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In honor of Military Appreciation Month, we recognize those in the military and their families. Military members and their families face one-of-a-kind challenges, such as deployment to conflict zones, overseas assignments, and the constancy of change – all of which make dedicating time to personal finance a challenge. Luckily, there are special tax breaks and other benefits unique to service members. Follow these five tips to take advantage of potential benefits and simplify your military family’s personal finances. Tip #1:

One of the biggest challenges of planning for retirement is figuring out how much you can spend during your golden years. Retirement income planning requires careful preparation, and budgeting. A popular retirement income planning guideline is the 4% rule, which suggests that you live off 4% of your total investments during the first year of retirement. Then, you readjust every year in retirement based on your changing needs and inflation. But does this rule hold up? Is the 4% rule

Did you know that April is Financial Literacy Month? Financial Literacy Month is a national campaign designed to bring more financial education to both children and adults. Whether you’re a financial wiz or just learning the ropes, there are many ways to improve your financial literacy. Here are four to get you started. Make a Monthly Budget One of the most important steps in ensuring financial success is creating a monthly budget. This may sound simple, but a budget is

Spring is an ideal time to clean up your finances, clear out the clutter, and get a fresh start. Maybe you have extra money left over at the end of the month and could use a budget tweak. Perhaps you have too many automatic expenses, or it’s time to apply the brakes to your credit card spending. Whatever the reason may be, consider the following seven suggestions to get a better handle on your finances this spring season. Clean Up

March Madness is almost here, and as many of us know, the season highlight for college basketball fans is often full of upsets, underdogs, and blowouts. Like investing, filling out a bracket involves balancing risk, reward, and expectations, and winning a pool requires a bit of luck along the way. Here are a few lessons from March Madness that we can apply to the world of investing. Lesson #1: Forget Perfection, Position Yourself Strategically The odds of filling out the

A lot has happened with student loan forgiveness in the US. In fact, the movement surrounding the topic started over a decade ago! Here, we provide a brief timeline of events that have happened over the past year or so regarding student loan forgiveness. January 2021 President Joe Biden was inaugurated into office on January 20, 2021. According to Politifact, a website by the Poynter Institute, one of Biden’s promises was to forgive student loan debt from public colleges and

While doing your taxes always feels a bit tedious, these five tips can help you stay the course for filing your 2022 tax return. Tip #1: Leverage Technology If you are filing without the help of an accountant or advisor, you may find it beneficial to use tax preparation software. You can input the information, and the software can populate the numbers for you. Utilizing software can help you meet compliance requirements and help streamline the process, which in turn

January is Financial Wellness Month, which means it’s a good time to remind people to plan and update their financial strategy. Now is a great time to connect with your Patriot advisor to discuss your financial situation and aspirations for the future. You should also assess if your financial strategy needs any adjustments or changes based on your lifestyle. Defining Financial Wellness The first thing to do is define what “financial wellness” means for you. This varies drastically from person

In the final days of 2022, Congress passed a new set of retirement rules designed to make it easier to contribute to retirement plans and access those funds earmarked for retirement. The law is called SECURE 2.0, and it’s a follow-up to the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, passed in 2019. The sweeping legislation has dozens of significant provisions, so to help you see what changes may affect you, we broke the major provisions of the