Are you a Catholic interested in finding a financial advisor who shares your religious values? If so, you may want to consider working with a Catholic financial advisor who specializes in building financial plans with a faith-based approach.
While you may meet a financial advisor at your church who serves other members of your congregation, they may not specialize in applying a Catholic faith-based approach to investments and financial planning. Looking beyond your own church and community to find a Catholic financial advisor, you’ll be more likely to discover an advisor who not only shares your beliefs and values but also applies a faith-based approach tailored to your unique circumstances.
In fact, you may decide that working with a Catholic financial advisor online via Zoom meetings can be a great alternative to meeting in person, especially if you’re looking for more time to put back in your day.
Let’s learn more about the benefits of working with a Catholic financial advisor to help you find the best advisor for your individual needs and preferences.
📍 Click on a pin in the map view below for a preview of Catholic financial advisors who can help you reach your money goals with a personalized plan. Or choose the grid view to search our directory of Catholic financial advisors with additional filtering options.
This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:
Q&A with Catholic Financial Advisors
Get Answers to Your Questions Working with a Catholic Financial Advisor
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Q&A with Catholic Financial Advisors
Two Questions with Deb Meyer
We asked Fort Myers, Florida-area financial advisor, and lifelong Catholic Deb Meyer to answer questions asked by fellow Catholics interested in learning how they can combine their faith and finances.
Q: As a devout Catholic, I’m interested in setting aside a portion of my estate as a gift to the church, but unsure the smartest approach. How can a Catholic financial advisor help me ensure more of my gift reaches the Church (versus taxes beyond an appropriate level)?
Deb: Great question! Including your local parish in estate planning documents is a great way to leave a legacy that will benefit the Catholic Church for years to come.
One practical way is to leave a specific charitable bequest within the estate documents (either a revocable trust or will) that your estate planning attorney prepares. You can specify a dollar amount or percentage of overall assets.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to involve an attorney, update the beneficiary designation on your traditional IRA or Rollover IRA account to represent the desired percentage of the IRA balance that you wish to leave to the church. Although this strategy is tax-efficient, one downside is the fluctuation of the IRA balance over time — especially if the IRA is your primary source of income during retirement alongside Social Security benefits.
In both instances, it is important to work with a financial planner who understands your family values and one who will point out the potential pitfalls before any beneficiaries or estate documents are changed. The advisor can also explain ways to benefit the Catholic Church and other charitable organizations during your lifetime.
Q: As a Catholic, what are the potential benefits of hiring a financial advisor who shares my faith and specializes in serving Catholics?
Deb: Working with a Catholic financial advisor ensures that you share core values and beliefs. I cannot stress how important this is when it comes to your stewardship journey. Faith-agnostic advisors are more concerned with your financial net worth and propensity to save without taking generosity or your God-given talents into consideration.
As Catholics, we make different choices about money that oppose societal norms. It takes courage to go against the grain, and a Catholic financial advisor is there to not only support but also guide you.
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About the Author
Brian Thorp
Founder and CEO, Wealthtender
Brian and his wife live in Texas, enjoying the diversity of Houston and the vibrancy of Austin.
With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress.
There are two common traits among successful retirees: they started saving early, and they have a plan. However, there’s an incredible amount of nuance involved in everyone’s life. Doing the wrong things early or executing on a poorly made plan doesn’t help anyone.
A well-tailored retirement plan, focusing on the most important aspects of your life, can provide financial security and peace of mind. Retirement planning isn’t a one-time event but a continual process which grows and moves with you. Let’s go over the five main steps needed to prepare for retirement.
Step 1: Define Your Retirement Goals
Most of us have a general idea of what we might want to do in retirement. However, once we get closer to retirement, things can look a bit different. The entire concept of being retired starts to feel more real (and maybe a little stressful).
It’s important to set specific, measurable, and realistic goals. More importantly, you need to uncover the most important things in your life and start putting some numbers to things. The money piece is largely just a math problem, which is much easier to solve.
Defining Your Retirement Lifestyle
The harder part is deciding things like the retirement lifestyle you want, when you want to quit working (or if you want to quit working), and deeper considerations around your legacy. You’ll need to answer questions like:
Do you want to travel?
Are you going to move or make other major changes in your location?
Will your spouse retire at the same time?
What will you regret not doing in retirement?
Once you know what you want, we can estimate how much everything might cost. You’ll want to get as specific as you can here. For instance, the goal of “traveling more” needs to be more clearly defined. You can give a range of costs, how you’ll travel, who you might want to take with you, how many trips per year, and more.
The more specific you can get, the better.
Step 2: Assess Your Current Financial Situation
Once you know what you want, we need to uncover how much you can achieve based on the resources you have available. It’s essential to have a clear picture of all your current savings, investments, and income sources. This includes accounting for any existing debt too.
You’ll also want to get a reasonable estimate of other retirement income streams, such as any pension income or your estimated Social Security payout. Although these may not cover all your needs, they are great additions to your retirement income.
Once you’ve determined your specific goals and the resources you already have, you can calculate the gap between your current savings and your retirement goals. Sometimes, you may need to adjust things to make it work. In some cases, you may be pleasantly surprised to find you have more than enough to accomplish everything you want in retirement.
Regardless, guessing isn’t an option. Knowing the resources are there to cover your goals gives you confidence to enjoy life in retirement.
Step 3: Create a Comprehensive Retirement Plan
If you identified any shortfalls in funding for your retirement goals, we’ll want to address those first. There are many different strategies to bridge financial gaps in your plan. However, you’ll need to decide what tradeoffs are worth it and which ones are not.
For instance, you might not want to work an extra year to make things work. Instead, you might prefer to take one less vacation per year or save extra in your 401(k) for the next few years. For some people, retiring early to pursue part-time work might be a better option.
It’s also important to diversify retirement investments. If your portfolio has a high concentration of company stock, it may be time to start moving into a broader mix of assets. Also, as you get closer to retirement, your investments’ job shifts from growth to preservation and providing retirement income.
Building Tax Efficiency
You also need to pay attention to the tax efficiency of your portfolio. For many retirees, large traditional 401(k) or IRA balances will be subject to required minimum distributions (RMDs). There may also be opportunities for tax-savings strategies like Roth conversions.
A tax-optimized retirement looks way better than “winging it” does. In many cases, you’ll need several years to implement long-term tax strategies. You also need to be aware of how different types of retirement income can affect other aspects of your life like Medicare premiums and taxation of your Social Security payments.
Step 4: Manage Risk and Protect Your Assets
One of the main concerns many retirees face is whether they’ll run out of money. Obviously, running out of money is bad. However, if you’ve developed a comprehensive retirement plan, you have a lot less to worry about, barring some major catastrophe.
Some of the biggest retirement risks include health issues, premature death, and economic conditions (such as market fluctuations, inflation, and legislative changes). However, you can protect yourself against all of these.
Proper Insurance Protection
It’s important to have the proper health, life, and long-term care insurance. In some cases, these aren’t necessary, but you never want to assume. We want to put numbers to your situation and determine if additional coverage is needed.
Your coverages will often change when you leave work, so you need to have a plan for things like health insurance. It’s also important to understand coverage and costs of Medicare.
Economic and Market Conditions
You can’t control when the next recession will happen. You also can’t change the rate of inflation. However, you can develop a rock-solid investment policy statement to decide how you’ll handle anything the markets throw your way.
We help clients develop their investment policy statement as a part of our initial plan-building. Having a clearly defined picture of your portfolio construction for retirement income is very helpful. When things get scary, it’s helpful to know exactly what you will and won’t do.
Adjusting for Inflation
Adjusting for the inevitable creep of inflation is also especially important. Every plan should factor rising costs into the equation. However, don’t just focus on the normal metrics for inflation like the consumer price index (CPI).
You’ll want to keep an eye on inflation for some of the costs most important to your goals. For instance, if funding college for your children or grandchildren is important, keeping track of college tuition costs would be important. Once again, your retirement plan is specific to your life and goals.
Estate Planning
You’ll also want to protect your assets as they pass from you to your heirs. From designating beneficiaries to establishing trusts, there are many considerations. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to estate planning.
In many cases, what we want changes over time, but the proper legal documents to ensure our wishes are carried out get neglected or forgotten. Make sure everyone knows the plan, but also make sure everything is properly documented.
Step 5: Regularly Review and Adjust Your Plan
Life is full of changes, and retirement is no different. Financial planning isn’t a one-time event. As your situation changes, you’ll want to review your plan and make adjustments along the way.
As you experience life changes through career shifts, family changes, and maintaining your health, you’ll need to revisit things. This is where working with a financial planner can be a real value add. Having a trusted professional who can help answer questions and look out for you is invaluable.
As laws, markets, and life changes happen, a good financial planner can help you navigate them and keep you focused on the things you really care about like family and friends.
Build Your Retirement Plan Today
In closing, we can’t overstate the importance of proactive retirement planning. Starting early, staying disciplined, and seeking professional advice can be invaluable. If you’re feeling “behind” in your planning, it’s not too late.
No matter what age you are, you can take the first step toward a secure retirement today. We’d encourage you to take some type of action toward building your retirement roadmap. Build your retirement team and design the retirement of your dreams today!
This article reflects the insights and opinions of its author and is not a recommendation or endorsement of their views or services.
About the Author
Clint Haynes, CFP®Helping you build a retirement with pleasure, purpose, and peace of mind.
As children head off to college or start their careers, parents face a major life transition of their own: becoming empty nesters. Adjusting from a full house to an empty one requires thoughtful preparation. Many young adults face barriers to independence and may return home temporarily or need additional support to gain their footing. In nuclear and blended families, it’s important to avoid making one child feel pushed out or another favored, as sibling rivalries—often more intense in blended families—can add to the challenge. While the journey may not be as straightforward as it once was, careful planning can help make the transition smoother for everyone.
This is a great time to reassess your financial plans, retirement strategies, and overall wealth management goals. You may also want to review your day-to-day money management—does your “Yours, Mine, Ours” approach still make sense now that the kids are grown? By planning ahead, you can support your children’s next steps while staying on track with your own financial future.
Having a well-structured plan in place can help you navigate the transition to an empty nest with confidence, ensuring your family’s long-term well-being while creating opportunities for a fulfilling future.
Acknowledging Your Mixed Emotions
As you transition into your role as parents of independent, adult children, it’s natural to experience a mix of emotions. This is an exciting time; you’ve successfully raised a family, and now you’re entering a new chapter filled with fresh opportunities and experiences.
You and your spouse may have differing views here, and respecting each person’s perspective is important. My wife Cara and I struggle with this sometimes. Whereas she considers having children return home during early adulthood “bonus time” with them, I’ve been looking forward to the next phase in our lives. I enjoy spending extra time with my kids and step-kids and don’t want to wish that gift away, but I also welcome the day when I can step back from managing a full household.
Moreover, you and your spouse may have different experiences. One of you may be facing an empty nest for the first time, while the other has already been through it with older children. You may be navigating co-parenting dynamics with an ex-spouse while balancing your financial and emotional responsibilities.
No matter your situation, it’s normal to feel a mix of emotions—apprehension, sadness, excitement, or even relief. But remember, you will always be a parent; your role has simply shifted. Your children have a bright future ahead of them, and so do you. By accepting these emotions and focusing on the possibilities ahead, you can move forward with grace, pride, and optimism.
Blended Family Financial Planning for an Empty Nest
As children move out, blended families may face some unique financial considerations. It’s a great time to reassess what this means for your finances. A revised budget should reflect reduced household expenses, such as groceries and utilities, while accounting for possible new costs, like helping kids get moved and set up in their first apartment or dorm room.
Key Financial Considerations
Adjust Your Budget for Changing Expenses and Income: Review your financial situation as your household size changes. Consider how reductions will impact your income if you receive family support payments. Likewise, if you make child support or alimony payments, now is the time to reassess your expenses as your children gain independence.
Maximize Retirement Contributions: If you’re 50 or older, use this time to contribute extra money to retirement accounts. You can take advantage of the IRS catch-up contributions rule to boost your retirement savings.
Pay Down Your Mortgage Before Retirement: Reducing or eliminating mortgage debt can help provide greater financial security. Consider increasing payments to lower what you owe, which will allow you to approach retirement with fewer ongoing housing costs.
Diversify Investments for Long-Term Financial Well-Being: Evaluate your investment portfolio to make sure it still aligns with your evolving financial goals. This can be a good time to diversify assets further and explore new financial products, such as those that produce income.
Update Your Estate Plan to Reflect Your Goals: Review and revise your estate plan to align with your current wishes. Make certain all beneficiaries, powers of attorney, and asset distributions reflect your legacy objectives and protect your family for the long term.
This is the perfect time to revisit your financial future. Does your current plan align with this new phase of life? If not, consider how you can adjust your savings and investment strategies to reflect your evolving needs. Take advantage of the extra room in your budget and the mental space to look at your ambitions again.
Use this time to explore new financial opportunities. Consulting with a financial advisor to reassess your investment portfolio and retirement plan can help you be better positioned for this new chapter. By proactively managing your finances, you can make the most of the empty nest phase and build a strong foundation for the future.
Redefine Your Relationship, Family Dynamics, and Shared Interests
With fewer daily parenting responsibilities, this is a great time to redefine and explore your relationship as a couple. Revisit your Unified Financial Vision—what dreams and goals have been waiting for this moment? Consider how you’ll reallocate your time and resources, whether it’s exploring new hobbies, traveling, or finally pursuing long-held aspirations.
There’s no denying that parenthood changes you, so take time to discover who you are now. Connect with long-neglected passions or find new ones and engage with your community in fresh ways. If you struggle to fill the gap left by your children’s activities, remember you’re not alone. It may take some trial and error, but with effort, you’ll find what brings you joy.
Consider hobbies that keep you active and healthy, and prioritize activities that nurture your spiritual and emotional well-being. Engaging in local clubs, volunteer work, or new fitness routines can help you stay connected and fulfilled, creating a balanced and enriching experience as you adjust to life with an empty nest.
Repurposing and Reconsidering Your Space
With your children gone, now is the perfect time to repurpose extra space in your home. Convert a bedroom into a home office, library, craft room, or guest suite for visitors. However, remember that in blended families, it’s important to approach these changes thoughtfully. You don’t want one child to feel alienated or “kicked out” while another still has a dedicated space to return to. Work together to strike a balance that allows you to reclaim your home while also making all children feel valued and welcome.
Downsizing to a more manageable space might also make financial sense, or you may prefer to renovate to suit your new reality. Add that sunroom you’ve always dreamed of to enjoy your morning coffee, create an apartment over the garage for rental income, or make adjustments for aging in place, such as accessible showers and higher toilets. Tailoring your home to your current lifestyle and upcoming needs can enhance comfort and enjoyment.
Stepping into a New Financial Chapter
Whether your kids are on the cusp of leaving or your empty nest is several years away, consulting with a financial advisor can be invaluable. When kids leave home, parenting doesn’t end, nor does the challenge of blending. In many ways, the family unit has become more complex. Adult children develop new expectations about family dynamics, wealth, and fairness, often unspoken but deeply felt. Financial planning helps ensure that both partners’ interests are aligned and that the planned legacy reflects their unique family structure.
Reviewing your financial plan is key to readying your family for this transition. Planning for the future can help replace anxiety with a sense of confidence. From budget adjustments to retirement strategies, a professional can guide you through optimizing your finances during this new chapter of life. Contact us to schedule a consultation, and let us help you prepare for a confident and fulfilling empty nest.
If you’re in debt right now you’ve probably heard a lot of advice about how you should get out of it as fast as possible. That way you’ll pay less interest overall — and that just makes sense, right? You should cut expenses, stop all discretionary spending and just throw everything at getting out of debt. If you can make that work, that’s great — but for many of us it’s simply not realistic. Here are three good reasons to get out of debt slowly.
Fast Isn’t Always Sustainable
We can all cut expenses, stop all discretionary spending and just throw everything at getting out of debt for a short period. It even feels quite satisfying. We can turn a no-spend month into a game, and our brains love a bit of gamification, but a no-spend life can feel very restricting, and more like survival than living.
Putting our entire life on hold while we get out of debt is frustrating and — for many of us — not sustainable. We all need to enjoy life, which is why I recommend putting a little fun money in your budget. Yes, even while paying down debt.
When people ask me for advice about debt I always say the same thing. Make a plan to eliminate it. There’s a difference between ‘pay down debt’ and ‘make a plan to pay down debt’. One is a vague goal with lots of steps and is quite overwhelming. The other is something you can do in the next hour. Make the plan sensible and sustainable, and when the plan is made, stick to it.
Debt Isn’t Always Your Top Priority
Paying off debt very aggressively can mean putting all your spare money from every pay check into debt pay off, which means leaving yourself broke again right at the beginning of your pay cycle. This means that if an emergency happens, you may end up going deeper into debt. And that will often be an expensive form of debt like a credit card, because that’s what’s most convenient when an emergency happens.
Sometimes debt has to come lower down your list of priorities, behind essential expenses, building your emergency fund, and sometimes even investing for your future. It is perhaps controversial (though it shouldn’t be) that it should also come behind other things like your physical and mental health and your ability to enjoy life. By all means find as many free ways to enjoy life as possible, but don’t jeopardize your mental health by denying yourself absolutely everything you enjoy doing that costs a little money.
Paying Off Debt Isn’t Always the Best Use of Money
Someone told me recently that she was happy about a small but significant-to-her windfall she’d had because it meant she could finally pay off her (fairly low) credit card debts. Great idea, right? Except that I knew she’d recently switched to a long-term 0% interest card. She’s also covering her expenses (including minimum payments on the credit card debt) fine with her current wages.
She’d be better off putting that windfall in a safe, high-interest account for now, continuing to pay off the interest-free debt, and building up a little more money in interest payments on the money. The important thing here is to ring-fence that money so it’s there for paying off the debt when the interest-free period is up. There’ll just be a little more of it.
Paying off debt fast is an admirable goal and doing everything you can to do it is a great idea. Just make that what you’re doing is sustainable, sensible, and supportive of your life goals and mental health. Good debt management strategies should reduce stress, not increase it.
Karen Banes is a freelance writer specializing in entrepreneurship, parenting and lifestyle. She writes articles, website content, ebooks and the occasional award winning short story. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and off, including The Washington Post, Life Info Magazine, Transitions Abroad, Brave New Traveler, Natural Parenting Group, and Copia Magazine.
Learn More About Karen
As the cost of living rises, finding affordable vacations becomes harder, but there are always cheap travel deals to be found. Bookmark these websites to find the best travel deals, to almost anywhere in the world.
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a simple search website that most associate with finding cheap flights, although it’s now also possible to search for deals on accommodation and even car hire as well. You can put in the airports you want to fly to and from (check the box that says ‘add nearby airports’ for potentially cheaper alternatives in the same region).
Want a vaycay but don’t care where? Just search ‘everywhere’ for the cheapest deals to any destination on any given day. Want a last minute weekend trip to somewhere fun? Download the Skyscanner app and open Drops to see any flights leaving today from your chosen airport with a price drop of 20% or more.
LastMinute.com
LastMinute.com allows you to select ‘flights’, ‘hotels’, or ‘flights and hotels’, and search for discounted travel deals available in the near future. Far from being truly last minute, deals include options for the next few weeks, although you may just find an amazing bargain if you can leave in the next couple of days.
Subscribe to the newsletter to get deals sent straight to your inbox, and get a small travel credit to be used on the site.
Expedia
Expedia is a simple, user-friendly platform that compares deals across the internet, and then allows you to make a booking directly through the site. It covers hotels and other accommodation like condos and villas, flights, cruises, vacation packages, and car hire.
The site features OneKey — a free travel rewards program that works alongside any other air miles or other travel rewards cards you may already have — and offers awesome last minute deals. Become a OneKey member to collect rewards and access reduced prices and special deals. You can also sign up for alerts if prices drop.
Kayak
Kayak.com is similar to Expedia but is a true comparison site rather than a booking portal. That is, it will compare prices across the web, but then send you to the featured airlines, hotels and other companies to make your booking direct.
The Kayak app is highly popular, allowing you to track prices, set a budget and easily build your itinerary for your trip. The site also has some fun tools like the ‘Best Time to Travel’ calculator that finds when the cheapest deals are available to your destination.
Holiday Pirates
Holiday Pirates is a site that allows you to search for travel deals in various categories including city breaks, all-inclusive, last minute, and solo travel. Search by category or destination, or scroll right to the bottom of the home page to see the different markets available, including USA, UK, and various European countries.
You can follow Holiday Pirates on their social media channels, where they post all the last minute deals that are going at reduced prices, or subscribe to the newsletter to get them straight to your inbox. There’s also an award winning app, though I’ve found the site works better than the app.
Worldpackers and Workaway
Want a free vacation, rather than a cheap one? That’s possible. Organizations like Worldpackers and Workaway offer a range of options whereby you volunteer your time in return for free vacations. The work required is usually a few hours a day, and can be anything from helping out at a farm, animal rescue centre or community library, to teaching in a school (or building one).
You’ll usually get accommodation, food and other perks, but not travel to and from the destination. Always do your own research and read reviews before embarking on a project like this. There’s plenty that can go wrong, but lots of amazing experiences potentially awaiting you too.
If your budget is standing between you and your travel dreams, consider using a combination of the above to find the perfect travel opportunity, at an affordable price.
Karen Banes is a freelance writer specializing in entrepreneurship, parenting and lifestyle. She writes articles, website content, ebooks and the occasional award winning short story. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and off, including The Washington Post, Life Info Magazine, Transitions Abroad, Brave New Traveler, Natural Parenting Group, and Copia Magazine.
Learn More About Karen
Are you an author? Learn how financial advisors who specialize in serving authors can help you enjoy life more with less money stress.
Writing may be your passion, but when it comes to managing the income it generates, things can get complicated—fast. Royalties fluctuate, advances are unpredictable, and self-employment taxes can feel like a mystery novel with no satisfying ending.
For authors, financial planning isn’t just about saving for retirement; it’s about navigating a highly variable income stream, protecting intellectual property, and making the most of creative success. That’s where a financial advisor who specializes in working with authors can make all the difference.
Unlike most traditional careers, authors face unique challenges and opportunities—book deals, speaking gigs, film rights, and digital sales are just the tip of the iceberg. You’ll likely find dozens of nearby financial advisors well-suited to help you reach your money goals with a personalized plan. But it may be more difficult to find a financial advisor who understands how to treat income from multiple publishing platforms, optimize tax deductions for writing-related expenses, or plan for gaps between book launches.
Fortunately, many financial advisors offer virtual services so you can meet online no matter where you (or they) live. This means you can choose to hire a specialist financial advisor who lives hundreds of miles away if you decide their knowledge and experience working with authors is a better fit to help with your unique financial planning needs.
Advisors who work specifically with authors bring industry insight and tailored strategies that align with your creative goals and business realities. By working with a financial advisor who specializes in serving authors, your time can be freed up to focus on what you do best: telling great stories.
Financial Planning for Authors
💡 In the Q&A below, you’ll gain insights from financial advisors who work with authors to help them make smart decisions to enjoy life more today while preparing for a comfortable retirement in the future.
🙋♀️ Do you have questions not answered below? Use the form on this page to submit your questions, and we’ll update this article with answers from the financial professionals and educators in the Wealthtender community. You can also contact the financial advisors featured in this article directly to set up an introductory call or ask your questions by email.
💸 Smart Money Insights for Authors
This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:
Q&A with Financial Advisors Specializing in Serving Authors
Get Answers to Your Questions About Financial Planning for Authors
Browse Related Articles
Q&A: Financial Advisors Specializing in Serving Authors
Answers to Questions About Financial Planning for Authors with Larry Sprung, CFP®
We asked Hauppauge, New York, financial advisor Larry Sprung, CFP®, Founder, Wealth Advisor of Mitlin Financial, Inc® and Author of “Financial Planning Made Personal” to answer a few questions that come up in his conversations with authors who want to turn their literary career earnings into a comfortable retirement with a storybook ending.
Q: What is a common financial planning challenge unique to authors that you frequently encounter when working with your clients? How do you work with them to overcome this challenge?
Larry: One of the most common financial planning challenges I see with authors is the unpredictability of their income. Unlike a traditional 9-to-5, authors often go through peaks and valleys—whether it’s an advance from a new book, royalties that fluctuate, merchandise sales that tend to spike around releases, or speaking engagements. Cash flow inconsistency affects how you budget, save, plan for retirement and college savings, and tax strategy.
At Mitlin Financial, we help authors build a framework that creates more stability amidst that unpredictability. For example, we guide them in setting up more predictable income strategies, essentially paying themselves a salary, so they can create more consistency and plan more effectively.
We’ve even introduced some authors to advanced planning tools like Cash Balance Plans—a powerful retirement strategy that helps them lower their tax burden while ramping up retirement savings, especially in high-income years.
Your gift is crafting stories, ours is helping you craft a financial life that supports your creativity—so you can keep doing what you love while we help you create your own happily ever after.
Q: For authors who are unsure whether or not they should hire a financial advisor at the current point in their lives, what guidance can you provide to help them make a more informed and educated decision?
Larry: I often tell authors: if your writing career is generating income—or you hope it will—then it’s never too early to start thinking like a business owner. Many authors don’t realize they’re building a business, and with that comes responsibility: managing cash flow, tax strategy, planning for retirement, investment decisions, and as their brand grows the protection of intellectual property and estate planning.
Hiring a financial advisor isn’t just about wealth management—it’s about clarity and confidence. I’ve spoken at numerous author conferences presenting “Write Your Financial Future”, where I walk writers through the business side of their careers. From that experience, I’ve seen firsthand how empowering it can be when authors recognize that they can take control of the business side of their career and that there are people who can help so that they can focus on the things that bring them JOY like, plot twists, world-building, and character arcs.
If you’re feeling unsure, have a conversation. A great fiduciary advisor won’t pressure you—they’ll educate you, meet you where you are, and assist you in exploring possibilities you may not have considered.
Q: How do the services you provide to authors distinguish your firm from other advisory firms?
Larry: At Mitlin Financial, we take a uniquely personalized and strategic approach to working with authors. We recognize that being an author isn’t just a passion—it’s a profession. That means treating your writing like a business and understanding the specific financial challenges and opportunities that come with it.
Where many firms might offer generic planning services, we dig deep into things like how to transition from W-2 income (in your full-time job) to 1099 as your writing career grows. We’ve helped authors set up tax-efficient retirement plans like Cash Balance Plans, structure their business entities, and even shown them how to borrow against a properly structured investment portfolio to purchase that dream vacation home—all without disrupting their long-term goals.
Our expertise goes beyond the numbers. It’s about understanding your story and helping you write the next financial chapter with intention and confidence. Read more about how Mitlin assists authors.
Get to Know Larry Sprung, Financial Advisor for Authors:
Q: When you first speak with an author, what questions do you like to ask to better understand their unique circumstances and determine how you can best help them achieve their goals?
Larry: The very first thing I want to understand is: What brings you JOY?
That one simple question opens the door to everything that follows.
Whether it’s having more time to write, building a business around your books, traveling for inspiration, or simply knowing your family’s taken care of we start with your unique vision of JOY and work backward from there.
It’s no coincidence that my book, “Financial Planning Made Personal”, opens with a discourse on JOY. Because at the end of the day, that’s what financial planning should be, it should be personal, it should be about helping you craft a life that reflects what matters most to you.
From there, I get curious about how your writing career is currently supporting that vision. We’ll talk about how your income flows in—through royalties, advances, speaking, or other creative projects. We explore whether you’ve taken steps to formalize your business, what you’re doing to prepare for taxes, and how you’re planning for the future.
But make no mistake: this conversation isn’t just about finances—it’s about your life. At Mitlin, we believe financial planning is a tool to help you live more fully and freely. When authors sit down with us, they’re not getting a lecture on numbers they’re starting a conversation about what truly matters most.
Q: What questions do you recommend authors ask financial advisors they’re considering hiring to help them decide if they’re a good fit?
Larry: Authors should feel empowered to interview potential advisors. A few key questions I suggest:
Have you worked with authors or other creatives before? Their financial picture is unique. You want someone who understands things like royalties, inconsistent income, and intellectual property.
Are you a Fiduciary? A fiduciary is anyone who has a legal responsibility to put the client’s interest ahead of their own. In layman’s terms: The advisor has to do what is best for the client, rather than what is best for themselves. So, for example, the advisor cannot put you in the most expensive product to generate a higher commission for themselves. An important note: Not all financial advisors are fiduciaries…
How do you get paid? Look for transparency here. Whether it’s fee-based, commission-based, or flat-fee, you must understand the structure.
What’s your planning process like? A good advisor should have a clear and collaborative process, not a one-size-fits-all model. They should also be clear about who your contact is at the firm and how they communicate.
How will you help me grow my business and manage my personal finances together? The lines between business and personal finances are often blurred for authors—your advisor needs to be comfortable operating in both spaces.
Choosing who you work with isn’t just about credentials—it’s about connection.
You deserve someone who listens, sees the full picture, and understands your world.
At Mitlin, we lead with empathy, build with trust, and design a plan rooted in your vision of JOY.
Don’t just find an advisor—find a true partner in your journey.
Q: Is there a particularly memorable experience or a moment you recall with an author when you first realized they have unique opportunities and circumstances when it comes to their financial planning needs?
Larry: Absolutely—one moment that stands out was working with an author who had recently left a full-time corporate job to write full-time.
The transition from W-2 to 1099 had thrown them for a loop suddenly they were dealing with quarterly taxes, business expenses, and wildly fluctuating income.
We sat down and structured their business properly, created a tax-saving strategy using a Cash Balance Plan, which significantly reduced their taxable income, and built a plan to stabilize their cash flow. They went from feeling overwhelmed to feeling in control.
Another author we serve came to us wanting to buy a vacation home, it brought us JOY that they knew we would not judge their decision to spend what they have earned. It brought them JOY when I shared that instead of liquidating the portfolio for the purchase they could explore a portfolio loan. We educated them about a securities-backed line of credit—allowing them to access liquidity without selling off their investments. They were able to say yes to the vacation home they’d always dreamed of—and still stay aligned with their bigger vision for the future. It’s an example of what we strive for: helping families enJOY the journey, without compromising the dreams of tomorrow.
Your journey as an author is unlike anyone else’s—and your financial plan should reflect that. With guidance tailored to your creative life and goals, you can move beyond just making it, and start building a future where you truly thrive.
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About the Author
About the Author
Brian Thorp
Brian is CEO and founder of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress. Learn More about Brian
Govinda Quish, Managing Director | Image Credit: Institute for Innovation Development
[The growing trend of clients demanding more personalization from their advisors and investments has the wealth management industry grappling with the operational tension that creates. As many wealth managers use a range of pre-built model portfolios by their home office investment teams to ensure proper allocation guidelines and compliance, there is a growing need to balance the specific deployment of these model portfolios with the need to satisfy the requirements of individual clients. This growing tension requires a solution that reimagines and reengineers how firms can create the portfolio alignment that personalization requires.
To understand the challenges and opportunities in this area, we reached out to Govinda Quish, Managing Director, Global Wealth Management at MSCI Wealth. MSCI has recently addressed this demand with the introduction of their MSCI Similarity Score capability which they further outlined in a recent research paper, Redefining Portfolio Alignment for Wealth Managers.
During our conversation, Govinda and I covered the balancing act that Chief Investment Officers (CIOs) and investment teams at wealth management firms, along with their wealth managers, are facing as personalization demands increase, the limitations of holdings-based comparisons, and how MSCI’s Wealth Manager platform (formerly known as Fabric) is aiming to address this challenge facing the industry.]
Hortz: For the last few years, we have seen reporting on the rise of client portfolio personalization. Can you elaborate on your views of this trend and what challenges it is causing?
Govinda: CIOs at wealth management firms are indeed facing increased demand for personalized client portfolios, driven by clients’ desire for tailored investment solutions. This has been going on for many years, but as we see better technology becoming available (some of it driven by AI adoption), wealth management firms are able to bring more portfolio personalization to more people. What was typically a service only in a firm’s private wealth business, or offering to high-net worth clients, we are now seeing personalization capabilities increase even to mass affluent clients.
As a response, this trend is pushing firms to invest more in portfolio monitoring and adherence capabilities. By enhancing these areas, firms can ensure that personalized portfolios remain aligned with both a clients’ goals and desires, but do not deviate too much from the established models and compliance standard set-up by the firm. If they can successfully navigate both sides of this demand, a firm can improve client satisfaction and trust, and limit downside risk and exposure the firm may not be comfortable taking.
Hortz: Is this why MSCI has established the MSCI Similarity Score?
Govinda: Exactly, I come from an institutional investment background. On the institutional side, we have advanced capabilities to analyze risk and exposure to different asset types. However, for many years there was a glaring gap in the tools available to wealth management teams. This is what caused me and Rick Bookstaber to initially found our platform Fabric in 2019. We wanted to create a portfolio management platform that provided the same capabilities found on the institutional side, but now available to wealth investment teams to manage a network of advisors and all of their clients at scale.
The Fabric team officially joined MSCI in Dec 2023 and we have been able to build on that original foundation by adding MSCI’s data and expertise. We have created what we believe will be one of the leading standards in portfolio management and monitoring alignment, the MSCI Similarity Score. Our team has now natively embedded the score into our MSCI Wealth Manager platform to create a SaaS based solution to address the need and demand we are discussing for wealth management firms.
Hortz: What exactly is the MSCI Similarity Score?
Govinda: The MSCI Similarity Score is a proprietary metric designed to measure the alignment between a client’s portfolio and a model portfolio. It focuses on portfolio behavior rather than exact holdings, providing a standardized measure to compare different portfolios. The score focuses on portfolio risk and return rather than the exact holdings employing a factor-based approach using proprietary multi-asset class models from MSCI.
Hortz: What makes the MSCI Similarity Score different from traditional portfolio alignment methods?
Govinda: Traditional portfolio alignment methods often focus on exact asset replication, which can be limiting. The MSCI Similarity Score shifts the focus to how portfolios behave at the factor level, providing a more flexible and scalable way to assess alignment. This is particularly useful in managing diverse client portfolios, especially in cases where clients have positions across public and private funds.
Hortz: Can you elaborate on how the score is calculated?
Govinda: The score is calculated using a factor-based framework that evaluates the behavioral alignment between portfolios. It ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating stronger alignment. This approach emphasizes factors like market movements and economic conditions rather than precise asset replication. We believe that by taking what is a relatively complex and sophisticated analysis and creating a single score framework, we can create conversations between the investment teams, advisors, and their clients that are both easy to explain, and easy to understand.
Hortz: Can you provide a practical example of how the MSCI Similarity Score is used?
Govinda: Certainly. Imagine a client portfolio invested in a selection of emerging market ETFs that differs from the firm’s model allocation which is heavy with global equity funds. Instead of comparing holdings side by side, the MSCI Similarity Score assesses how the portfolio behaves in terms of factor risks. By breaking it down to the factor level, we may see that the composition of the client portfolio versus the model, while different at the holding level, may have similar factor-level exposure in areas like “Global equities” and therefore will behave directionally similar.
In this case, if the score is high enough, and remains within the guardrails established by the firm. It can be deemed to be similar and compliant and does not require significant rebalancing. This allows wealth managers to personalize their client positions, yet still potentially achieve strong alignment scores even with different asset compositions.
Hortz: How does the MSCI Similarity Score benefit wealth management firms?
Govinda: It helps wealth managers balance client customization with model portfolio efficiency. By focusing on behavioral alignment, it allows managers to deliver personalized solutions at scale without needing to replicate exact holdings.
In addition, we know from many of our clients using MSCI Wealth Manager, they benefit by providing a clear and intuitive metric that gives clients better insights into how their portfolios align with their goals and the views of the firm. This transparency helps in client portfolio rebalancing conversations and fosters greater confidence and trust in the wealth management process.
Last, the MSCI Similarity Score can help firms manage tax transition with their clients. When it is paired with MSCI’s advanced tax engine, investment teams can fine-tune portfolio rebalancing for specific tax outcomes. By integrating sophisticated tax strategies into asset allocation decisions, this enables wealth managers to focus on improving returns while minimizing tax liabilities inside portfolios.
Hortz: What advice do you have for firms looking to evaluate their portfolio monitoring and management capabilities?
Govinda: Client portfolio personalization is set to increase and not decrease over the coming years. If you are a wealth management, CIO, or a key member of a home office investment team, it is important for you to ensure you remain technologically competitive and have the necessary platforms and systems in place to allow your wealth managers to deliver what their clients are demanding while still establishing clear house views through your model portfolios. If you are not making this a priority in your firm, then you risk becoming a less attractive destination for clients and for advisors joining your firm over the years to come.
Bill Hortz is an independent business consultant and Founder/Dean of the Institute for Innovation Development- a financial services business innovation platform and network. With over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry including expertise in sales/marketing/branding of asset management firms, as well as, creatively restructuring and developing internal/external sales and strategic account departments for 5 major financial firms, including OppenheimerFunds, Neuberger&Berman and Templeton Funds Distributors. His wide ranging experiences have led Bill to a strong belief, passion and advocation for strategic thinking, innovation creation and strategic account management as the nexus of business skills needed to address a business environment challenged by an accelerating rate of change.
The way women need to plan their personal finances differs from how men need to plan theirs, for a range of reasons. The gender pay gap is one of them, and it still very much exists.
In spite of recent improvements, Pew Research suggests that women in the US still earn around 85% of men’s earnings, but what really needs consideration is that the gender pay gap isn’t consistent over a lifetime. It starts off smaller than 85%, and ends up much bigger — at least it does when women choose to have children.
Young men and women who haven’t yet had children tend to earn a similar amount, while older women with children see that pay gap increase. Regardless of whether those women later return to work, women in retirement overall have less income and a lower net worth than men, on average. Here’s how that all plays out, and what we can do about it.
Early On, The Gender Pay Gap Is Narrow
In the 25 to 34 age group, women tend to earn 95% of what men earn. That’s still five cents less on the dollar, in spite of the fact that women now have higher college enrolment and graduation rates than men. However, it’s a much smaller gap than is likely at a later age.
Since this is, statistically speaking, the time women are most likely to closely match men it terms of earning, it’s a good time to think about saving, investing, and putting the maximum amount possible into an employer matched pension scheme.
Remember that retirement investments made early are worth much more than those made later, so now might be a good time to max out that 401k, for many women. And if you’re a man who plans to have a family? Early investing is also important. When your partner’s income drops, you may not be able to afford to keep investing at the same rate.
The Decision that Changes It All
Probably the most important decision any young woman makes is when and whether to have children. While the gender pay gap may be just five cents on the dollar for the young and childfree, that changes substantially when children enter the picture.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that the median annual earnings for mothers amounted to just 61.7 cents on the dollar when compared directly to fathers. And that was based on all those with earnings, presumably excluding full-time stay-at-home parents (who statistically are mostly mothers).
Ultimately, the report concluded, “The wage gap between mothers and fathers is substantially wider than the wage gap between all women and all men.” Having (or not having) children is about much more than finances, of course, but finances are certainly one of many things to be considered when deciding when, whether, and how to embark on parenthood.
Financial considerations are certainly one of the things behind why so many women, and men, are choosing to remain child-free. If, however, you and your partner both very much want to have a family, it will ideally involve a fair bit of financial planning.
Things to Do Before Having Children
If you’re sure children of your own are a future goal of yours, it’s never too early to think about how to protect yourself financially, and avoid the mother-father pay gap if you can. Here’s how.
Explore Employee Benefits
Depending on where you live in the world, and your employer’s policies, you may get a year’s paid maternity leave or a few months unpaid. Paid paternity or general parental leave is less common, but often available. Some employers also offer subsidised childcare and other benefits. Look very carefully at what’s available to you and plan accordingly.
Make sure you check every benefit available — to both parents. It’s shocking how often parenthood is seen as a women’s issue, when it comes to work and finances. Don’t miss out on benefits offered to parents by the father’s employer.
Draw Up a Realistic Budget
Families are expensive, so think through your future budget before you start one. Don’t assume that you’ll take a short maternity leave and then continue on the exact career path you were already on.
Even if you think it won’t apply to you, factor that gender pay gap in, and see if you could still meet your goals as a couple and a family if your income was reduced by that much. Calculate how it would impact your future, your family, and your retirement.
The purpose of this exercise isn’t to discourage you from starting a family. It’s to ensure you understand the financial implications, and facilitate the next step.
Make a Plan
One of the reasons women are suffering in retirement is an expectation that they will take on all the burden of reduced income and simply not be able to invest for a while.
There is also an expectation that they will spend far more of their income on the family than men will, with research from one global initiative concluding that women invest 90% of their income back into their families, compared with 35% for men. If you both want a family, it’s only fair that you should both sacrifice equally to make it happen, at least from a financial standpoint.
Now is a good time to look at all the details, including how you’ll pay for childcare and how you’ll save for things like your offspring’s education. Plan in advance how this very expensive new life phase should be financed, and ensure it’s fair to both parties.
Women are increasingly choosing not to have children due to the financial stresses mothers feel in a society that doesn’t value motherhood, and doesn’t do much to support the decision. But if parenthood is something that is an important goal for you, there’s a lot to be said for planning for it carefully, especially from a financial point of view.
Karen Banes is a freelance writer specializing in entrepreneurship, parenting and lifestyle. She writes articles, website content, ebooks and the occasional award winning short story. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and off, including The Washington Post, Life Info Magazine, Transitions Abroad, Brave New Traveler, Natural Parenting Group, and Copia Magazine.
Learn More About Karen
What jackpot sizes make the lottery worth playing?
You read or hear about it every once in a while. Some Jane or John Doe just won a ton of dough playing Mega Millions or Powerball.
You sit there and think, “Man, that could’ve been me!Had I only bought some tickets…”
The Odds of Winning (Anything) Playing Mega Millions
Straight from the horse’s mouth, the Mega Millions odds are shown in the following table.
Your odds against winning anything at all is 23.99 to 1.
That means that for every 24 tickets you buy ($48), you should win one prize, almost certainly $2 or $4.
Mega Millions Update (March 2025):
Larger starting jackpots – Effective April 8th, 2025, the starting Mega Millions jackpot will reset to $50 million instead of $20 million.
Improved overall odds – Overall odds to win any prize will improve to 1:23 from 1:24 due to the removal of one gold Mega Ball from the game.
Improved odds to win the jackpot – Odds to win the jackpot will improve to 1:290,472,336 from 1:302,575,350 due to the removal of one gold Mega Ball from the game. The new game will feature 24 Mega Balls instead of the 25 in the current game.
Faster-growing jackpots and bigger jackpots more frequently – Jackpots are expected to grow faster and get to higher dollar amounts more frequently in the new game. The Mega Millions Consortium estimates that the average jackpot win in the new game will be more than $800 million vs. approximately $450 million in the current game.
2X-10X prize increase with built-in random multiplier – Every non-jackpot win will multiply its base prize by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X or 10X automatically. Prizes in the new game will range from $10 to $10 million vs. the $2 to $1 million in the current game.
Win more than the cost to play – With a minimum prize of $10 on a winning ticket in the new game, every winning ticket will pay out at least double the $5 cost for each play. In the current game, the minimum prize on a winning ticket and cost to play are the same: $2.
Given the Odds, Is There Ever Any Point in “Playing” the Mega Millions?
To answer this question, we need to dip our toes into statistics. Specifically, the term “expectation value.”
Here, the expectation value is what you can expect to get back, on average, from every ticket you buy. The calculation is simple and fairly intuitive.
You multiply the value of each possible outcome by its likelihood; then you sum those up for all possible outcomes.
Here, your possible outcomes are:
Winning nothing: value = $0, likelihood = 0.958316 (where certainty means a likelihood of 1.0)
Value = $2, likelihood = 0.027027
Value = $4, likelihood = 0.011236
Value = $10, likelihood = 0.001443
Value = $10, likelihood = 0.001650
Value = $200, likelihood = 0.0000687
Value = $500, likelihood = 0.0000258
Value = $10k, likelihood = 0.00000107
Value = $1 million, likelihood = 0.000000079
Value = jackpot ($40 million minimum), likelihood = 0.0000000033
Summing these up, the expectation value per ticket (if the jackpot is the minimum of $40 million) is $0.38.
That’s what you get back, on average, for every $2 ticket.
Such a deal!
Not for you, though! For the state!
Clearly, it isn’t a good idea for you to buy even one ticket when the average return is negative 81%!
And no, you can’t make up the losses through volume, i.e., by buying more tickets.
At this point, you could object that the jackpot isn’t always a measly $40 million, and you’d be right. What if it’s far higher? At what point do we reach breakeven?
On its face, if the jackpot is over $530,527,283 your expectation value seems to be almost exactly $2.
However, three things would make that assumed breakeven point an overly optimistic number.
Taxes
The jackpot number is always given based on the total of annuity payments over 30 years.
You may not be the only winner
Let’s start with the impact of taxes.
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Image Credit: Depositphotos.
Assuming your total marginal income tax bracket (federal, state, and local) should you win $1 million or more would be 45%, and if you win less than $100k it would be 30%.
Your after-tax winnings would lead to a $0.23 expectation value per $2 ticket for a $40 million jackpot, and $1.13 assuming the above-mentioned $530,527,284 — still far short of your $2 ticket cost.
To break even after taxes, you’d need to have the jackpot be at least $1,011,844,197. That’s over $1 billion with a “b”!
Next, let’s look at the lump sum vs. the annuitized amount.
According to Omni Calculator, if you win a nominal Mega Millions jackpot of $1,011,844,197, your lump-sum payout would only be about 52% of that, or $526,158,982.
This means that if you want to know the real breakeven here, you’d need to divide the nominal number by 0.52 (52%), which brings us to a breakeven point of $1,945,854,227.
This means the jackpot needs to be almost $1.95 billion for you to reach breakeven! And this assumes that if you win the jackpot, you’d be the only one to do so.
According to Mega Millions’ official website, “Since the game began in 2002, there have been 210 jackpots won by 236 individual tickets (21 jackpots have been shared by two or more winning tickets).” That seems to give you a 90% chance of being the sole winner.
However, far more tickets are sold when jackpots become huge.
Business Insider estimated your chance of being the sole winner of a massive jackpot (in the extraordinarily small chance you win it) is just 40%!
To translate that to a new breakeven number, we’d need to increase the jackpot size by a factor of 1.429 (the inverse of 70% = 40% if you win alone plus half of 60% if you share with one other winner - we’ll neglect the smaller likelihood of sharing with two or more other winners), for a final breakeven number of $2.78 billion!
That’s never happened yet (the highest ever was $1.57 billion), so playing Mega Millions is truly a sucker’s bet.
How About the Megaplier?
Mega Millions added a small wrinkle.
For an extra $1 per ticket, you can have all the non-jackpot prizes multiplied by a randomly chosen factor that can be 2, 3, 4, or 5. Given the likelihood of each of the factors, the average value of this play is a 3-fold increase in the non-jackpot prizes.
This changes the math a little, but not in your favor.
The expectation value of the Megaplier is just $0.49 before tax or about $0.35 after tax, and this value doesn’t improve when jackpots go up.
The Odds of Winning (Anything) Playing Powerball
Straight from the horse’s mouth again (just a different horse this time), the Powerball odds are shown in the following table.
The math is very similar, so we’ll run through it quickly…
Your odds against winning anything at all is 24.77 to 1.
That means that for every 25 tickets you buy ($50), you should win one prize, almost certainly $4.
Given the Odds, Is There Ever Any Point in “Playing” Powerball?
The expectation value per ticket (if the jackpot is the minimum of $40 million) is $0.35. That’s what you get back, on average, for every $2 ticket.
On its face, if the jackpot is over $ 486,447,951 your expectation value seems to be almost exactly $2. But after taxes that drops to about $1.14. To make up for taxes, the breakeven point grows to $944,698,852. Using Omni Calculator’s Powerball calculator, the lump-sum breakeven point grows to $1,816,728,561.
Assuming a similar 60% chance of sharing a massive jackpot with at least one other person, the final breakeven for Powerball is about $2.60 billion.
Slightly less bad than the Mega Millions’ $2.78 billion breakeven, but still a huge sucker’s bet considering that the largest Powerball jackpot was just over $2 billion.
And similar to the Megaplier, the Powerplay makes things worse, not better for you.
The Bottom Line
There’s a good reason why the lottery has been called a tax on the poor.
Only someone desperate enough (and/or financially illiterate) would hand over hard-earned money for the “privilege” of grasping at such an elusive straw.
The likelihood of winning the jackpot, about 1 in 300 million, is about 239× smaller than the one-in-1,222,000 risk of getting hit by lightning in the coming year (according to Weather.gov)! Winning the jackpot is as likely as getting struck by lightning in the US during an average 37-hour period, including any time you spend indoors and any time there isn’t a storm within a thousand miles!
To get a visceral sense of how unlikely winning the big one is, how likely do you think the winning numbers would be 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 with a Powerball or Mega Millions gold ball number 6?
Sounds absolutely impossible, right?
Guess what?
That set of numbers has the exact same (near-zero) likelihood of winning the jackpot as any other possible set of numbers.
The only reason anyone should “play” in such an incredibly rigged game is for the entertainment you may get from fantasizing about a huge win. If that entertainment is worth a buck or two, go ahead.
Just don’t do it expecting to win.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. You should consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
About the Author
Opher Ganel
My career has had many unpredictable twists and turns. An MSc in theoretical physics, a PhD in experimental high-energy physics, a postdoc in particle detector R&D, a research position in experimental cosmic-ray physics (including a couple of visits to Antarctica), a brief stint at a small engineering services company supporting NASA, followed by starting my own small consulting practice supporting NASA projects and programs. Along the way, I started several other micro businesses and helped my wife start and grow her own Marriage and Family Therapy practice. I draw on these diverse experiences to write about personal and small-business finance to help people achieve their personal and business finance goals.
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Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. You should consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
