Phil Gephart - Financial Representative

Reach out if you need some help figuring out the best savings plan for your family.

Savings Plans for College — 6 Options to Consider When it comes to saving for your child’s college education, you may have a wide range options. Here are six of the best ones.

These simple steps can help set you up for a strong 2024.

A Retiree’s End-of-Year Financial Checklist A financial checkup is important to keeping your retirement and finances in balance. To get started, here’s an end-of-year financial checklist for retirees.

Switching employers or health insurance plans can be a confusing exercise—especially when trying to figure out how to get the best value. Reach out if you need help understanding how elements of your plan, like an HSA or FSA, will work together.

What’s the Difference Between an HSA and an FSA? At first, an FSA and HSA may seem very similar, but there are some differences you need to know.

Imagine what you could do with a little extra savings. I’ve got some ideas, too!

Want to Save More? Take the 52-Week Money Challenge If you’re up for a challenge, here’s how you could save an extra $1,300 this year.

These ideas could help you avoid overspending.

10 Ways to Save on Back-to-School Shopping You may need to get creative to stretch your back-to-school shopping budget this year. These pro tips can help.

Want to feel better? Have stronger friendships? A new survey finds that people who report better health and stronger friendships are also working with a financial advisor and planning their finances. Please reach out if you’d like to get started.

The Link Between Your Money and Your Health People who work with an advisor feel better about many aspects of their lives.

401(k)s are one of the most popular ways to save for retirement. But they’re just one tool. Reach out if you’d like to learn more about how a 401(k) works with your broader financial plan.

What Is a 401(k)? A 401(k) is a great tool to help you save for retirement.

Taking stock of your budget at the midyear point is a great way to keep tabs on your fiscal health.

Do a Midyear Budget Checkup Assessing your current spending in these 6 areas of your budget can help you make any needed adjustments. Then you can focus on what matters most.

People who report feeling more confident about aspects of their financial lives all have one key thing in common.

Financially Confident People Have This in Common New research finds a common thread among people who report being more financially confident.

The latest Northwestern Mutual research finds Americans making more progress in paying down their debts. While debt may seem bad, it isn’t always. Please reach out if you’d like to talk about your financial plan and check out these strategies to manage debt.

How to Manage Your Debt Debt can be a burden, but it can also be a great financial tool if you’re managing it well.

Assessing one component of your financial plan each month is a great way to keep tabs on your fiscal health.

Your Midyear Financial Checkup This checklist can help you make sure your finances are on track for the rest of the year. Here’s what to assess for the next 6 months.

Permanent life insurance can be an important part of your retirement plan. Please reach out if you’d like to talk about your retirement plan.

How Permanent Life Insurance Works When You Retire While it may seem like your need for life insurance diminishes in retirement, the opposite is actually true. Learn how to use life insurance in your retirement planning.

"Two-thirds (67%) of U.S. adults expect the economy will enter into recession later this year..."
Those are the findings of the 2023 "Northwestern Mutual Planning & Progress Study". This has led 64% of respondants to cut costs, 50% to build up savings, and 41% to postpone large expenses until the economy is on more stable footing.

Some other fascinating and interesting data emerged as well. See for yourself.
http://spr.ly/6180OCfs6

Newsroom | Northwestern Mutual - Planning & Progress Study 2023 The 2023 Planning & Progress Study, an annual research study from Northwestern Mutual, explores U.S. adults’ attitudes and behaviors toward money, financial decision-making, and the broader issues impacting people’s long-term financial security.

The amount you have in savings is important, but how you’re saving can go a long way to help you get the most out of your money.

I’d love to schedule time to learn more about your situation and show you how some simple tweaks can help you get more out of your savings.

Here's What Americans Have Saved for Retirement by Age, and What They Think They’ll Need See how you stack up with your peers and what you can do to maximize your savings.

Roth IRAs are a great way to help minimize the amount you’ll owe in taxes over time. See more about how they work and please reach out if you have any questions or would like to discuss adding one to your financial plan.

What Is a Roth IRA? A Roth IRA is a great tool to help you save for retirement while minimizing taxes.

Getting enough into an emergency fund is a key financial step, but it’s important to look at how much you are saving in the context of your broader goals. Please reach out if you’d like help.

How Much Should I Save in an Emergency Fund? While it’s generally good to save six months’ worth of expenses, there are times when you may want to have more or less.

PSA: The IRS announced there is still $1.5 BILLION in UNCLAIMED tax return money from the 2019 tax year. And your ability to claim that money expires July 17th. If you have money out there don't miss out on your ability to collect.

And when you need advice on where to save that money - because I know you plan on saving that money - hit me up and let's have a conversation about it. Always happy to help.

Time running out to claim $1.5 billion in refunds for tax year 2019, taxpayers face July 17 deadline | Internal Revenue Service IR-2023-79, April 12, 2023 ― The IRS announced today that nearly 1.5 million people across the nation have unclaimed refunds for tax year 2019 but face a July 17 deadline to submit their tax return.

I had my first finance article published this past week. It lays out 3 specific rules to take control of your finances, especially if you are a younger professional. Master these basics and you'll never worry about finances in the future.

"The basics are the basics because they're the basics." - Charles Poliquin

Whether it's physical health or financial health mastering the basics will get you to a level of success that you will be happy with. It's a 4min read. Check it out! http://spr.ly/6182OsjQ8

3 Rules to Take Control of Your Finances By Phil Gephart Wouldn’t it be great if we could always learn from other people’s mistakes? Some of us were taught sound financial principles from our parents. I was taught how to shoot a basketball. While that opened doors for me to travel the world and share the

If you are looking for books for adoptive parents, my wife and I have really learned from, and enjoyed, these: "Primal Wound" is a must-read, in my opinion. "The Whole Brain Child" isn't specifically adoption-themed, but is fascinating and can really help you understand the brain of a child ... especially if you've already read "Primal Wound".
After those "The Connected Child" and "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wished Their Adoptive Parents Knew" really stood out to me.
Feel free to post - or ask for - a recommendation.

Have you noticed your credit card bill increasing lately? Well don't look now but it's about to go up again. The Fed raised interest rates another 25 basis points (0.25%) yesterday. These hikes usually impact your credit card interest in just 1-2 billing cycles

That means you're probably already paying more because of the previous hikes and just as summer hits you'll be paying a higher interest rate yet again.

Carrying that high interest debt can be highly damaging to you and your financial future.

If you don't have a plan in place to pay down your debt, now is the time to get smart and create one.

The Fed’s Latest Rate Hike Means Your Credit Card Debt Just Got More Expensive Credit card APRs already average above 20%. Pay off your balances as soon as you can to avoid even higher interest charges.

I was asked recently about adoption-themed children's books - these are some of our favorites. I especially like "We Chose You" (written by Tony Dungy and his wife) and "A Mother For Choco". My wife would say "A Mother For Choco" and "I Prayed For You".

There are others we have but for our family, these are many of the hits.
Do you have a favorite?
My next post I'll post our favorite books for adoptive parents.

In a recent study Limra found that just over half - only 52% - of American adults own life insurance. HALF! It's not the fun conversation of financial planning like wealth accumulation is .. but it's a necessary one.

If you are one of the 48% of Americans who don't have an active life insurance policy the questions you need to ask yourself are, which assets will your spouse have to sell to pay the bills? Will they be able to stay in your home or will they have to sell it for purely survival reasons?

Many people don't buy life insurance because they think it is unnecessary and expensive.

I showed a $250k term life insurance policy to a wife yesterday that only would cost them $13/month. This is an inexpensive solution that would be life-changing to her family should they ever have to file a claim.

If you have any questions about protecting your family in the event of an untimely death please ask me.

Were you like me in your 20's? You couldn't see past your nose? I heard a statistic today: 56.7% of people age 65 are debt free. Just 24 years ago, in 1999, that number was 76.2%. We are headed in the wrong direction.

Debt can cause significant stress. If can challenge, and even end, marriages. It can cause businesses to go under.

How are you structuring your debt to pay it off as fast as possible? How can you accelerate debt paydown?

Have you reviewed your budget lately for places you can freeze spending and be more aggressive at spending down debt?

Should you keep investing or focus on debt pay down?

Many questions to consider!

Are more turning blind eye to debt? | LinkedIn While fairly typical among young adults, the behavior is rising faster, say experts, leading to damaged credit and debt, which in turn could affect milestones such as buying a home.

Many of the people we work with have planned for this down market and tell us they have less anxiety because of the planning they have done.
If you want to be ready for the next down market, which happens every 4-5 years historically, send me a message to start the process. Regardless of your income, your goals or investible assets, we are happy to help.

With a Plan, You Don’t Need to Worry About Volatility in the Market While it’s never fun to watch your investments drop, you shouldn’t worry about volatility in the market if you have a long-term plan.

If you want to hear our personal story regarding our adoptions my wife has beautifully preserved much of the story on our public Facebook adoption page. You can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/clareandphiladopt/

As for being a financial planner, my wife and I have a passion to help and to serve. We also know the trials of fertility and adoptions having had 3 successful adoptions and 2 disruptions. We have won many grants as well as done several fundraisers.

When you add that experience to how my team and I help families plan for their future financially, it’s a win-win for adoptive families.

But I also want to help birth moms. Our 3 kid's birth moms are our HEROES!

If I can help alleviate birth mom's financial stress that will take one less thing off of their plate they need to manage .

These are two populations that most financial advisors tend to overlook as they are not high net worth “opportunities”. I want to help these families master the basics of their finances and not stress over the high cost of adoptions.

I also want to share how to win grants and what we did to pay virtually $0 out of pocket for 2 of our 3 adoptions.

If you know a family who has adopted or is looking to adopt, or know a gal who has made an adoption plan for her baby, I'm here to help.

Clare & Phil Adopt If someone you know is facing an unplanned pregnancy and considering an adoption plan, reach out ❤️🙏

Have you filed your taxes yet?
Here's that recommendation as well as some other timely tips for spring cleaning your finances. Sometimes small financial changes can make a big difference.

5 Ways to Improve Your Finances in March If you’re looking for 5 ways to improve your finances in March, here’s how you can lower your tax bill and prepare for homebuying season.

What salary transparency laws come into effect this year and will they affect you? See them here: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/29/new-salary-transparency-laws-going-into-effect-in-2023.html

Here are all the new salary transparency laws going into effect in 2023 Roughly 1 in 4 workers will live in a state or city where employers must list salary ranges on job ads.

Financial planning shouldn’t just be a conversation between client and advisor. It should be an enlightening discussion between parents, grandparents, kids and partners about their shared future.

Enlarge the conversation you are having. It can only help you and your family feel more comfortable and secure about your future as well as theirs. If you are unsure of where to begin or if you’re ready to start the discussion, I can help.

Financial Planning Should Be Intergenerational Overcoming the unspoken rule that money is too taboo a topic to discuss among family members is important going forward. The reality is that families, at some point, will need to be on the same page about wealth planning.

If you're part of that 35% what is the reason you have chosen not to work with an advisor?

Along these same lines, the average American thinks they need $1.2 million to retire comfortably yet those SAME Americans have only $259,000 at retirement.

This is a planning problem.

And it's fixable.

Our team is highly experienced. You can be sure we have someone who specializes in what you are dealing with and wanting to achieve in your lifetime.

Reach out and we'll set up a time to talk about what it is you are looking to accomplish and I'll pair you with the right person from our team of trusted advisors.