From debt payment to investments to long-term saving, getting the help of a financial advisor to address your financial profile can allow you to target a course of action to fulfill your needs and help you make significant progress towards achieving your financial goals. A financial advisor is a professional who offers guidance and services specific to the financial circumstances of their clients. This means that regardless of your financial needs or situation, a financial advisor will help work with you individually on your own financial profile. 

In retirement saving, as with many other forms of long term financial planning, understanding and mapping out what portion of your financial profile will be devoted to your savings is crucial. Although different savers have different needs and different levels of understanding of how this long-term planning should go, it’s always useful to enlist the aid of a financial advisor (or, as it pertains to retirement savings, a retirement advisor), who can provide individualized guidance and input on how this process should go. Selecting an advisor who will fulfill your needs and help you meet your retirement goals can help you make a big step towards your future, so considering your circumstances and the services offered by the retirement advisor is imperative.   

Saving for retirement often requires the structure of long-term planning: strategies that will allow you to make the most of your savings while utilizing tax advantages. This kind of framework is taken care of by IRAs, or Individual Retirement Accounts. An IRA is a form of retirement plan that provides tax advantages for retirement savings, giving savers the economic benefits that will allow them to reach their saving goals efficiently. 

We recently celebrated my daughter’s 4th birthday and I think she is finally at the age where she can begin to understand the concept of money, and what it should (and shouldn’t) be used for. For her birthday, while her grandparents got her the toys she REALLY wanted, I went the practical route and got her these “piggy” banks and a couple of children’s books on being smart with your money.

This is part 1 of a 3-part series on readying yourself to purchase real estate.

It is never too early to start teaching your kids about saving and investing. Here's a straightforward article written by Geoff Williams of U.S. News & World Report on how to do just that.