Insights, Advice & a Whole Lot More
A New Mom, a New Take on Mother’s Day
As a new mom, I am so looking forward to what I consider to be my first actual Mother’s Day. Even though Grace was born on April 22, and I experienced my first Mother’s Day shortly after she was born, we were all too exhausted to celebrate it. So, I can’t wait to see what […]
Nathan GilbertMay 7, 2018Are You Biased?
With your investments, I mean. There is an interesting slide from JP Morgan with two charts showing investor allocations by region. There is quite a large disconnect between a US investor’s allocation to non-US investments and the actual make-up of the global markets. As you can
Nathan GilbertMay 1, 2018Wait…What?
As we’ve written about many times, Meridian has been compliant with the 2016 Department of Labor fiduciary rule, as we have been fiduciaries since Meridian was founded in 2015. To us, it just makes sense that your advisor should have your best interests in mind at all times! As f
Sarah YakelApr 24, 2018Happy (?) Tax Day
For most people, tax season officially comes to an end today, April 17th. All of us have the weekend and a Washington D.C. holiday to thank for the extra two days. Because the traditional April 15th fell on a Sunday this year, that would have pushed the tax filing deadline to Mon
Nathan GilbertApr 17, 2018
Short Range Optics
My family and I just returned from a trip to see the Grand Canyon—we are all exhausted and overwhelmed with all of the beautiful things we saw. None of us had ever been to the Grand Canyon before, so we had no idea what to expect. A friend of ours tried to explain it by […]
Sarah YakelApr 10, 2018An Old Door & Old Interest Rates
About 58 years ago, my grandparents (and my mom and her 4 siblings) moved from Pasadena, California to the Northern Virginia area. The new owner of the Pasadena house planned to have the house demoed in order to build a new, more modern home. According to my family, my grandfathe
Nathan GilbertApr 3, 2018
Riding out the Storm
This is my daughter Melanie: While she may look pleasant and mild mannered, don’t let that fool you. She turned twelve this year, and it seems we have entered the growing, changing (read: hormonal) phase of life. Melanie’s mood can change lightening fast. Here is a chart of her m
Sarah YakelMar 27, 2018College Basketball, The Weather, and The Markets
What do all three of the above have in common? Volatility and unexpected outcomes. I would suspect that’s an easy answer for most of you. The aptly named March Madness basketball tournament is certainly in full swing (ouch UVA!), snow is expected on the first day of Spring (that’
Nathan GilbertMar 20, 2018A Shocking Surprise
This weekend, my family and I took a little trip to Lake Anna. We stayed in a lovely house right on the water, and kayaks were provided. As the weather was a cloudy and cold 40 degrees, I had no desire to get our in a kayak on the lake, but not to be dissuaded, […]
Sarah YakelMar 13, 2018Wondering Whether You Weathered the Weather
I am sure most of you reading this experienced some sort of extreme wind and/or weather conditions this past weekend. All in all, I think Meridian and staff were very fortunate to have avoided any significant damage or long-term outages. Although, my partner Sarah’s kids’ school
Nathan GilbertMar 6, 2018
It Takes Diff’rent Strokes To Move the World…
As I write this blog, I am sitting at the second sports practice of the three we have tonight. Melanie just finished soccer practice, we are currently at Ben’s basketball practice, and we still have Ethan’s basketball practice to go. All of our kids are blessed with great coaches
Sarah YakelFeb 27, 2018
Don’t Be a Waffler
When you’re an 8-year-old kid like my son Coleman, and you LOVE sports, it’s okay to be a waffler. He is willing to (and pretty much does!) try anything and everything that involves a ball, stick, glove, goal, hoop, etc. As a result, he has asked us to sign him up for several dif
Nathan GilbertFeb 20, 2018