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Sports
High School Football
Hoosac Valley beats Drury in Saturday action. More photos on Monday |
 | Thursday, Nov. 06
Boys' Soccer: State Vocational Championship Game
McCann Tech 3, Keefe Tech 2
Girls' Soccer: State Vocational Championship Game
Blackstone Valley 8, McCann Tech 0 |
What's Playing
Milla Jovovich vs. alien abduction in "The Fourth Kind." What more do you need to know?
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Daily Digest
This is Jake
He's been lost in Pittsfield for weeks but frequently sited. He was last seen heading toward the fire station on Peck's Road. He's tired, dirty and needs seizure medication. He's chipped. If you see him, call Julie at 413-537-5616, the vet 24/7 at 413-499-2820 or animal control at 413-448-9700. |
Election
Trying to remember who won what and why? All the information is right here. |
ObituariesSales FliersBazaarsNov. 14
Berkshire Community Church, Richmond
10-4; Crafters, bake sale. Contact Evelyn Goggia at 413-445-5747
Lanesborough Elementary School annual Fall Craft Fair from 10 to 4. Free admission, huge variety of arts and crafts, raffles, food and more. Proceeds go to sixth-grade trip to Cape Cod.
Vendors can contact Deb at 413-738-5349 or debhutton@aol.com or Lori at 413-499-0065 or lorittod@yahoo.com to secure a spot.
Dec. 12-13
North Adams Country Club, crafts 9-4; food from That's a Wrap from 11-2. Contact Sheryl Morehouse at 413-822-3329.
Planning a bazaar this season? Submit information to info@iberkshires.com to have it listed here. |
Related Stories |
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Financial Bullett Points: Start Saving NowBy Brendan Bullett
iBerkshires Columnist
05:17PM / Wednesday, June 17, 2009
 | | Brendan Bullett |
As a financial adviser, I work each day with my clients to help them organize and allocate their financial resources. In this column, I hope to use my available resources to offer you some possible solutions to assist you in meeting your financial goals.
Once you have decided it is time to start saving money, you need to sit down and make a list of investment goals. These goals should be broken into three categories: long term (10 years or more), short term (five years or less), and even intermediate term (between five and 10 years).
If you are married or in a long-term relationship, I advise that you spend some time together and discuss your joint and individual goals. This could include talking about when you both would like to retire or, if you have children, how much of their college education you would like to fund. This could also be a time to discuss things you wish to do more immediately, such as buy a new car or take a vacation.
I would also like to point out that before you put most of your money toward saving for your investment goals, you should make sure that you have an adequate "emergency fund." An emergency fund should be money set aside in a highly liquid investment (i.e. savings account) for any sudden monetary needs that may arise. The rule of thumb I use is to have at least six months of living expenses set aside in your emergency fund.
With short-term goals you don't have as much time to invest and you'll have to budget your investment dollars wisely. Rather than choosing growth investments, you may want to put your money into less volatile, highly liquid investments that have some growth potential. Frequently, savings accounts, money markets, or CDs are the most appropriate savings vehicle for this type of investment.
Retirement is the most common long-term financial goal. After a difficult day at the office many people wish they could retire right then and there. However, this is not a realistic scenario. Making yourself ready to retire takes years of saving and planning. The earlier you start though, the more comfortable your retirement will be.
For example, let's say you are 25 years old and your goal is to retire at 65 with $500,000. If you save $300 a month and your investments earn 6 percent annually you will more than meet your goal. However, if you wait until age 35 to start saving and still wish to have $500,000, you would have to save over $500 a month earning 6 percent per year to meet your goal. This is NOT to say it is never too late to start saving for retirement but early decisions to save can have a major impact on how much money you will have in retirement.
Because retirement is a long-term financial goal, it allows you to invest in more aggressive investments that may outpace inflation over time. As with anything, it is important to make sure you invest within your own personal comfort level.
Another common investment goal is saving for a child's education. Parents quickly realize that they only have so much time to save for their child's education. Depending on when you start putting money away, saving for college can be either a long- or intermediate-term goal. You will need to balance the type of investments that you use to save for these expenses by deciding how much risk you can take on and how much time you have until your child is off to college. When determining how much you need to save, it is important to estimate how much average future tuition costs will be and research financial aid packages that may be available to help offset the costs.
These are examples of some of the bigger investment goals people save for. However, each individual or family needs to decide which goals are most important to them and how they will save in order to achieve those goals.
Remember, it is never too late to begin saving and knowing that you have money put away will help take stress away from your everyday life.
Brendan Bullett is a registered representative of and offers securities through True North Financial Services Inc. He also is a financial adviser with True North and a registered investment adviser. He will not respond in the comment section so if you have questions about his columns, he can be reached at 413-664-4025 or bbullett@truenorthfs.com. |
Mr. Bullett,
Just to supplement your article, here's a very basic financial calculator website your readers can play with:
http://finance.yahoo.com/calculator/index
Warm Regards,
Allen Harris | | from: Allen Harris | on: 06-26-2009 |
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| Editor: Naughty, naughty. No using other's names to make disparaging comments Ms. "Stephanie Scott." I have deleted your post; if you have a problem with that, contact me at tdaniels@iBerkshires.com. | | from: | on: 06-24-2009 |
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| A c.d. at 6%. Where? | | from: Alan | on: 06-23-2009 |
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How big is your company? I mean the investment side of it.
Do you manage more than $10 million? More than $25 million? (I just want to get a sense that you guys will be around next year - it's hard to tell nowadays).
I went to the Legacy Banks workshop the other day (sorry to mention your competition) and they said a lot of what you wrote (but in Spanish). Seeming similar, why did you decide to work here instead of there? | | from: Derek Cooney | on: 06-18-2009 |
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