Estimating the Cost of College: What Families Need to Consider
It does not take a degree in finance to recognize that college can represent one of the largest expenses a family faces. For the 2025–26 academic year, average published tuition and fees reached approximately: Those figures only reflect tuition and required fees. Housing, meals, books, transportation, technology, insurance, and personal expenses can increase the total […]
Do Our Biases Affect Our Financial Choices?
Investors often hear the same warning: do not let emotions drive investment decisions. That advice matters, but emotions are only part of the story. Our assumptions, habits, memories, and biases can also shape the way we make financial choices. Sometimes, those biases help us make quick decisions. Other times, they lead us away from clear […]
Errors and Omissions Insurance: Does Your Business Need It?
Even experienced professionals can make mistakes. A missed deadline, inaccurate recommendation, overlooked detail, or misunderstanding about the scope of a project may leave a client dissatisfied. In some cases, the client may claim that your work—or your failure to provide a promised service—caused a financial loss. General liability insurance may cover risks such as bodily […]
Healthcare Costs That Catch Retirees Off Guard
Most retirees plan for the obvious healthcare expenses: Medicare premiums, prescription drug coverage, supplemental insurance, and possible long-term care. That planning matters. But some healthcare costs can still surprise retirees later. Industry estimates often place lifetime healthcare spending for a retired couple in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, excluding extended care. But even that […]
2026 Tax Law Changes: What Individuals, Families, and Business Owners Should Know
2026 Tax Law Changes The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, changed a wide range of tax rules for individuals, families, workers, business owners, and investors. Some provisions apply for 2026 and future years. Others remain temporary and expire after 2028 or 2029. Because the law includes several phaseouts, […]
Emotional vs. Strategic Investment Decisions
Information or instinct—which one guides your investment decisions? Many investors believe they have a natural ability to identify promising investments. But that instinct may reflect recent headlines, past experiences, fear of missing out, or confidence created by a rising market. These influences are not always obvious. They can shape decisions before we realize emotion has […]
Eight Retirement Planning Mistakes That Can Derail Your Future
Building the retirement you want takes years of saving, planning, and disciplined decision-making. Unfortunately, a few avoidable mistakes can undermine even a strong financial foundation. Retirement planning involves much more than accumulating a certain account balance. You also need a strategy for generating income, managing taxes, addressing healthcare expenses, controlling debt, and creating a meaningful […]
Earnings for All Seasons: What Quarterly Reports Mean for Investors
Nature gives us four seasons. Wall Street gives investors earnings season four times each year. Earnings season is the period when many publicly traded companies release their financial results for the previous quarter. These reports can influence individual stock prices, entire industries, and sometimes the broader market. At True North Wealth Management, we believe investors […]
Do Your Kids Know the Value of Money?
You taught them how to read and how to ride a bike. You may have taught them how to drive, cook, study, work hard, and treat others well. But have you taught your children how to manage money? Money lessons often begin long before a child gets a first paycheck, opens a bank account, or […]
Do You Owe the AMT? Understanding the Alternative Minimum Tax
The Alternative Minimum Tax, often called the AMT, was created to make sure certain high-income taxpayers could not use deductions, exclusions, and tax preferences to reduce their federal income tax too far. Today, fewer taxpayers owe the AMT than in past decades, but it has not disappeared. Certain income levels, deductions, incentive stock options, capital […]