I have the opportunity to interview one of the top CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professionals in the country, Deena Katz. She has been in the business for many years and is recognized as one of the best. She was recently named one of Financial Planning Magazine’s “5 Most Influential People in the Planning Business“. She is also the author or co-author of nine books on financial planning. This is a great opportunity and I am very thankful that she has agreed to do this for the blog.
I have a few questions that I would like to ask Deena but I would also like your input. Please submit your questions below in the comment section. If you would rather remain anonymous, please use my contact form to send me an email. Try not to reveal any personal financial information.
I will then handpick some questions for her to answer along with mine. Do not miss out on this opportunity! I will post the results within a week depending on how long it takes her to respond. Make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed in order to receive the results of the interview. If you would rather have the results via email, you can subscribe here.
My Question: the economy has my wife feeling a bit insecure even though we’ve got a sizable emergency fund built up, and we have no debt. The question is, once we’ve completed our emergency fund what path should we take – should we start investing in the stock market like it’s on clearance, save in a high yield savings account, or should we be paying extra on our mortgage? Or a combination of those things?
Deena-
The buy and hold strategy has been around for decades. Do you feel that same strategy applies to the Gen X and Y generation?
Secondly, asset allocation has been preached extensively after the dot.com bubble, yet even diversified balanced potfolios took a significant hit with the recent economic meltdown. How do you address that to those concerned?
Thanks for your feedback!
My question – My wife and I are in the market to buy a new home. We’ve saved up a sizable amount and we are selling our current co-op to use mostly as a down payment on a new place. Our credit is also impeccable. Still…how can we tell if we can truly afford it? Is there a metric/guide we can go by?