Read Doug’s articles originally printed in The Jerusalem Post.
Profile Perspectives
Proper financial planning can change your relationship with money.
Do You Need an Emergency Fund?
Financial advisors suggest maintaining an emergency savings fund ranging from three to six months of non-discretionary expenses. Having a set amount set aside for emergencies protects your retirement savings, and helps you avoid going into serious debt when a fiscal crisis occurs. While it may be emotionally difficult to keep money in a liquid (read: not high-yielding account),… Read more
How Much it Will Cost You to Get Another Passport
Investors seeking growth and tax-advantageous investments often look to investing in a foreign country. While this is commonly done with foreign stocks or global mutual funds, there is an unusual trend in foreign investments among the world’s ultra-wealthy…moving to a foreign country.
Countries want wealthy new residents who will invest in their economies and hopefully create jobs…. Read more
Make Your Retirement Dream Lifestyle a Reality
Many aspects of retirement planning are based upon actuarial charts and life expectancy calculators that tell you how long the average person lives. It’s difficult to plan for a phase of your life based on an assumption that may or may not actualize. Even if the statistics were correct, they don’t take into account the chances of something unforeseen happening that may alter original projections…. Read more
A Free Tool for Making Better Investment Decisions
What’s missing when a motivational speaker tells you to visualize your goals? What’s missing is the “how”! People (hopefully) know about the importance of goal setting, but in fact, it’s much easier said than done. I’ve created an online tool that will help you make and achieve your goals…. Read more
How Chess Can Make You a Better Investor
How can chess, a game, help someone become a better investor?
The kind of thinking involved in winning a chess game is also extremely useful for many other aspects of life, including planning your finances. This is because both winning at chess and financial planning require tactical skills and similar behaviors…. Read more
The Retirement Budget
During your working years and “accumulation stage,” your salary helped define the size of your budget. But now, in retirement, with pensions replacing portions of your paycheck and the difference needed to be taken out of savings, your budget may need to be revised.
Meeting basic needs
Focus your attention on meeting the non-discretionary necessities of life…. Read more
Don’t Make These 4 Mistakes When Planning Your Retirement
As a CFP® professional who helps people handle their U.S. brokerage accounts from Israel, I’ve noticed four recurring mistakes people tend to make:
Over-diversifying
Diversification is an excellent financial strategy because it means that you are not relying on a single income stream. However, too much diversification can make it difficult to keep track of all of the different investments…. Read more
How Your Financial Decisions Are Biased and What You Should Do to Fix Them
When it comes to the world of investing, what you don’t know can hurt you. Michael Roberto, author of Know What You Don’t Know, explained the ramifications of unawareness to me when we spoke on The Goldstein on Gelt Show. Mr. Roberto explained,… Read more
How to Protect Yourself When You Get Old
When a person starts to lose his mental faculties, this affects how he handles his money. Chronic forgetfulness and a lack of reasoning can lead to financial disaster. Worse still, vulnerable seniors are targets for financial fraudsters because their impaired thinking makes them less cautious and more trusting. Examples include:
–… Read more
Why Transferring Money Could Be Expensive
When it comes to transferring money, the big question is often whether to use a licensed money changer or go to the bank. Rather than recommend one over the other, I’ll just explain what I’ve learned over the years as a financial planner who helps people in Israel with their U.S…. Read more
