Invest in Knowledge

Picture this: Your wife or partner and you are driving along one day, rushing about to tackle the numerous errands you have planned for the busy morning. Back home, your two daughters are working to finalize their plans for a birthday party for their favorite uncle. Your errands take you all over town, and the Saturday morning traffic is starting to build. And then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, your car is struck in the passenger side, t-boned at a busy intersection. It all happens so fast; you have no time to think or react. You feel pain throughout your body, and you manage to look over into the passenger seat. Your wife is bleeding and not moving. The last thing you remember before you pass out is the distant sound of an ambulance siren.

Your daughters arrive at the local hospital and are ushered quickly to the emergency room. They find you in a condition that no one ever wants to see. The doctors explain to your daughters the severity of your conditions and that some difficult decisions will have to be made regarding treatment. He then asks, “Who has the authority to make medical decisions on behalf of your parents?” The girls look at each other, confused, and ask the doctor, “What do you mean; what are you talking about?” The doctor tells your daughters that there is a chance that your wife and you may never resume consciousness and that someone will have to make medical decisions on your behalf. “Do your parents have a health care POA or a living will?” the doctor asks. The daughters respond that they have “no idea” and have never heard of these types of documents. In a heightened state of emotion, the girls look at each other and ask, “What do we do now?”
Hi, I am John Gigliello, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM with the Albany Financial Group and you are listening to Invest in Knowledge, a podcast about all things financial. After a life-altering health issue at age 39, my calling in life became clear: To share my knowledge of personal finance with people who are looking to make smart and responsible choices with their money. Only through education, action and accountability can you build the confidence and security you need to live a satisfying life.
Today, I am going to talk about the 5 Essential Documents of a Complete Estate Plan.

For the 2023-2024 academic year, the average cost of college, per year, came to $11,260 for public colleges, if the student lives in-state, and $41,543 for a private university, according to college data.com. When you factor in room and board, those figures almost double at some institutions.

These staggering figures leave many families to fret and wonder if they can possibly pay for higher education.

Hi, I’m John Gigliello and you are listening to Invest in Knowledge, a podcast about all things financial. After a life-altering health issue at age 39, my calling in life became clear: To share my knowledge of personal finance with PEOPLE who are looking to make smart and responsible choices with their money. Only through education, action and accountability can YOU build the confidence and security YOU need to live a SATISFYING life.

Today, we are going to talk college planning, specifically about Parent PLUS Loans – which are just one option when it comes to paying the price tag of a college education. We’ll explore the pros and cons with our guest speaker and resident expert on all things college planning – Mike Whitney.

Mike is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM who works as a financial paraplanner at Albany Financial Group. He helps families with college planning issues, as part of their overall financial plan, and has published white papers on the subject.

Interest rates have never looked better for savers. But you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket, or in this case, CD.

With the Federal Reserve’s recent quarter percentage point rate hike, interest rates have reached a new high. At 5.25% to 5.5%, this is the highest the benchmark federal funds rate has been since 2002.

This era of higher interest rates makes borrowing money expensive, but it can also make saving money lucrative.

Interest rates may be near a cyclical peak, creating an opportunity for some to lock in higher yield savings. This could be especially important for retirees living on a fixed income who want the security of a guaranteed rate.

Since rates are cyclical and are likely to decrease at some point in the future, I’d like to talk today about how you can capitalize on the higher rates while they last.

Hi, I’m John Gigliello, Certified Financial Planner with the Albany Financial Group and you’re listening to Invest in Knowledge, a podcast about all things financial. After a life-altering health issue at age 39, my calling in life became clear: To share my knowledge of personal finance with PEOPLE who are looking to make smart and responsible choices with their money. Only through education, action and accountability can YOU build the confidence and security YOU need to live a SATISFYING life.

In today’s episode I am going to address the upside of higher interest rates, particularly for those who have reached the retirement phase of their lives. The inspiration for this episode comes from a Wall Street Journal article, which addressed this very issue on April 18, 2023.

Colleges are priced like airline tickets. Everybody pays a different price. But at least on airlines, you might get a more comfortable ride if you pay more. Paying a lot more could get you a first-class seat. Paying a little more could get you an aisle seat near the front or a seat on the exit row with better legroom.
But if you pay a higher price for a college, you won’t get any extra perks for that. Your child won’t have smaller classes or be entitled to more face time with professors just because you paid more for a bachelor’s degree than the parents of other students.

There is no academic advantage to paying more. Worse, paying more can negatively affect your overall retirement plan, which is why it’s even more important to cut your college costs.

Here is a reality that will probably surprise you: most colleges are always on sale. That is a fact.

Still, Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. That’s for 43 million borrowers, according to statistics released last month by educationdata.org.

The average public university student borrows $30,030 to attain a bachelor’s degree and 2.8 million people over the age of 60 are still paying off college loans.

The growing cost of college and the resulting student-loan debt are affecting families all the way through retirement.

It used to be that homeowners planned to pay off their mortgages and live out retirement debt-free.

But a survey by national mortgage firm American Financing found that 44% of Americans between the ages of 60 and 70 have a mortgage when they retire. Nearly 17% think it’s possible they will never pay off the mortgage. Why is that? For many families, it’s the price of sending their child to a costly college.

The problem that we’re dealing with is that families often overpay for college, take on too much debt, and hurt their savings and retirement plans because they tumbled unprepared into the late-stage college funding pressure cooker.

Hi, I’m John Gigliello, Certified Financial Planner with the Albany Financial Group and you’re listening to Invest in Knowledge, a podcast about all things financial. After a life-altering health issue at 39, my calling in life became clear: To share my knowledge of personal finance with PEOPLE who are looking to make smart and responsible choices with their money. Only through education, action and accountability can YOU build the confidence and security YOU need to live a SATISFYING life.
You may be wondering, "Why is a financial professional up here today talking about college?" I do this as a service to my clients and my community because I've seen many families struggle with these issues. Getting kids through grade school and then high school is hard enough. You’ve been working and working, maybe saving for the eventual college tuition. Then, BOOM! Your kid is a junior or senior in high school and you realize you haven’t planned enough. The costs of tuition, plus room and board, are higher than you expected. Stress increases as you receive piles of slick brochures from fancy colleges and hear your friends brag about where their kids are going.

As we just discussed, this leads to poor decisions which may negatively impact your family’s financial health for years, even decades, to come. I’ve seen that happen and I want to help you before you get to that stage. Your son or daughter can go to a good school, have a great college experience, and do it without saddling any of you with undue debt. I’ve seen that happen, too.

The choices for Medicare coverage can be overwhelming and mistakes people make when choosing Medicare options can be costly for a lifetime.
In this episode, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM John Gigliello talks with local industry expert Chris Amorosi about how to avoid the 5 most common mistakes people make when choosing a Medicare plan.