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December 2010 Vol 1, Issue 7
Serving up financial planning and investment advice with a dash of fun!
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Milestones Financial Planning, LLC
Christmas
Issue and Blessings to you!
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Greetings! |  It's the best - and the second busiest - time of the year in our offices. As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, we are also gearing up for tax season while reviewing your year-end information to plan for any needed modifications to portfolios. (If you're wondering about the busiest time of the year, think April 15, when we celebrate for another reason!) All clients should have received our December 12 Open House invite by now. It will be at our new home with lots of food and as many Christmas decorations as I have time to put up. We hope you can make it - it's our way of showing our appreciation to both CPA and Milestones clients for your continued support and friendship. In addition, we've got some really cool door prizes (grand prize: Amazon Kindle). Anyone bringing canned goods (to be donated to our local Need Line) gets a shot at the prizes. (We've even made provisions for our out-of-state clients to have a chance at winning!) I hope you can make it, and be sure to let us know if you're coming!
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Fund Find of the Month: YACKX
| This large-value fund has been a favorite of ours for over a year now. Father-son team Donald and Stephen Yacktman buy conce ntrated positions in only a few companies (relatively speaking)...
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Share the Fun!
Do you need a speaker for your next event? We do that! Email us for available dates. |
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TIP of the Month: Navigating Morningstar Part I
| Dear Johanna: I would like to do some independent research on my 401(k) funds but don't know where to start. What is a good, inexpensive resource to find out more about my mutual funds?
Signed: Retiring Soon
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| Almost-Famous Recipes of the Month: "N0-Chex" Snack Mix and "Mom's Cheesecake with Strawberry Sauce" | Christmas is the ultimate season of abundance and my gift to readers is a couple of rarely-shared  recipes. We all have recipes that are a MUST during the holidays and the same goes for the Pryor/Fox/Turner families. In fact, I'm not totally sure that my boys would come home if I didn't use the snack mix for bait each year. Maybe I'm wrong, but why tempt fate? This is the real deal - no che x in here. Give it a try and give me your opinion - but promise you won't ever refer to it as chex mix. Recipe
As for the cheesecake, I didn't know until I was grown that everybody didn't make cheesecake in a 10" Pyrex pie plate. They no longer make them, so I now buy them for gifts on EBay. Mom's cheesecake is one she had to replicate for Dad after their first trip to New York in the 1970s, where they had their first cheesecake ever at Wolfie's Deli (sadly, no longer in existence). The strawberry sauce is her own creation and the perfect cheesecake mate! Recipe
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Time is running out. If you haven't checked on your Roth conversion options, you have only a few more weeks!
|  I try not to beat a topic to death - honest! But I must admit that I've devoted an extraordinary amount of print space (both in our newslettersand our Four Rivers Business Journal columns) to alerting our readers to the Roth conversion deadline that is looming on December 31, 2010. You may not think you have the option to convert, you may not even know what I'm talking about, but please take a moment to call our office and set up an appointment to review your options. While a Roth conversion isn't for everybody, it's definitely (in my humble opinion) suitable for far more people than are taking advantage of it. While you'll still be able to convert after this year, at least as the law now stands, Congress has given you a special tax break (think of it as a very rare Christmas gift from Uncle Sam!) that expires on 12/31. Read the article we just published in the Fox Report (our Johanna Fox, CPA monthly newsletter) and give us a call or email if you'd like to know more. All it will cost you is your time.
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Peace on earth, goodwill to men. From each of us at Milestones to you and yours: blessings to you at Christmas and all year long.
Sincerely, 
Johanna Fox Turner has worked in the financial services industry as a CPA for over 30 years and owns two business, Johanna Fox, CPA, Inc. and Milestones Financial Planning, LLC. You can learn more by downloading her resume' from the Milestones Financial Planning website. |
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