Bunching Charitable Gifts
I’ve had a few recent conversations about the value of estimating and planning around taxes. Tax planning does not necessarily lead to tax savings, but it does lead to awareness and conversation. These conversations can lead to tax saving opportunities and fewer bad surprises in April. 

One tax planning opportunity with the new tax law is “Bunching” your charitable donations over a few years into one. This strategy can make sense if you donate $5,000 or more annually to charities. If not, it is probably not the right strategy for you. 

• New York Times has a nice article on this approach https://nyti.ms/2z7o6OU. 

• I also wrote about it on LinkedIn https://bit.ly/2FNM6PA.

Stock Market Pullbacks in Perspective
While the US stock market has recovered a bit this week, it finished last week down slightly for the year and 10% lower than the high in September. Fidelity shared a great piece on putting pullbacks in perspective https://bit.ly/2S6OIcL.

Focus on Health
NPR summarized the new exercise guidelines released by the Department of Health and Human Services https://n.pr/2B0faPE. Bottom line is Americans need to move more. This investment in your health is probably more valuable than saving an extra couple hundred bucks per month to your portfolio.

In other health-related news, CVS closed on its acquisition of Aetna yesterday. As a result, the company expects to dedicate more space and services in stores towards managing health https://bit.ly/2zvttdT. Having grown up in the neighborhood pharmacy business, I’m a bit skeptical of a big box pharmacy and health insurance company trying to drive costs down, but am hopeful they can.