Our son gave my wife the book Being Mortal for Mother’s Day. The author, Dr. Atul Gawande, is a surgeon in Boston, on the faculty at Harvard, and known for his best selling book The Checklist Manifesto. Whether you are caring for aging relatives or managing your own affairs as you reach your later years, I think it provides valuable insight on aging and death. It will force you to think about things most of us would rather not.

My personal takeaways were:

1. Stay in your home as long as possible.
2. Talk to multiple doctors to get more than one perspective on end-of-life health issues.
3. Talk to your children about what’s important to you and give them direction on what they can do.

I encourage you to pick up a copy and share your insights with your children.

On a quarterly basis, we prepare a cover letter for our clients’ performance reporting. The most recent edition is worth seeing because it highlights the thoughtful nature of our firm and our approach.

Though the underlying principles of what we believe haven’t changed, we’ve come a long way from our early descriptions of it. Click here to read what it’s all about.

Investment fees are often a mystery in the financial services industry, and we’re proud to take a different approach by reporting our advisory fees to clients on a quarterly invoice. It’s a welcome surprise to those converting from the traditional brokerage environment for the first time.

This recent article from Investment News details a lawsuit that alleges one family’s accounts were subjected to excessive trading that generated $40 million in fees. Some firms may never have any interest in fee transparency, but educated investors must know that they can find it elsewhere.