Radio Appearance: Kate Hennessy On Your Money Matters On WGN Radio

Kate Hennessy, Certified Financial Planner with AssetGrade, LLC joins Jon Hansen on Your Money Matters to share how they make investing and managing clients’ assets a personal and seamless experience. Listen in while Kate dives deeper into what her specialties are, including a focus on families, women investors and college planning and what the first steps are to getting a handle on your expenses.

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Tax Season 2023 – Protect Yourself and File

BY: SUSAN POWERS, CFACPACFP®, CPFA®

Protect Yourself from Tax-Related Fraud

Tax-Related fraud is a big business.  Tax-related identity theft occurs when someone uses your Social Security number to file a tax return in an attempt to claim a fraudulent refund.

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Don’t Sit on the Sidelines

By: Patrick R. Cote CFA, CFP®

When it comes to investing, many people are hesitant to put their money into the stock market or other investment vehicles. Instead, they opt to sit on the sidelines with their cash, waiting for the "perfect" time to invest, driven by concerns that the stock market will fall. This can be even more tempting in the current environment of higher interest rates.  While this may seem like a safe strategy, it can actually be detrimental to your long-term financial health.

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CREATING INCOME IN RETIREMENT

By: Kate Hennessy, CFP®

You have spent the past 30+ years accumulating assets and saving.  But you ask yourself will I have enough money to retire?  How can I continue to create income in retirement?  

Follow these tips to ensure you have the income you need to enjoy your retirement years:

Maximize Social Security

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Where Can You Stash Your Cash?

BY: SUSAN POWERS, CFACPACFP®, CPFA®

Are you looking to invest money for the short term?  If so, you are probably wondering - where are the best places to safely stash that cash?  With rates rising from 0% to 4% or more in 2022, it now pays to

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SECURE ACT 2.0 – What You Should Know

BY: Patrick R. Cote, CFA, CFP®

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, the most recent tax legislation, covers a lot of areas. While most provisions are relatively minor, the changes worth noting are extending ages for RMDs (required minimum distributions), new additional Roth choices and increasing the ability to both contribute and withdraw from retirement plans.

Effective 1/1/2023, the changes for the RMDs are:

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SECURE Act 2.0 & 529 Plans

BY: Kate Hennessy, CFP®

A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged account that enables you to save money for education expenses. Do you have unused money in your 529 plan that won’t be needed for education purposes? If so, effective in 2024 you may be able to transfer the money out of the 529 Plan to the beneficiaries’ tax-exempt Roth IRA without incurring any penalties.  This would allow money that was earmarked for education to be used for the beneficiaries’ retirement savings.

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Have Extra Cash?

BY: Kate Hennessy, CFP®

Having extra cash on hand may be rare with the holidays around the corner and the rise in inflation.  However, if you do happen to have extra cash in a bank account earning a low interest rate, you may want to consider your options for capturing more yield (interest from an investment).  As you explore these options and your personal situation, it’s important to remember to keep

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Tax-Loss Harvesting – 2022 Edition

BY: PATRICK COTE

Tax loss harvesting is the practice of selling an asset in your taxable investment account that has experienced a loss and replacing it with a similar asset to maintain the overall allocation within your portfolio. By realizing, or “harvesting,” the loss you are able to reduce taxes by offsetting capital gains.

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