At Creekmur Wealth Advisors, our job is to design unique strategies that help our clients reach their goals in the most efficient manner possible. However, despite our best efforts to plan for the future, sometimes life steps in and throws us a curveball. Experiencing a catastrophic life event could quickly derail an otherwise effective plan and leave us scrambling to pick up the pieces.

Much of the material available regarding personal finances is directed towards W-2 workers, or what we would consider a traditional “employee.” This makes sense, research from 2019 showed that roughly 72% of Americans are traditional employees.¹ But, the other 28% of our working population has some specific financial planning needs as well. Today we want to touch on a few tips to help self-employed workers keep their financial house in order.

Here at Creekmur Wealth we're really focused on goals based planning. Our goal is to help each of our clients fulfill their goals for the future they envision for themselves. We call it True Wealth - All the things in life that money cannot buy.

It's time to “get your financial house in order.” But, what exactly does that mean? 

There's a lot that goes into the process of getting your finances in order, but the first step is to be sure your financial house is built on a solid foundation. This means that you have six fundamental pillars (accounts) in place that are designed for sustaining your financial well-being and creating wealth. 

As students of Behavioral Finance (how people make money decisions), we've witnessed a trend toward self-directed investing and financial planning. Some recent studies point to the fact that a growing number of investors prefer managing their financial interests without professional assistance.

It’s Spring! With the change of seasons comes everyone’s favorite time – Spring Cleaning. At our home we have been busy outside doing a Spring clean up in our yard & garden areas. As we clean and prune and plant new seeds, very quickly we start to see fresh new growth. It’s always exciting to anticipate the flowers and vegetables that we will enjoy in the months to come.

As students of Behavioral Finance (how people make money decisions), we've witnessed a trend toward self-directed investing and financial planning. Some recent studies point to the fact that a growing number of investors prefer managing their financial interests without professional assistance.

Are you a risk-taker or do you play it safe? Do you jump out of airplanes for fun or is getting an extra serving of sprinkles on your soft serve your idea of risk? Each of us can look at our behaviors and determine whether the life we lead is high-flying risky or plain-vanilla safe. But can we do the same for our investments? Can you look at the stocks or funds you own and get a good idea of how risky your portfolio is? The answer is probably no.

Financial planning is a huge part of what we do here at Creekmur Wealth Advisors, so it's no surprise that tax planning is one area we spend a lot of time working in. When I talk about tax planning I am not talking about filling out and submitting your tax return every April 15^th. Filing your taxes is necessary, but it's reactive or backward-looking. Tax planning, on the other hand, is a forward-looking, comprehensive approach to reducing lifetime taxes and increasing overall after-tax wealth.

Even the most seasoned investors are prone to their influence.

Investors are routinely warned about allowing their emotions to influence their decisions. However, they are less routinely cautioned about their preconceptions and biases that may color their financial choices.

In a battle between the facts & biases, our biases may win. If we acknowledge this tendency, we may be able to avoid some unexamined choices when it comes to personal finance. It may actually "pay" to recognize blind spots and biases with investing. Here are some common examples of bias creeping into our financial lives.