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Keith Spencer Keith Spencer

Your Bonus Arrived! (Part 2): How to Make the Most of It

In Part 1 of this quick two-part series on bonuses, we looked at how to deal with the uneven cash flow aspects of receiving large bonuses.

In this installment, we’re going to go into more detail about different ideas of what to do with the money.

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Keith Spencer Keith Spencer

Your Bonus Arrived! (Part 1): How to Handle Uneven Cash Flow

Bonuses. They’re the best, no?

A nice infusion of cash that comes in and opens up so many opportunities.

A common issue people run into is how to deal with the “cash flow” aspects of receiving a large bonus. In this post, we’ll look at a couple of different ways to deal with the issue of having uneven cash flow, illustrated with specific examples.

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Keith Spencer Keith Spencer

The Crazy Home Insurance Market in California

Has your home insurance premium skyrocketed lately? Has your insurance company stopped writing policies in your area? Is the home insurance market broken?

Welcome to the crazy world of getting your home insured against disaster. In particular in the great state of California.

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Melissa Spencer Melissa Spencer

Emergency Kits (Part 1): What Do We Need?

“We should have an emergency kit.”

We’ve been married for 20 years now and we’ve been saying that for…about 20 years now.

Natural disasters seem to be happening more and more often. A cyberattack causing a disruption to the power grid and/or other essential systems is more likely than ever. Even a nuclear attack doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore. Any of these happening is out of our control.

But what IS in our control is putting together an emergency kit and plan so we aren’t completely unprepared if/when an emergency happens.

This is Part 1, which deals with how we decided what to include in our kit.

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Keith Spencer Keith Spencer

Investment Buckets During Retirement

How should you be invested during retirement? Where will your spending money come from? What happens if the stock markets go down? Are your investments safe enough? Let’s take a look at the concept of Investment Buckets.

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Keith Spencer Keith Spencer

Flexible Spending Account Carryovers

FSAs can be fantastic tools to essentially get a discount/deduction on health care and/or dependent care. And there’s a temporary rule in effect for 2020-2021 that can allow even more flexibility.

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Keith Spencer Keith Spencer

Should I Buy a House Now?

Several of my clients are in the process of either buying or selling a home. The top two questions for those who are buying are:

  1. Should I buy a house now or should I wait?

  2. How much house can I afford?

Here are some high-level thoughts.

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