Building Wealth

How Much Money to Put in Your Emergency Fund

Emergency funds. Everyone has heard of them, and most of us know we need to have cash ready for...

Investing

Stock Market Correction Update

Stock markets have been choppy lately, with the S&P 500 off more than 10% from its highs. A decline...

Plan For Life

What You Need to Know About Estate Planning

Developing and executing an estate plan is rarely at the top of anyone’s to-do list, but it’s one...

Investing

Our Advice in a Stock Market Swoon

We know that when markets drop it can be hard to stomach. As our Co-Chief Investment Officer, Peter...

Building Wealth

The Top Five Benefits of Investing in a 401(k)

On average, Social Security replaces around 40% of income for retirees, and even less for high...

Plan For Life

Zestimate Your Home Value in BrightPlan

Your home is one of the biggest investments you’ll ever own, and that makes it a key part of your...

Building Wealth

The Best Way to Repay Your Debt: Debt Snowball or Debt Avalanche?

There are usually two ways to get to where you’re going, right? One may be the direct route on the...

Achieving Goals

BrightPlan Founder Marthin De Beer Nominated for Innovator of the Year

Sometimes it has to get personal to force thinking outside the box. Marthin De Beer had become...

Building Wealth

The Most Common 401(k) Mistakes People Make - And How to Fix Them

As a Retirement Plan Advisor for Plancorp, I spend a lot of my days talking to retirement plan...

Building Wealth

Savings Rate or Rate of Return? How to Focus Your Attention for Long-Term Financial Success

As a young professional, one of the best pieces of advice I received was to save and invest 15% of...

Plan For Life

How an Emergency Fund Helped Me Land My Dream Job

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." Amen to that, Forrest...

Plan For Life

7 Ways an Emergency Fund Makes You Wealthier

A rainy day fund. A safety net. There are many titles for an emergency fund, but you can consider...

Building Wealth

The Secret to Using Money to Buy Happiness

I’m always excited about getting a new iPhone.

Plan For Life

Student Loan Repayment, Simplified

Graduating from college is a fun and exciting time of life. For most students, this time also means...

Plan For Life

How to Automate Your Finances in 5 Easy Steps

Remember in high school when you had to read The Odyssey? Homer’s epic told the story of Odysseus’...

Investing

Reduce Investing Anxiety by Focusing on This One Value

The first time I went deep-sea fishing I learned a valuable lesson about focus. A few miles out to...

Building Wealth

What You Need to Understand About Owning Bonds

Interest rates have been on the rise since 2013, but the latest move by the 10-year U.S. Treasury...

Building Wealth

Going Global: Olympic Lessons in Investing

 If you’re like me, the wrap up of this year’s Olympic games left you wondering: What do I watch on...

Achieving Goals

How to Prevent Lifestyle Creep

If you place your hand in a bowl of lukewarm water and start heating it, you’re unlikely to notice...

Achieving Goals

5 Advantages of Using Mutual Funds to Invest for Your Goals

I’ve always been a fan of simplicity. One of my goals in founding Plancorp in 1983 was to simplify...

Building Wealth

Court of Appeals Invalidates Fiduciary Rule. Is Your Advisor Putting You First?

I am thrilled that the fiduciary rule continues to be in the news. Sure, the Court's opinion is...

Plan For Life

How and Why I Gave My Four-Year-Old an Allowance

Last month, I started giving my four-year-old son an allowance.

Building Wealth

Women Are Better Savers than Men. Here's Why We Need to Invest, Too.

Picture yourself holding a crisp $100 bill in your hand. What sounds more appealing?

Achieving Goals

"DON'T PANIC." How I Stayed Calm When Stocks Fell

Last week SpaceX launched their first Falcon Heavy Rocket, releasing Elon Musk’s cherry-red...

Building Wealth

What to Do When the Stock Market Drops

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 entered “correction territory,” meaning...

Achieving Goals

7 Reasons to Choose a Goals-Based Financial Plan

In many areas of our lives, the importance of goal-setting seems obvious. If you go on a diet, you...

Achieving Goals

5 Reasons to Open an IRA and Max it Out Every Year

The Individual Retirement Account (IRA) is perhaps the best retirement savings tool.

Achieving Goals

4 Steps to Improve Your Finances in 2018

The New Year brings with it new resolutions for self-improvement. Many people want to improve their...

Plan For Life

Is There Such a Thing as "Good" Debt?

Have you ever eaten too many donut holes? The first two or three send you to heaven. But as you eat...

Building Wealth

Keep This Much Cash in Savings and Not a Penny More

People say that cash is king, but they don’t always give their cash the royal treatment it...

Building Wealth

Year-End Tax Tips in Light of Tax Reform

This post was co-written with Wealth Manager Scott Ngo, CFP®, CPA, PFS The end of the year is...

Building Wealth

Should You Invest in Bitcoin?

The frenzy around cryptocurrencies only goes up by the day. All the excitement drives everyone from...

Plan For Life

How to Set Up Your Emergency Fund

Your emergency fund can help you cover the cost of life’s unpleasant surprises like medical bills,...

Plan For Life

Your Financial Advisor Should Put You First

Did you know not all financial professionals are required to work in your best interest? It sounds...

Building Wealth

Selecting Stars from the Investment Universe

There are 27,000 mutual funds, ETFs, and hedge funds available in the United States. Despite the...

Plan For Life

8 Reasons to Start Planning Your Next Vacation Right Now

In this always-on economy, taking time off to relax, rest and recharge has never been more vital to...

Achieving Goals

BrightPlan Launches, Bringing Fiduciary Advice to Everyone

After a venturous couple of years and many late nights and long weekends, I’m pleased to announce...

Achieving Goals

Spending Too Much? Here's What to Do

What do you think is the most common problem people have in the process of building wealth? 

Achieving Goals

How Much Can I Afford?

One of the most frequent questions I get from friends and family is, "How much can I afford to...

Plan For Life

To Educate, Not Sell

In an industry where most are focused on driving sales and pitching products, investors have a...

Building Wealth

How Good is My 401(k) Plan?

When I meet with clients, I’m always amazed by the huge differences in quality between retirement...

Building Wealth

Where to Save for Retirement

One of the trickier decisions when saving for retirement is determining which accounts to...

Achieving Goals

Planning for College Costs: A Roadmap

Whether you’re a parent, grandparent or student, the phrase “college tuition” comes with some...

Achieving Goals

Reverse Budgeting: How To Create A Budget That Actually Works

What if budgeting was quick rather than time consuming. Simple, not complex. Imagine a budget you...

Building Wealth

Should You Invest or Pay Down Debt?

BrightPlan is all about helping you set and achieve life and financial goals. As we prioritize...

Achieving Goals

How I Paid Off $28,000 of Student Loan Debt in 2 Years

I graduated from college in Spring of 2013 with dreams, a degree, and some serious debt. $27,993.86...

Building Wealth

4 Bad Reasons to Buy A Home

Economic commentators spent the last several years lamenting the fact that Millennial homeownership...

Building Wealth

Are You Financially Fit? Answer These Questions to Find Out

Until recently I couldn’t have told you how many steps I walked, how many calories I burned, or my...

Building Wealth

7 Ways To Relieve Financial Stress

In the American Psychological Association’s annual study on stress, the financial variety has...

Building Wealth

Stop Checking Your Investment Portfolio

Quit looking at your portfolio. You’ll be happier, and perhaps even wealthier over the long term....

Plan For Life

Announcement: Prumentum Group Raises $25M Series A

We marked an exciting milestone for Prumentum Group as we announced the close of a $25 Million...

Building Wealth

Three Critical Choices for Successful Investing

This is the final post of a series on the BrightPlan investment philosophy, our game plan to help...

Building Wealth

The Smart Way to Fund Your Future

This post is part of a series on the BrightPlan investment philosophy, our game plan to help you...

Plan For Life

Stop Obsessing About Making More Money, Focus on This Instead

Quora is an online community devoted to “bringing together people from different worlds to answer...

Plan For Life

Is it Possible to Enjoy Life Now and Still Save for Later?

Late in 2015, Elite Daily author Lauren Martin ignited a controversy with her blog post entitled,...

Building Wealth

What Should I Do With My Tax Refund?

Last year the IRS processed roughly 150 million tax returns, giving refunds to 73% of filers. The...

Plan For Life

Planning Ahead for Multiple Decades of Retirement

As life expectancy has increased the reality of retirement has changed dramatically. When the...

Building Wealth

Let the Market Work For You

Our first two investment philosophy posts outlined core tenets of our investment approach:

Building Wealth

Introduction to Evidence Based Investing

The next few posts outline BrightPlan’s core tenets in our investment philosophy; our playbook for...

Building Wealth

Don’t Try to Outguess the Market

In our first investment philosophy post we discussed the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The EMH leads...

Plan For Life

How Can Millennials Save More for Retirement?

Millennials face tough challenges when it comes to saving for retirement. The generation in their...

Achieving Goals

How to Actually Follow Through with Your Goals

It’s impossible to ignore the fact that people often have trouble following through with their...

Building Wealth

The First Question You Need to Ask Your Investment Advisor

Before ever investing with an investment advisor it’s important to know he or she has your best...

Building Wealth

One New Habit Could Change Your Financial Future

A few weeks into a New Year, I’ve taken stock of what I accomplished last year and how I hope to...

Giving Back

How to Change a Life - 5 Reasons to Give on #GivingTuesday

What is #GivingTuesday?

Achieving Goals

10 Inspiring Life Goals and the Awesome Bloggers Behind Them

We scoured the Internet and found inspirational bloggers who have undertaken audacious life goals....

Achieving Goals

The Day I Discovered the Beauty of Goal Setting

Growing up, much of our life is spent on someone else’s schedule. Each step of the path is often...

Building Wealth

How to Make a Financial Plan That Actually Works

Money management has never been a more fluid enterprise. We can now easily split a bill between...

Achieving Goals

Why Getting Inspired is the Critical First Step Toward Reaching Your Goals

Recently my wife Jordan and I were talking about one of my favorite topics: investing. As I...

Achieving Goals

To Reach Your Goals, Take Them One Step at a Time

After getting inspired to tackle your big goals, it is easy to become overwhelmed and distracted...

Achieving Goals

What We CAN’T Learn From Olympians

I am a self-professed Olympics nerd. I just spent (17) days watching the Olympics morning and night...

Plan For Life

How To Create A Simple And Effective Life Plan

A Life Plan is the foundation for your financial plans, driving how you need to spend, save, and...

Building Wealth

Have a Plan to Boost Your Investment Returns

When it comes to investment returns, it seems everyone wants to pick the perfect portfolio,...

Achieving Goals

Why Goal Setting May Be The Surest Route To Achieving Your Dreams

Some people just seem to have a knack for accomplishing whatever they set out to do, whether it’s...

Plan For Life

The Top 5 Benefits Of Having A Financial Plan

Ever been curious about how much money you’ll earn over the course of your lifetime? The United...