A sales force of more than 100 agents allegedly cold-called thousands of prospective investors with sleek, scripted pitches for shares in the most exclusive private tech companies in the world, including SpaceX, Anduril, Anthropic, and Perplexity. Investors paid on average 46% more for their positions than Spaventa’s own companies paid to get them, the SEC alleged.
An interesting article about investors carrying too much cash was in the Wall Street Journal. Here are five elements that put the issue of how much cash you should be carrying into a broader perspective.
According to a recent survey, More than half of workers — 55% — do not have enough savings set aside to cover a $500 emergency expense. The results found that 41% of respondents said they had skipped a necessary expense such as medical care, food or car repairs because they did not have enough savings to cover it.
Should you spend your money on retirement or give it to your kids? Here’s the secret to a more enriching retirement may start with abandoning your zero-sum thinking.
Many people believe that working for yourself means unlimited flexibility. Calling the shots is far better than having no autonomy in a job you hate. But “owning your time” isn’t always the fantasy it’s made out to be either. All of your problems in life don’t magically go away when you run the show — they just change.
The best financial plan is the one you will follow through on. Spreadsheets optimize for expected value assuming perfect discipline. Tossing to the curb factors like emotions risk tolerance and behavioral triggers because they don’t fit nicely on a spreadsheet is a dangerous game to play.
The SEP IRA needs a new publicist. It does not have a podcast and it is not trending on TikTok. It’s a freelancer and business owners best and easiest way to save for retirement. It lowers your tax bill. It moves money into retirement. It requires minimal effort.
Tax-sheltered accounts, especially company retirement plans, are “the easy button” for savers just starting out. They offer incentives such as matching contributions and tax breaks; contributions go in on autopilot; the money compounds without incurring taxes; and participants may even be automatically enrolled in an age-appropriate target-date fund if they don’t make an active choice.
Marriage brings together two pasts, two sets of values, two families, and two visions for what the future looks like. Surprises around these topics usually aren’t good. Here are six conversations you need to have before saying “I do.”
Women increasingly don’t need a man to financially provide for them. They do, however, want someone who contributes something meaningful to the life they’re building. The question underneath all of this is pretty simple: If I’m earning the money and planning the future and managing the house and doing the emotional labor, what exactly is your job here?
The term “lifestyle creep” refers negatively to any decision that permanently increases your spending. Upgrading a home or car are classic examples, as are raising your dining and travel standards. But using money to improve your life isn’t a mistake that delays arrival at a finish line; it’s the whole point of the journey.
Upcoming Event
Should You Kill the Loans or Feed the Brokerage Account?
Pull the numbers from the class of 2005 and the whole debate looks different. Median education debt that year ran $100,000 for public school graduates and $135,000 for private, carried at interest rates of 2.82%. A physician finishing residency in 2008 was servicing cheap money. Stretching that loan out over twenty years while dumping cash into an index fund wasn’t just defensible, it was obviously correct, and most of the advice floating around physician forums today still carries the fingerprints of that era.
Now check what your junior partner is holding. Grad PLUS loans went out at 8.94% for the 2025-26 academic year. Same profession, roughly triple the borrowing cost. Paying that down is a guaranteed, tax-free 8.94% return with zero drawdown risk, which is a hurdle most portfolios will struggle to clear after taxes and fees.
Here’s what makes it messier than a simple rate comparison. 57.6% of 2025 graduates said they intend to pursue federal forgiveness. If you’re genuinely on that track, aggressive principal payments burn money. If you’re not, and you’re trickling into a taxable account while sitting on nine percent paper, you’ve got the same error running backward.
Then there’s the piece no calculator prices. I know physicians who chose the mathematically worse route, killed the loans, and finally slept through the night.
Tuesday, August 25 at 2:30 PM ET, I’m sitting down with Adam Braunscheidel, CFP, Senior Wealth Advisor at Earned, to work through rapid payoff versus long-term investing, refinancing, where PSLF still fits, and how tax-advantaged accounts shift the arithmetic.
Bring your actual rate. Not the one you assume you have.
