Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 28, 2014

B5

 

BUSINESS NEWS & TRENDS

 Mountain Views News Saturday, June 28, 2014 

FAMILY MATTERS By Marc Garlett


TIME TO SHOW OFF

If you’ve followed advice given here about sprucing up your home's exterior, well done! Now let’s 
focus attention on the next thing potential buyers will see - the front door and the interior. Now is 
the time for spring-cleaning and to show off your home's best features.

Repaint that front door and touch up around the entry. Make it warm and welcoming with updated 
light fixtures at the entrance and foyer. Speaking of entries, check your windows and doors for 
energy efficiency. If they're not airtight, an investment in new windows and insulation will pay off 
handsomely and impress buyers.

Freshly repainted walls won’t hurt either, and you can achieve a bright, clean look with light yellow 
or cream on the walls and contrasting white woodwork. Buff up your wood floors, clean your area 
rugs or carpets, and replace any worn carpeting before your first showing.

Buyers look carefully at bathrooms, so be sure to remove any spots of mildew, replace caulking, and 
consider a small investment in a new sink and vanity to really make things sparkle.

The icing on the cake is to offer buyers a "home warranty" on the appliances in your house, allowing 
them a full year of service on anything that happens to go wrong. Your pride of ownership and their 
peace of mind should combine to produce a sale!

THE LEGAL PLANNING YOU NEED TO DO FOR YOUR HIGH 
SCHOOL GRADUATE

If you’re the parent of a high school graduate this year, congratulations! I know you’ve put a lot of 
time and effort toward that diploma, and whatever their next step in life will be, you surely want to 
protect them just as much now as you always have.

So before you pack your kid off to college or just an apartment across town, you need to know that 
when they leave, they will be taking along many of the legal rights you held before they turned 18. 

Once a child turns 18, they are no longer considered a child in the eyes of the law. As such, you 
no longer have the legal right to access their medical, school, or banking records without their 
permission. Here are three simple steps you should take before your child leaves the nest to help 
ensure their safety and your peace of mind:

1. Create an advance healthcare directive. Once your child becomes a legal adult, they need to have 
an advance healthcare directive that will allow you to access their medical records and make medical 
decisions for them in case they become incapacitated. This is essential in case of an emergency. 
They will also need to sign a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) form that 
allows medical professionals to share information with you. 

2. Use technology. The American Bar Association recently released a free app for iPhone and Android 
that allows you to store an advance directive and other important documents on a smartphone. The 
app comes in two versions: the Lite version stores a PDF version of an advance healthcare directive 
and HIPAA form; the Pro version ($3.99) provides more functionality, including the ability to email 
documents. The app is called My HealthCare Wishes and is available from the iPhone App Store 
or Google Play for Android devices. There are also online solutions such as DocuBank.com which 
stores medical records and allows those to be accessed by medical professionals anywhere in the 
world.

3. Add an ICE app to your child’s phone. Add an ICE (In Case of Emergency) app to the home page 
of your child’s phone that lists your contact information and also create an ICE listing in his or her 
phone contacts with this information. Your child is much more likely to always have their phone with 
them than to carry a printed card or document.

For more information on protecting your family, call our office to schedule a time for us to sit down 
and talk about a Family Estate Planning Session, where we can identify the best ways for you to ensure 
the security of your loved ones. Be one of the first two people to call 626.355.4000 and mention this 
article and we’ll waive our $750 planning fee PLUS create a free healthcare directive for your young 
adult child. 

Marc, a local attorney, father, and CASA volunteer (Court Appointed Special Advocate for Children) is 
on a mission to help parents protect what they love most. His office is located at 49 S. Baldwin Ave., Ste. 
G, Sierra Madre, CA 91024. Visit www.GarlettLaw.com for more information.


MARKETMESUITE HELPS YOU 
MANAGE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA 

I love anything that makes my life easier and saves time. I’ve recently discovered 
a new tool called MarketMeSuite. It manages your social media all in one place 
and makes it easy to find leads, build audiences and allows you to schedule 
content in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

MarketMeSuite provides you with smart inboxes which can help you organize what’s most important 
to you. You can search social channels and even geo-target to see who’s talking about topics related 
to your business so you can reach out and engage with them.

It works great with Constant Contact. When you compose a message, there is a Constant Contact 
tab that allows you to add photos from your Constant Contact library or select an email campaign 
or event to share. 

You can even search and share timely and relevant content right from Google News.

MarketMeSuite is a time saver. You can post to all of your social profiles in one click, schedule 
messages in advance and set up RSS feeds (have your blog feed to your social profiles). 

About MJ: MJ and her brother David own HUTdogs, a creative services business that specializes in 
Internet Marketing strategies and Social Media. They offer social media management services and help 
their clients build a strong on-line presence. “Like” them on Facebook for trending news in social media, 
internet marketing and other helpful tips, www.facebook.com/hutdogs.

Sign up for their upcoming classes, webinars and presentations at: www.hutdogs.com/workshops/
schedule 


A YOUNG 5 YEAR OLD BULL

By Greg Welborn


You rarely hear comments about someone 
getting long in the tooth at their 5th birthday 
party, but that’s exactly what we’re hearing about 
the current bull market. This spring, we celebrate 
5 years of stock market gains. Some are arguing 
the bull’s a heartbeat away from assuming room 
temperature; we believe he’s still young and full 
of life.

In March of 2009, the S&P 500 Index had fallen 
almost 60% from its 2007 high, and there were 
lots of commentators screaming there was no end 
in sight. Despite that pessimism, stocks turned 
around and began a one of the longest climbs 
in recent history. From the bottom through the 
end of 2013, the S&P has returned 200%. From 
that crash and the Phoenix-like rise, we can learn 
several good lessons.

There is no signal that a rally has begun. In the 
depths of the carnage of March 2009, there were 
plenty who warned of worse to come. Investors 
were still selling madly within a couple of days of 
the bottom. Nobody noticed the turn until it was 
obvious. Within 9 months, the S&P was up 27%.

If you can be disciplined enough to rebalance, 
you can make a killing (and a legal one at that!). 
When stocks dropped, the average balanced 
portfolio ended up with more bonds than stocks. 
Most unguided individual investors either kept 
selling or simply didn’t do anything. The ones 
who sold some of those over-valued bonds and 
invested in stocks to restore balance to their 
“balanced portfolios” earned huge profits on the 
stocks they bought at the bottom. Those who 
didn’t, didn’t.

Diversification, once again, worked. While the 
vast majority of portfolios suffered some loss, 
the magnitude wasn’t the same everywhere. 
Financials dropped 55%, but consumer products 
lost 15%. The bond market actually gained about 
5%, as did several other specific sectors. The 
point is that trying to pick which category will 
tank, tread water, or rise is a fool’s errand, and the 
concentration t of this strategy can kill you.

Stocks are the engine of long-term growth. Like 
most engines, they sometimes have fits and starts. 
Over the long term (say even 2007 through 2013), 
you would have made money in stocks. If you 
got out at the wrong time and didn’t get back in 
at the right time, however, you would have lost 
a huge amount. Sadly, too many people did just 
that. Stocks are no place for short-term money, 
but they should be the preferred address for the 
long-term.

Accurately calling the top, or the next “turn”, is 
impossible. I suppose if you just keep saying “the 
market will drop”, you’ll eventually be right. But 
you’ll be wrong more time than you’re right, and 
you’ll never really make progress.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is the 
Managing Partner of First Financial Consulting, 
a fee-only advisory firm. He has worked with 
The Today Show, Kiplinger’s Magazine, and 
USA Today to provide objective financial advice 
to their readers and listeners. He has 3 grown 
children and is honored to be married to his wife 
of 25 years. He can be reached at gwelborn@
ffconsult.net

 
* thecreative entrepreneurby Lori Koop, Business Coach 
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Start your own business.
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Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com