Single people may not think that they need an estate plan, but if you have assets, you should consider developing one. Read the full article

A number of banks are developing annoying new checking account fees. What’s a consumer to do? Read the full article

Quite a few taxpayers did Roth conversions last year, taking advantage of the change in conversion eligibility rules. But for some of them, now might be the time for a do-over. Read the full article

It’s unclear whether significant tax reforms will be enacted for 2012, so year-end planning could be tricky this year. Still, there are some tax strategies that should at least be examined for possible implementation before 2011 ends. Read the full article

For most Americans, the European Debt Crisis is anything but riveting. Sure, Wall Street has been bouncing up and down in response to news about the Euro bailout fund, but Greek sovereign debt is a pretty esoteric subject for almost everyone else. Yet the cover of this week’s Economist magazine advises, “be afraid.” What are they worried about? Read the full article

The November Journal of Marketing Research focuses on research into the ways that consumers make financial decisions. One of the papers describes a potentially useful tool for encouraging young people to save for retirement. Read the full article

Everyone understands, at some level, the need to save for long-term goals. Buying a house, preparing for retirement, or sending a child to college are goals that we know we have to save for. But how much difference does it make whether we start saving now versus saving later? Read the full article

Last Fall, G. Jeffrey MacDonald, who writes for the Christian Science Monitor, published a piece following up on news that ownership of life insurance in the U.S. has reached a 50-year low. If people aren't buying life insurance, how are they providing for the financial needs of their survivors? Read the full article

Investment advisers have long been required to act as fiduciaries, placing the best interests of their clients above their own. In a significant report released today, the staff of the SEC has issued a recommendation that a “uniform fiduciary standard of conduct for broker-dealers and investment advisers -- no less stringent than currently applied to investment advisers under the Advisers Act – [be applied whenever] those financial professionals provide personalized investment advice about securities to retail investors.” This would be a major change from current regulatory policy. Read the full article

One of the provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 was a requirement for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study whether the financial planning profession needs to be regulated differently. While the GAO’s report, issued today, did identify some concerns about the delivery of financial planning services, it concluded that no additional regulation is needed. Read the full article

Now that Congress has extended lower tax rates through 2012, taxpayers should have an easier job deciding which taxation option to take for the conversion. Read the full article

In a move calculated to undercut competitors, the Vanguard family of funds has announced a reduction in the minimum investment required to gain access to its "Admiral" class of mutual fund shares. Read the full article

As the cost of nursing home care approaches $400/day in some parts of the country, more attention is being given to the concept of insuring against the need to pay for long-term care. Some employers offer long-term care (LTC) insurance as an employee benefit. A recent premium hike by the nation’s second-largest provider of LTC insurance has raised a lot of eyebrows. Read the full article

Melissa Korn at the Wall Street Journal interviewed me last month for the Journal's Personal Finance feature, "The Game Plan," in which readers write in and have their retirement planning strategies reviewed by a professional financial planner. The piece appeared in yesterday's WSJ. Read the full article

With all the hoopla over the consumer protections in the July financial reform bill, a permanent increase in the FDIC deposit insurance limit went into effect with relatively little notice. Read the full article

Fidelity Investments today released its 4th annual College Savings Indicator study, in which it calculates the percentage of future college costs that parents are prepared to meet. In addition, Fidelity offered guidelines on the amounts that families need to save for college as a % of household income. Read the full article

According to a recent analysis of retirement income prospects, Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) have a probability of running out of money in retirement that ranges from 43 to 47 percent, depending on their age cohort. Read the full article

New rules taking effect August 15th mean two things if you have a checking account: (1) you must make explicitly authorize your bank to enroll you in their overdraft plan if you wish to make debit card overdrafts, and (2) expect changes in your bank’s fees and checking account rules in the near future. Read the full article

At last, the financial regulatory bill resulting from months of activity in the House and Senate contains language that might result in the implementation of a standard requiring broker-dealers to act as fiduciaries. Read the full article

Last Friday, the House passed the the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a measure hailed as the biggest reform of financial services in half a century. Already, though, some interesting exceptions have been spotted in the bill, which weighs in at 1200-plus pages. The bill does a number of laudable things, including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to oversee financial products and services. Read the full article

The big guns in the securities industry have expressed a desire for a “harmonized fiduciary standard” for broker-dealers and investment advisers. That sounds good, but as the details emerge, it looks more and more as though this "harmonized" standard is actually a "gutted" standard, tailored for the benefit of large financial companies. Read the full article

Announcements of new exchange-traded funds arrive in my e-mailbox almost daily, but today’s seemed ironically timed: a new inverse ETF tied to the performance of twenty-year Treasuries. Read the full article

The coming change in Roth IRA conversion rules has been discussed (seemingly) endlessly in the financial planning community, especially lately. What follows is a short summary of how the conversion laws will change. In future posts, I'll write more about the considerations that should go into a Roth IRA conversion decision. Read the full article

The SEC issued a joint warning with FINRA today about the risks of leveraged and inverse ETFs for retail investors. Read the full article

Last week I received an email that really annoyed me. It was an invitation to a seminar on how to use celebrity endorsements as a marketing tool. Read the full article

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