Author: Sarah Yakel

As a reminder every morning, my daughter announces the days until Christmas and New Years Eve…in case you’re wondering, there are 46 days left until Christmas and 53 days left in 2021).  The television is playing Christmas commercials constantly, and all the stores are decked out for the holidays. Year end is

Happy November! We are officially in the home stretch of the year.  Including today there are only 60 more days left in 2021 of which there are approximately 40 work days! Here at Meridian, we are taking advantage of every one of those days and are continuing to work through end of year planning with […]

My two boys have been fascinated with TV shows, music, and movies from decades past—or as they like to call it: “stuff from the 1900s.” ☹ To my heart’s delight, we’ve been binge watching the A-Team at night–with occasional diversions to Knight Rider and MacGyver.  My husband educates them on key

Break out the calendars and flip the page to October – we’re officially ¾ of the way through 2021! Can you believe it?! Time to dig up those new years resolutions you made for the year and revisit your goals. Did you resolve to save money this year? Commit more to savings? Make significant progress […]

Schools are back in session, and for parents, the tradeoff of having kids at school all day is the added chore of helping kids do their homework at night. When the Yakel kids were in elementary school, it was sort of fun to feel smart helping with 3rd grade spelling or 2nd grade math. But […]

Imagine for a second that you had a little financial fairy godmother sitting on your shoulder, promising to save you money on your healthcare expenses and help lower your taxes all while helping you invest for retirement. It would seem too good to be true, right? Well, here is the best part: that “fairy godmother”

The old adage of “Money Can’t Buy Happiness” has been tested in several high profile academic studies—the first major study was in 2010, when a paper was published that showed a correlation between higher household income and increased levels of satisfaction (happiness). That original study showed happiness

No matter where you are on your financial journey, controlling your finances is one of the most important things you can do for your future. While it’s challenging to break the cycle of living paycheck-to-paycheck or find money to invest when you’re supporting kids or helping aging parents, building your own

What a difference a few months can make…with time, perspectives can change! From last quarter to this quarter, this happened: Bailey doubled in size. Here are a few other charts or images that caught our attention this past month and shifted or confirmed our perspectives: Large cap stocks returned to the top of the