One of the most important aspects of responsible financial planning is risk management. A proper understanding of risk can help you anticipate losses and gains and create an investment strategy with your financial planner as you build wealth. Assessing your risk tolerance can guide you in your investment decisions. Armed with this knowledge, you can start to see the risk of avoiding risk.

It is important to identify your financial goals, what it will take to reach those goals and understand the level of risk you are willing to take to get there. Your goals and behavior must be aligned.

Are you considering hiring a planner to help navigate your financial future? If so, do you know what financial planning entails? Financial planning revolves around taking a holistic view of a client's financial situation and advising them on how to achieve realistic economic goals.

While it seems simple enough, there are several myths surrounding financial planning that might prevent you from enlisting a planner. Let's examine four of these in detail to help you reach a better understanding of how a financial planner can meet your needs.

We continue our series profiling different financial advisors at Carnegie Investment Counsel with our Portfolio Manager Linda Fousek. Linda is a Chartered Financial Analyst® and her expertise areas are investment strategy and asset allocation, including portfolio construction and implementation.

This year, tax time may be a little different. On March 17, 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department and the IRS announced that the federal income tax filing due date for individuals for the 2020 tax year would automatically be extended from April 15, 2021, to May 17, 2021. This postponement to May 17, 2021, of the federal tax filing deadline, only applies to individual federal income tax returns and tax payments otherwise due April 15, 2021. Also, note that this relief does not apply to estimated tax payments due on April 15, 2021.

Beginning in the 1930s, and accelerating in the decades that followed, employer-sponsored healthcare became one of the benefits American consumers have come to rely upon. Facilitated in part by changes in government policies during World War II, private employers began to offer health insurance as part of an overall compensation package for their workforce.

However, this system's evolution left many retirees without any medical insurance, which was often terminated when they left the labor force. This shortcoming was addressed in 1965 when Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law, giving tens of millions of Americans affordable access to hospitals, clinics and a network of physicians.

Accordingly, most Americans today have some form of health insurance, either through their employer or after they have retired. However, unless they are disabled, participants in Medicare must have reached their 65th birthday.

So what if you want to retire before age 65?

Brittany Blazey loves to think of ways to make her clients feel valued. Her role as the Relationship Manager at our Toledo Office is a perfect fit for a person with a heart for taking care of clients.

Thinking about another marriage as you approach retirement? What are the financial considerations?

Getting married at any point in life is an exciting step toward personal and shared fulfillment. But getting married later in life can be both exciting and potentially challenging, at least from a financial standpoint. Compared to those who are marrying for the first time, people who remarry likely have to solve a much more complicated financial equation in order to be prosperous.

Before you tie the knot a second or third time, you and your future spouse should have an open and sincere discussion regarding your respective finances. Some points in this conversation will probably be uncomfortable, but you can avoid future arguments by laying all your financial cards on the table today. Consider the following discussion points:

We continue our series profiling different financial advisors at Carnegie Investment Counsel with our wealth advisor, Ian Matheson at our Carnegie Investment Counsel office in Ft. Myers, Florida.

Pass Go and collect $200: Ian Matheson helps make it that easy to feel good about your investment strategy, with a little extra knowledge and dedication.

Ian Matheson grew up playing Monopoly, but he learned to work with real money at a young age. In fact, when he was in the eighth grade, he started competing with his father, Robert Matheson, to pick stocks and mutual funds. It’s almost natural that he has been a wealth advisor for over 20 years now.

We continue our series profiling different financial advisors at Carnegie Investment Counsel with our newest portfolio manager, Chris Carey.

According to Chris Carey, portfolio manager at Carnegie Investment Counsel, the jobs you do in life may provide an even greater education than the theories you learn in school… even the internships and work experience you may do for free.

Carey didn’t go to school with the intention of going into finance. He was interested in the food industry after working for an upmarket grocery store, Waitrose, in his hometown of London, England, during his time at high school.

With the upcoming holiday season, we reached out to our Carnegie Investment Counsel team to share gift book recommendations. No two answers were alike and the recommendations were rich and unexpected.