The Silhouette Group

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The Silhouette Group now takes appointments on their Page.

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65% of Americans save little or nothing.

Surprise expenses can present financial stress on those who aren’t prepared for the unexpected. Budgeting with partitions can help to eliminate that stress, by helping you separate your money and save little by little.

Budget your money, your way.
Organize your cash into customized needs and goals—like rent, groceries, and an emergency fund—so you can stay on top of every dollar.

Keep in mind, this quarantine period is not only a great opportunity for businesses to restructure, but individuals as well.

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With so much risk and uncertainty with what comes next, you have every reason to both worry about tomorrow and to make plans to help protect your family as best you can. To help on the money front, here are six corona-virus fighting tips for your finances that can get you in a better spot to handle what may come next.

1. File your taxes electronically and get your refund direct deposited: Although the tax filing and payment deadline for your 2019 Federal income taxes has been extended to July 15, that extension really only helps the people who still owe taxes and expect to pay. If you expect you'll get a refund, waiting only serves to keep you and your money separated that much longer.

In addition to simply filing your taxes, do it electronically if you can. The IRS typically expects it will take around three weeks after you electronically file a return to get your refund electronically deposited. Contrast that with around the six to eight weeks it takes for a paper filing and mailed refund check to work its way through the system, and operating electronically will get you your cash back much faster.

2. Adjust your withholding's to reduce next year's refund
In addition to filing quickly to get your 2019 refund, remember that for most of us, a tax refund is simply you getting money back that you had overpaid to the IRS over the past year. If you get a regular paycheck and have taxes withheld during the year, you can reduce those withholding's now to get closer to break even when you file your taxes next year. File IRS Form W-4 (or your employer's substitute) with your employer's payroll to request the adjustment for yourself.

The IRS doesn't expect you to get your withholding's perfect throughout the year, just to get close enough to avoid penalties, and then true up any differences by the filing deadline. There are three basic "safe harbor" tests that the IRS uses to determine whether you're close enough. As long as you pass any of them from your paycheck withholding's, you're good enough to avoid penalties by settling in full anything you may still owe when it comes time to file. Those tests are:

If you're within $1,000 of your total taxes owed through your withholding's. If you've had at least 90% of what you owe for the year withheld. If you've had at least 100% of what you owed for the previous year withheld (110% if you're considered high income).
By adjusting your withholding's to reduce what comes out of each paycheck (but still staying within one of those safe harbor rules), you put more money in your pocket every payday.

3. Cancel any recurring charges or subscriptions you don't need: These days, it's really easy to sign up for a service that automatically bills your credit card every month or quarter, and then simply not think about the charge again. Especially in this time of uncertainty, though, it makes a ton of sense to scrub through every expense you have and cut out the ones you no longer need. Ones that generate automatic charges can be low-hanging fruit to cut that can quickly improve your cash flow, particularly if they're for things you don't really need.

4. Redirect "extra" cash toward topping off your emergency fund: An emergency fund is something you hope you never have to dip into, but if you do wind up needing it, you'll be very glad you have. As a good rule of thumb, you should target having around three to six months of living expenses in an emergency fund invested in nothing riskier than cold, hard cash in an FDIC-insured account. The key exception to having that well stocked of an emergency fund is if you're actively paying off high-interest debt such as a credit card.

If there's an upside to being limited in where you can go and what you can spend your money on, it's that any money you still have coming in may last longer than it would in normal times. That gives you the opportunity to beef up your emergency fund to get you closer to that three to six month buffer. If you're particularly nervous about an extended stretch of unemployment, you can look to be toward the higher end of that target.

5. Consider taking your dividend payments as cash: As many companies suspend their dividends to conserve cash, it's a sign that they're expecting the fallout from the corona-virus mitigation efforts to last longer than their own cash reserves would. That's a pretty good signal to you that they don't think this ends quickly and that their own financiers aren't too keen to lend them money while this mess is going on. If major companies are affected to that extent that quickly, then what chance do we mere individual employees and small investors have?

Still, not every company has suspended its dividend. If you happen to own investments that are continuing to pay their dividends, now might be a great time to collect those dividends as cash instead of reinvesting them. While that does mean you might be a bit less efficient in your compounding, the benefit of cash is that, well, it's cash.

If the market continues to fall or the economy takes a while to restart, every dollar of your cash will still be worth exactly $1.00. If you need to, you can withdraw and spend cash from your brokerage account almost as easily as you can from your checking account. If you don't need to spend it, you can use it to bargain hunt in the market's wreckage for companies whose shares may have been wrongly discarded.

Even if your existing investments do snap back quickly, the beauty of dividends is that they give you cash without having to sell your existing shares. Those existing shares will still participate in the rebound. While you'd miss out on a bit of the compounding you'd get through automatic reinvestment, it's a small price to pay for having that much better of a cash buffer in the middle of a crisis.

6. Keep your eye on your investments' balance sheets
For the companies you own to survive this shutdown, it's not enough to have a business model that works well in a thriving economy. It has to have a strong enough asset allocation plan of its own to enable it to have the money to pay its own bills when times are tight.

Like all of us, companies have bills to pay, and many of those bills can have nasty consequences if they don't get paid on time and in full. In particular, if a company defaults on its debt, the debt holders take priority over the shareholders. In some circumstances, those debt holders can actually take control of the company from its shareholders in the event of a serious enough default.

You don’t buy it you apply for it.
We were never taught properly. The best time to APPLY is young and healthy. Life insurance is not for grandma it’s for people who have others that depend on your income. It’s income insurance. You don’t need income insurance, your family needs you to have it. It is the foundation of financial planning and the most important product you will ever own.

And now covid-19! Life will happen to you or someone you know. Question is are you prepared? Can you make it on your own if you had to? Dont allow yourself to be in a position where your not READY. Let's prepare you for all the curve balls life can throw. PM me and let's get started on You today!

At TSG, you work with a dedicated CFP Professional – not a call center – on what’s important to you. We provide a complimentary goal setting and financial analysis session with a CFP Professional to make sure we understand how we can help you. We seek to show the world — our clients, the financial services industry, and ourselves — what is possible with the next generation of financial life management. The tools that we build and the services that we provide tangibly improve people’s lives.

How quickly things change.
Just a week or so ago, we heard about Coronavirus but it was more of a TV event. Now—if your city is like mine—things have become very real, with school closures, emergency declarations, and empty shelves where bread and meat used to be.
I'm guessing you've received a dozen emails from companies telling you to make sure you wash your hands for at least 20 seconds and avoid crowds. That's all good advice. That's not what this email is about.
I'm writing you to give you my perspective on being a real estate investor during troubling times. RE Mentor was a thriving company before the Great Recession of 2009. We then were one of the very few real estate companies that operated right through that dark period and emerged stronger than ever, along with our students across the country.
I know a dark period when I see it, and it's possible that we're entering another one. I don't sugar-coat things. I could be wrong, but virus pandemics can sweep across the world regardless of how advanced we think our technology has become.
If all of this blows over soon, then great. But if it does not, I have a message for you:
If you're an apartment investor (or are working to become one), then you play a vital role when times get tough.
In those times, apartments are a refuge for people who need a roof over their heads. Jobs come and go, and so do nice houses. All the while, an apartment is a basic, fundamental necessity for surviving as a person or family in tough times. Apartment owners provide this human dignity to other people.
This is all to say that I tip my hat to you for being involved in the honorable and important service that you provide to other folks in the most-unusual times we live in.
Let's be honest: it's great to make money through apartment investing. Nothing wrong with that. But when times get tough, it's even greater to also provide the refuge that keeps families together, and keeps them moving in the direction of weathering a difficult period.You should be proud.

-Michael Isom, The SIlhouette Group

Federal Reserve cuts rates to zero to support the economy during the coronavirus pandemic In a bold, emergency action to support the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve on Sunday announced it would cut its target interest rate near zero.

Friends and Family, I recommend we use this free time to get life in order.

More specifically, let's explore and discover where we can free up some of your money.

You know, simple things like shopping your insurance companies... home, auto, renters, health, etc to see where we can free-up a few dollars by making a couple quick phone calls.

Let's look at your credit card debts and loans to see where we can consolidate to lower interest rates.

If you have some money saved... where can we move it to never lose no matter what the housing or stock market does?

If you own a home and/or have children and don't have enough protection to cover your responsibilities should something happen to you... let's see and compare your options.

If you don't have money flowing into all 3 tax buckets, let's work on diversifying your taxes to make sure you are prepared in 10-20-30 years out when your retirement savings are due for taxes.

Regrettably, this is simple stuff that most people avoid more than doctor visits.

Now is the time to get this done while we're on recess.

PM and let's set up a time to chat.

The Silhouette Group updated their website address.

The Silhouette Group updated their business hours.