Until recently, the U.S. government’s debt ceiling didn’t get a lot of publicity; it has been raised without fanfare 70 times in the last 50 years.  Now that it’s front page news, some analysts are wondering why we have such a thing in the first place.  An article in the August 1 issue of The [...]

Linda Stern, a writer for Reuters, recently published an article discussing the repercussions of the recently decided debt deal and how it is affecting many Americans and their financial situation. The article was highlighted by Yahoo News and can be found here. Stern begins by addressing the questions that should be raised from the debt [...]

One of the advantages of Timothy Financial is our hourly model where clients can call in any time any where with any question and this week is no exception. As the market does cartwheels and somersaults, we’re here to help you navigate the circus.  Mark Berg even gave an example to the Wall Street Journal and [...]

Chances are, you noticed that Moody’s Investors Service, the credit rating service, has placed the U.S. government’s sterling AAA bond rating on review for a possible downgrade.  The reason was clear, but Moody’s spelled it out anyway: there is uncertainty whether Congress will raise the U.S. government’s debt ceiling by August 2.  If it doesn’t, [...]

Sometimes it can be difficult to explain the cultural differences between financial planners and wirehouse brokers, especially when many wirehouse brokers give their agents the job title “financial planner”.  However, there are very distinct differences.  Below is a short explanation of the general differences in nature of fee-only financial planners opposed to brokers.  Financial Planners [...]

As Congress is currently debating the debt ceiling issue, Social Security is suddenly front page news again. The first thing to understand is that there IS a solvency problem with Social Security.  Alice Munnell, Director for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College University points out that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the [...]

We are becoming more aware that a lot of Americans are not financially prepared to fund their own retirement, especially with the recent headlines. The difference between being able to afford retirement and not, can be surprisingly thin if you know the right levers to push. A recent article in SmartMoney magazine illustrates the point [...]

If you’re curious about how much, in aggregate, U.S. citizens are worth, and how that worth compares to the value in 2007, you can visit The Big Picture and see a variety of charts, created by an organization called The Chart Store.  The second set of charts on the web site shows that in the [...]

We’re hearing a lot about taxes these days, mostly about the need for Congress to raise or lower them, make them more fair or simpler, or perhaps do away with them altogether. If this feels like a familiar discussion, it is. Since the passage of the Tariff Act of October 3, 1913 (which implemented the 16th Amendment [...]

The recent market meltdown actually aided the sales of permanent life insurance. Insurance agents are known for promoting permanent life insurance because of its key features such as the savings account supplementing the insurance policy. Safety has been the biggest part of their pitch because of the bond-heavy investing strategy that permanent life provides. Is [...]