Blog

What Is Your Money For?

Smart Financial Moves in 2021

Choose to Live Your Best Life

Many of us go about our lives as if we believe we are going to live forever. When we had three young kids in the house, I would read to all of them together before their bedtimes most nights. We eventually graduated to one of my...

Less is More

There are no trailer hitches on hearses and no pockets on burial shrouds (my dad loves that last one). You can’t take anything with you when you leave this earth and despite that, it is common for financially successful...

Four Questions for Your Estate Planning

Designing an estate plan that cares for your loved ones and makes a positive impact on the world isn’t as simple as deciding who gets how much of what. Your answers to these four questions will help you weigh your family’s...

Even Rock Stars Need Estate Planning

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nation’s perspective on many things, including estate planning. Caring.com’s 2021 Wills and Estate Planning Study found that middle- and older-aged adults are less likely to have a will...

#YORO You Only Retire Once

Since the end of January, #YOLO—You Only Live Once—has been a rallying cry on internet message boards, where it appears that amateur investors may have driven up stock prices for video game retailer GameStop and movie...

Invest to Love Your Neighbor

Last year was very tumultuous in many respects, and at times, the streets were filled with angry protesters. Many Americans stood up to advocate for their fellow man and woman here in the United States. Americans also expressed their...

True Wealth

In January of 2019, I wrote about my goal to ride self-supported from Denver to Durango on the rugged Colorado Trail (CT) with my brother, Tom, and how I intended to prepare for this monumental challenge. The 545-mile high-altitude...

Ready to Retire?

There’s a pretty good chance that your parents and grandparents retired just because they turned 65. While age is still an important factor, your ability to connect your financial resources to your lifestyle goals is what will...

Don’t Let Market Volatility Disrupt Your Life

It’s been said that volatility is a tax that investors have to pay for harnessing the wealth-building power of the financial markets. But rationalizing market fluctuations doesn’t make them any less nerve-wracking,...

Get Your "House" in Order Before You Retire

“Does this spark joy?” Millions of people these days are asking themselves this question about their homes and possessions thanks to Marie Kondo and her wildly popular decluttering book, “The Life- Changing Magic of...

What is Your “Return on Life™?”

Do I have enough money to ____ (fill in the blank)? Will I have enough money to retire? These are two natural questions that people often ask themselves when they start thinking about financial planning. We expect our money to help us...

Improve Your Relationship with Money

Many people have a complicated relationship with money. Hang-ups carried over from childhood experiences get mixed together with positive and negative experiences from adulthood. Few people ever take the time to reflect on what money...

What We Do With Our Money

Whenever I meet another financial advisor, I usually look them up at brokercheck.finra.org to learn about their history and see if they have any disclosures. Disclosures are things like personal bankruptcies, IRS tax liens, customer...

A New (Financial) Life

I wrote “Dreams for 2019” about my New Year’s resolution to drastically improve my health and fitness and how I am leveraging proven techniques to maximize my chances for success. This month, I will share with you...

Dreams for 2019

Happy New Year! Did you make any New Year’s resolutions for 2019? 60 percent of Americans do, but only 8 percent of us achieve them and over half of us who make resolutions give up by January 31! The top three resolutions are the...

Open Enrollment

We created Stewardship Colorado to serve our clients with truly independent advice to help them optimize their financial lives in all dimensions. This month, we will review some common employer benefits offered that you may not be...

No Strings Financial Advice

The financial industry has evolved quickly over the past few years to better serve the public and we are evolving with it. We have met with hundreds of families and business owners and know that most people are not shopping for a...

A Tale of Two Franklins

I was sad to learn of Aretha Franklin’s death last month at age 76, and surprised to find out that she died intestate (without a will). Dying intestate often means a long, expensive and public process (probate) where state laws...

How Smart is your Portfolio?

I have been an avid investor since the 1990s, and I believe most of the innovation and improvement in the investing world I have seen has happened in just the last few years. This month, I will highlight some important recent changes...

True North

Last month, I had the good fortune to take my fifth expedition down the full length of the Grand Canyon. When I first went with a few friends in 2008, my plan was to do it once without any family members to make sure I was up to the...

More About Retirement Income

Last month, I wrote about the BlackRock Retirement Institute (BRI) recently published white paper titled "Spending retirement assets…or not?" which studied the financial behavior of past and current retirees. One conclusion of...

Not Your Father’s Retirement

One of the most interesting parts of being a county commissioner is representing Clear Creek County to the State of Colorado. I currently serve as a council member on the State Emergency Medical and Trauma Advisory Services Council...

Live Rich or Die Rich?

The most dangerous part of climbing a mountain is not getting to the top—it is getting back down safely. In your financial life, the climb is your working years where you save and invest diligently to create your nest egg. During...

Markets Returning to Normal

2017 was an extraordinary year in financial markets, yet the most popular financial story was bitcoin. Not the fact that U.S. financial markets gained every single month. Or its amazing steadiness with only eight trading days where the...

New Beginnings

I enjoy the holiday season even more now that two of our three kids are in college. We close the Stewardship office for the last week of the year, which gives us a chance to reflect on the past year and refine our vision and plans for...

Don’t Do Anything Stupid

I have been a member of the Colorado Financial Planning Association (FPA) for several years now and I do pro bono work regularly for 9 News “MoneyLine 9” and also at the annual Denver Financial Planning Day in Lakewood....

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

There are a handful of financial books that have had a profound impact on my thinking, maybe none more so than Dr. Thomas J. Stanley’s “The Millionaire Next Door.” Dr. Stanley’s research was, at the time, the...

Get Rich Living Paycheck to Paycheck!

I had the great pleasure this summer of organizing and experiencing another 18-day non-motorized and non-commercial whitewater expedition through the full 280 river miles of the Grand Canyon. It was my fourth trip down the Big Ditch...

What Will Your Legacy Be?

Last month I wrote about a backcountry ski trip our son Dylan and I took to the unforgiving Canadian Selkirk Mountains. I invited Dylan on the BC ski trip because I knew it would be great fun, but I also knew we would both face intense...

The High Cost of “Free” Advice

Major reforms are underway in the financial industry that are intended to benefit consumers, but there is still a significant lack of transparency when it comes to potential conflicts of interest. Many reforms are aimed at...

Active or Passive?

My three favorite financial publications arrive on Saturday—the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily and Barron’s. All three are excellent papers that feature well-researched investment articles. Many weeks,...

Preparing for the Next Crisis

I love this time of the year! Long days mean long mountain bike rides after work at my favorite open space park, Centennial Cone, in nearby Clear Creek Canyon. In June and July, I ride the Cone two or three times a week, sometimes with...

There’s a Better Way!

On April 6th, the US Department of Labor (DOL) released the final version of the much anticipated “Fiduciary Rule,” which is intended to protect retirement investors from receiving financial advice that benefits the broker...

Spring Cleaning and Your Finances

A few months ago I read Marie Kondo’s bestseller, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” and have been incrementally tidying around my office and house since. We ordered some new furniture in February and a few days...

Market Volatility: You Need a Gameplan

Volatility has returned in full force to world stock markets and I am frequently asked for advice on “what to do” now. One of my ski patrol friends shared a great analogy with me on a chairlift at Winter Park a few weeks...

The Easy Road to Riches!

"Getting people to build a nest egg is simple," Professor Thaler says: "Make it easier." We are approaching the New Year when many of us take time to reflect on the past year and plan for the future with an eye toward long-term goals....

The Ultimate Dress Rehearsal

Those of you who know me well know that I am an extremely curious person and I am willing to try almost anything once. A few weeks ago a friend invited me to assist with an “active shooter” training for the cadets of a...

How to Create a Retirement Paycheck

Fall is the time of year when people are most inclined to take action regarding their financial planning. Summer is over, the kids are back into the school routine, the income taxes are filed by the October 15 extension date, and...

The Markets: What to Do?

I have been an Evergreen Volunteer Firefighter since 1995 and a big part of the work we do involves preparing for and fighting wildland fire. In 1997 I was at a corporate retreat in Glenwood Springs and I woke up well before dawn to...

The Day the Music Died

On Sunday June 14th in the late afternoon my son and I were riding Three Sisters in Evergreen and I crashed HARD breaking my collarbone, shoulder blade and 4 ribs. The impact knocked the wind out of me and when I got over the initial...

What To Do Before The Crash

Last year I competed in and finished the Vapor Trail 125 which is the most mentally and physically challenging single-stage mountain bike races I know of. The event starts at 10PM on the second Saturday of September on a bridge over...

Investment Myths

May is an exciting time of the year for my family as among other things it means spring runoff and early season whitewater trips! This year we were invited on a 4-day Gates of Lodore trip launching on May 28th and we jumped at the...

Don't Outlive Your Money!

I have been serving with the Evergreen Volunteer Fire Department (EVFD) since 1995, and I learned early on that most of what we do as Firefighters and First Responders involves identifying and mitigating risks. I believe our most...

Whitewater & Taxes

In 2007 my family bought our first whitewater expedition raft and we now have several boats and have gone on at least one wilderness river trip per year since then including our favorites the Colorado through the Grand Canyon 3 times...

Find the Ace of the Base

We will be writing a financial article every month this year and are starting off with the very interesting life story of John Ramstead. John is a former U.S. Navy F-14 carrier pilot who served on the USS Independence and flew combat...