It’s beach renourishment time again!  The dredges and pipes and bulldozers are all hard at work this offseason fighting with mother nature to try and keep those free-spirited sand grains in one place.  Or at least temporarily reset them, I suppose. The more cynical among us might argue that it’s a bit of a losing battle...but man does that new beach look good.

From time to time, it’s a good idea to give your portfolio a little renourishment as well.  We’re not talking about selling everything and starting over - after all, you don’t scrape the beach away down to bedrock and then rebuild it.  You just need to move some things around a little bit.

There are all kinds of pithy sayings out there about how to renourish your portfolio: “cut your losers and let your winners run”, “if you liked it before, you should like it even more now that it’s cheaper”, etc.  Gag.  All you really need to do is a simple rebalance.​

Young adults face financial complexities such as student loans, new mortgages, or car debt, coupled with low-paying entry-level jobs. With so much on their plate, those in their early twenties might feel overwhelmed by the words “saving,” “retirement,” or “investing.” If you’re in this situation, is it too early for you to start investing?

Whew!  Nothing like waiting until the very last possible minute for a November newsletter, huh?  We don’t care what science says these days, we still blame the tryptophan.

It feels like we have been writing about benefits elections ad nauseum recently, but after a quick glance back through the last few months’ newsletters, apparently that’s not true.  So with a couple weeks left to make or change your elections (at least for the Healthcare exchange and likely for your own workplace benefits platform as well), let’s go through a Rundown of different places you can put your money.  Just don’t eat the Konlobos, it’s worse than tryptophan.

What a World Cup!  I hope you all enjoyed that month of magic and drama.  Sometimes literally with the drama - did you see that Neymar spent 14 full minutes lying down?  That’s ⅙ of an entire match. On his back.

As for the real drama, Croatia, a country with a total population less than our very own Atlanta metro area, nearly pulled off a crazy upset by winning the World Cup over the likes of heavily favored Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Argentina, and Spain.  And they did it through two shootouts and an extra time win in the knockout rounds. In the end, however, it was like something out of a Hanson song, with France finally capturing the title that was just a Zinedine Zidane headbutt away 12 years ago.  In fact, France only conceded 6 goals the entire World Cup. Croatia gave up 9, England 8, and Belgium 6. The importance of saving, indeed!

After the World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo got transferred to Juventus for roughly £105M (or £500,000-ish per week) and, to bring it back to things that matter in American sports, LeBron James moved to the LA Lakers for $154M ($740,000-ish per week for a four-year contract).

These guys are all set for life now, right?  Who needs four years, give us $740,000-ish per week for six weeks and we’ll be set.*  Unfortunately, more often than not that’s not how it works out.

T-minus 1 month!  To what, you may ask?  Why, Tax Day of course!  For the most part, we feel that “tax” is shorthand for “government theft” (sure, we agree with the principle of a certain level of taxation in order to fund certain iterations of social benefit programs, but without getting real deep down a policy and government bloat rabbit hole, let’s just agree that taxes are a pain and move on), and yet Tax Day fills us with a giddy sort of joy.  Why, you may ask again? Freebies!

Great American Cookies is giving away a free birthday cake cookie.  Schlotzsky's is apparently giving away a sandwich with the purchase of a drink and a bag of chips.  And we have no idea what a HydroMassage from Planet Fitness is or if we would even want one, but evidently those will be free too.

In the “not free, but I see what you did there” department, Bruegger’s is selling a baker’s dozen bagels and two tubs of cream cheese for $10.40.  Or $10.47, if you want to include the sales tax that will be applied. A little bit ironic, don’t you think?

Most people are thrilled to receive a tax refund in April.  It feels kind of like free money, right? Consider the flip side of that coin for a second though - a tax refund really means that you loaned your money to the government last year at a zero percent interest rate.  Actually zero, too, not the 0.01% “zero” that your checking account is getting you. If you owe taxes, on the other hand, you essentially got an interest-free loan from the government.  Mmmhm.  Morty’s Mind Blowers has nothing on us.

So.  In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, let’s take a look at how to keep a little more green in your pockets and out of the clutches of the vampire squid of government.