletter - Helping Lower your Lifetime Tax Bill

June 2024 - Essentials of 529 College Savings Plans

May 2024 - Retirement Checklist

May 2024 Newsletter - Retirement Checklist

May 2024 - On Track for Retirement

My 90 Year Old Self

3 Simple Things to be Happier

Last Minute Tips Before Tax Day

Fewer things are more reliable than Tax Day, even if the deadline has shifted around a bit in recent years. This year, it’s April 15th for most taxpayers, and recent legislation changes include substantial increases to...

Markets and Presidential Elections

Good and Bad - Video

Good and Bad - Blog

Good and Bad As human beings we typically evaluate how we did as either good or bad.  It was a good day because…it was a bad year because…. and we sometimes look at our performance and experiences as very black and...

Long Term Planning with Short Term Brains



Just Ok is Not Ok

I mentioned the mental minutes we use before practices last year in one of my blogs.  The 'just ok is not ok' mental minute is one of my favorite ones.  Many of you probably remember those AT&T commercials ‘Just OK is...

The Feds Rate Dance

It All Costs so Much Today

I ran to Dairy Inn for lunch last week.  I ordered at the outside window and as I was waiting for my food an older gentlemen pulled in to order an ice cream treat.  This is a man in the community I know and have great respect...

The Fun Comes First

Many of you likely followed the 2023 Cannon Falls Bomber Baseball journey to the state tournament.  There are so many great things I could say about the players and what made this team so fun to be part of.  In all honesty,...

Understanding Social Security

In being a financial planner for 20+ years I have helped many people navigate their retirement planning.  It seems in recent years more and more of our conversation revolves around Social Security.  Not just for retirees but...

What are you focusing on?

Maybe I'm just going through a mid-life, but, as human beings, I think there are always things in our heads that we battle.  Am I doing the right things?  Will people like me?  Look at what they're doing.  How can...

Family Meeting

Click HERE to received a FREE Family Financial Workshop Ebook

Non-Negotiable

In this life we are confronted with many things.  Some of those things are expected, some catch up by surprise but they can come from many different directions.  For many situations it helps to have clearly defined values,...

Limitless

Imagine

Timing

Friday morning, after the Bombers last football game of the year, I let my daughter sleep in. The game was in Hastings and we didn’t get back until 9:30…. well past her bed time. I let her take her time getting ready...

What is your Christmas Morning?

The kids were talking about the snow coming tomorrow morning.  Their hopes are set on there being no school (or at least two hours late).  The anticipation of a possible snow day is almost as exciting as Christmas morning...

Welcome to Olive Garden!

Welcome to Olive Garden-We recently went to Olive Garden for a family meal.  To be completely honest, I am more of a burger and fries kind of guy but it was Tammy’s birthday so we headed to Olive Garden.  As the usual...

Current Conversations

Current Conversations

Mental Minute

Having Difficult Conversations

Success

 Many of you know I enjoy coaching youth sports.  It’s something I love to do and am passionate about.  My favorite part of coaching is helping an individual player get the most out of their ability so they are...

I Hate to Lose

Retirement and Markets

This time it's different....right?

Simple Estate Planning

Re-Center Yourself

Maybe

Russia - Ukraine

Mid-Term Election Years and the Market

February 2022- Getting Ready for Tax Season

submitted under RegEd under #4211667

Three Ways to Ease Financial Anxiety

Saving Rules of Thumb

December 2021 - 4 Ways to Gift

November 2021 - Positive Thinking

October 2021 - Pre-Retirement Anxiety

You've worked hard for many years....maybe even a couple of more than you wanted to. You've done a good job saving....putting as much aside as you could afford at the time. It's almost time to make that transition in to retirement...

September 2021 - Building a Financial Home

August 2021 - How can the Markets continue to go up?

The Busyness of Life

Remember just 12 short months ago when many of us were all taking a deep breath of relief from the busyness of life and forced to slow things down due to a global pandemic? Yeah, me neither 😉. I've heard quite a few people mention how...

Make a Wish

If this past year has taught us anything I hope it has taught us to live in the present, not take things for granted and appreciate the company of the ones we love. Early in the COVID pandemic I looked at the clock and it was 11:11. In...

Electronic Documents

Learn how to set up to receive documents electronically.

May 2021 - Have a Plan

Age Smart

You say it best, when you say nothing at all

Admittedly, I am about a week late to writing my monthly blog or recording a video and I have no idea what to say. Then I thought about all of the times in life when we aren't sure what to say. It seems like there's been a lot of those...

The Checklist Manifesto - Book Review

March 2021

The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle - Book Review

February 2021

Approaching Retirement

The Happiness Curve - Book Review

The Journey

What does your financial life look like?

Making good financial decisions requires understanding of our current financial condition and knowing where all of the things we've accumulated over the years and what they mean for helping us reach our financial goals. We have the...

The COVID Time Blues

I am going to share this because I’ve had a number of friends, clients and colleagues that I’ve talked to recently that have had a hard time getting motivated. You can put whatever title you want to it (slump, slight...

Hunting and Other Past Times

I started hunting white tailed deer when I was about 14 or 15 years old. I borrowed my Uncle Nick's .410 and hunted on my Grandparents land. I don't remember much about the hunting that year but I do remember going in to my Grandma and...

Hard

Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard. Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard. Having debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard. Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard....

401k Non-Spouse Beneficiaries

We are here to help our clients make good decisions about money. Many times those decisions revolve around life events; marriage, kids, buying a home, changing jobs, etc... As we get closer to retirement we have even more financial...

Asking for Help

Pride is a great thing....until it isn't. Sometimes the pride that got us to where we are, stops us from growing in to more. It eats away at our time, it can eat away at our fears, it can make us paranoid, it certainly can take away...

Let's Be Better

Just 12 short months ago we were talking about getting back to school and ramping up for fall sports. What a difference a year makes! We can only control what we can control. Since I don't want to get political, I will get spiritual....

August 2020

This months video discusses a few common questions we're hearing from clients right now. What does the amount of debt our Federal Government is accruing mean? How are we going to pay for it and how does it impact my money?

Social Security

We have many folks calling or meeting with us to have some of their questions answered on Social Security. I put together a zoom video in hopes of answering some of those questions for you and educating you on what those decisions...

Fear

Over the past few months we have been faced with some hardships and some hard conversations. Some of these things similar to what the world has seen before. Some are the first in our lifetime. Some are hardships that people face every...

Market Thoughts June 2020

Market Thoughts - May 2020

My friend and colleague Andy Vix and I have talked about doing a podcast for a while now. This is our first attempt at it. Andy and I have worked together for nearly 15 years. Over the last 3 or 4 years, we have both taken more of a...

Please, Have a Seat

Whenever someone utters the phrase, 'please, have a seat', we know there's typically bad news to follow. Typically the deliverer of bad news is either priming the recipient for the bad news or they are truly worried that person may...

Financial Conversations

We understand there are many people concerned with what is going to happen with their personal financial situation through this uncertain time. We also understand money is a difficult and emotional topic to discuss and can cause some...

A Day Like Today

A day like today is why I do what I do. A day like today is why we have conversations about risk tolerance. A day like today is why I ask how much money my clients might need in the next couple of years to live on and we diversify...

Headlines

Headlines impact us on a daily basis. Good, bad or ugly - they impact the market, they impact companies and they can even impact our psyche. As I write this post the Dow is down about 1,000 points today, which is about 3.40%. Headline...

Life is for Living

There isn't an easy way to say this so I am just going to say it. I am almost 41 years old. I've lost friends and family as I've walked through life. You have too. If someone on this earth is counting on you, you need to have life...

Work Smart and Hard

I am not sure if you have ever heard of Mike Rowe. He is the host of a popular tv show called Dirty Jobs. In this show Mike travels around the country

Attitude for Gratitude

I was at a conference last month and one of the main speakers talked about gratitude and it being directly tied to happiness. I am not a psychologist and I don't have the time or resources to conduct a study on gratitude so I took some...

Team

About five and a half years ago we hired Jared Woodward to be part of our team. I had known Jared for a long time from him being a bat boy on our amateur baseball team, him coming to baseball camps and eventually becoming my Bears...

Team

About five and a half years ago we hired Jared Woodward to be part of our team. I had known Jared for a long time from him being a bat boy on our amateur baseball team, coming to baseball camps and eventually becoming my Bears teammate...

Doing Your Very Best

As many of you know I love coaching sports. This fall is my second year as the Cannon Falls Youth Football Coordinator so I help coordinate and coach kids 1st through 6th grade. No doubt there are times that test your patience but...

It is Going to Rain

I love reading, listening or watching headlines the media comes up with. I really love it when the headline draws you in to an article and the article you read barely resembles anything highlighted in the headline. That said, when a...

It's Too Hot

Summertime is such a great time of year. Especially summer in the upper Midwest. We endure a long, hard winter and are rewarded with great temps, sunshine, lakes and a winning professional baseball team (at least this year). I always...

Congratulations Dad!

Respecting your elders or respecting your mother and father is an important value to have. It grounds us and allows us to listen and gain wisdom from their life experiences. It humbles us and helps us appreciate all they do. That said,...

Re-Connecting

Over Memorial Day weekend I had the opportunity and pleasure of playing in a baseball tournament with a few of my former college teammates. Some of those guys I haven't seen since 2001. Of course, I think we all had a bit of...

So God Made a Farmer

If you've driven through the countryside in the last month you've probably run in to a tractor either plowing, fertilizing or planting. I know I was recently observing a tractor in the field caught a whiff of the natural fertilizer...

40

As I sit here on my 40th birthday and look out the office window we are in the middle of a snowstorm. It's sleeting or hailing (depending on who you talk to) and there's 6-8 inches of heavy snow on the ground. Like many of the last 25...

NFL Free Agency

Ok this article is not about NFL Free Agency but it is about something that pertains to NFL Free Agency and any other product or service bought or sold in free markets....supply and demand. I just thought NFL Free Agency was a better...

Cabin Fever

February was quite the month, huh? Cold, snow, wind and cancelled school days. As always, some people have escaped south to

BE YOU.

This season I watched a few games the Chicago Bears played. Mostly because they played against the Vikings twice but also the playoff game against the Eagles and a couple games when they were on in primetime. Every time the camera...

Keep Bouncing

Believe it or not the title of this article does not reference the stock market. Although it certainly does describe the markets recent ups and downs. The title is more about a life mantra than anything. About getting up when life...

Ouch....that hurts!

Ouch....that hurts! We've all said it before. Whether it was our sibling or friend punching us, a boyfriend or girlfriend dumping us, a loss of someone we love or any multitude of things, sometimes things hurt. Fourth quarter markets...

Yogi!

Most of you know that I am a baseball guy so I wanted to discuss what we can learn from one of the greatest…Yogi Berra. Yogi was a great ballplayer, he was also a winner…appearing in 14 World Series and winning 10...

Do your kids play ball in the house?

Being in Minnesota we understand what it feels like to be confined indoors for long periods of time. What many of us adults forget is the unending energy we had as kids and the need to burn it off. The world has changed a lot in the...

Time in Retirement

Time. Something we all have a limited supply of. So many fitting quotes about time, 'Time is money', 'The days are long and the years are short', 'Time is something we'll never have more of','Time is something we want most, but use...

Investing in small planes

This past week I was blessed and fortunate to make a fly-in fishing trip with some of my family. My grandfather (who's 87), cousin, uncle and his wife, parent's, brother and his son, my oldest son and myself made our way to Canada...

Keep it Simple

Albert Einstein once said, 'Genius is making complex ideas simple, not making simple ideas complex.' A great quote to say the least. In this life, we find ourselves trying to solve issues with complex answers but the answer is usually...

The Market and Parenting

I think everyone would agree that the market has been very good to investors over the past 18-24 months. Almost to a point of us forgetting that there is actually volatility from time to time. As the father of three kids (7th, 5th and...

Wisdom

When I was younger I never considered myself much of a reader. In fact, I don't recall reading much at all in high school. As I entered college, I read the textbooks required to pass the classes but not much more. It wasn't until I...

The Journey

We all have our own definition of success, our own personal and family circumstances, our own challenges to overcome and our own successes to celebrate. The culmination of all of those things becomes our story, our journey....our life....

Is it Time?

The recent stock market volatility has some people a little bit nervous. I have had a few clients ask the question, “Have we seen the peak of the market?” “Is it time to get out of the market?” I wanted to...

Value and Purpose - 2018 Resolutions

I am not a shrink, nor do I intend to become one. I do feel one of the biggest issues facing our great nation is the value of the individual. The value and the purpose we feel as individuals and how we can be of value in an ever...

Procrastination

Procrastination -- a word that we all seem to know a lot about. As human beings we procrastinate on a lot of things. Some of us procrastinate getting out of bed to work out. Some of us procrastinate calling that loved one that you know...

Cannon Falls School Calendar

Cannon Falls Schools Calendar

The Best Version of You

I've been reading a book that speaks about taking advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. Many of those opportunities can be camouflaged as major challenges but, those who jump in and tackle the challenge with their...

Help

We all have our own struggles. Things we need help with. Things we aren't good at. "I can handle it", we say. We internalize our struggles and won't even share them with those closest to us. We try to shoulder the burdens life throws...

Wait for it...wait for it...

Not sure about you but I pretty much stopped listening to the weather on the news. It is so hard for me to change my schedule and plan for the day based upon something that might happen. Something that they are predicting 3, 4 and 5...

Fair is not always equal

One of the things my kids hear me say from time to time is fair is not always equal. What I mean by that is, just because someone got something, doesn't mean that you're entitled to the same thing as they did. I think too often that we...

Two weeks becomes 20 years

I had a conversation with a client recently and he made a comment that stuck with me, 'We talked about doing this 20 years ago but never got around to it. I guess two weeks becomes 20 years pretty quickly.' In the financial planning...

You Will need It

I am not an Estate Planning attorney, but in helping people make educated decisions about money, one of the most common recommendations I have is to go talk to an estate planning attorney to write a Will and Last Testament. I’ve...

The Gift of being Present

The holiday season is a great time to be thankful for all we have. It is also a time to think about the things that are really important to us. In today's age of technology, connecting, media, etc... we can become very distant with...

Congratulations

I would like to congratulate Josh Hofstedt, his staff and the Bomber football team on a great season! The amount of time and effort from all of the individuals involved helped make the season a successful one. Many of the players and...

Life and Elections

Well....I'm about ready for this election to be over. How about you? The candidates have been posturing for almost two years and it's getting to be about enough if you ask me. The worst part is everyone seems to be voting against the...

Find Your Happy Place

Happy Gillmore is one of my all-time favorite comedies. A fun movie about a hockey player turned golfer. In that movie Happy’s coach, Chubbs, urges Happy to find his ‘happy place’. Happy then has a daydream about a...

No Fear

NO FEAR Back in the ‘90’s when I was growing up there was a t-shirt and brand called ‘No Fear’. Some of you may remember some of the phrases they sported. “Bottom of the 9th, down by three, bases loaded,...

The Only thing Constant is Change

Things in this world are changing, we can all recite things that we remember ‘back in the day’ as being better than they are today. Change has always been around. We’ve changed Presidents 44 times, our society has...

When Irrational Thoughts Take Over

Teenagers are sooooo Irrational. I have decided I am going to write a monthly blog page. The blog is going to be about things I encounter in my life of family, faith, baseball and finance. Most will be simple observations and how it...

Super Retirement

With the Super Bowl a recent memory and Peyton Manning being the winning quarterback, the topic of retirement is front and center on every news media outlet in the country. John Elway said something that really struck me. Obviously we...

Unconditional Gifts

A couple of weeks ago I had a client make a comment that made me think about the praise and gifts we give people. He was in a drive thru with his father-in-law and the car in front of him had paid their bill. As they drove away his...

Faith and Baseball

Before you read this I want to say a couple of things. First, I am not writing this to get in a debate with anyone or say look at me (and if you don’t agree just please keep scrolling or delete this post from your newsfeed). I...