Michelle Fait

Valentine’s Day Planning

If all the pink hearts and chocolates you’ve been seeing in stores since just after Christmas weren’t enough of a giveaway, it’s Valentine’s Day. The first conversational candy hearts were crafted by the New England Confectioners Company in 1866.  Yes, that means we’ve been doing this for over 150 years.  And this year you probably […]

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Planning for Joy

Yes, losing 10 pounds might bring you joy when it happens. Giving up red meat and quitting smoking will help improve your health over time. Saving more money will result in meeting financial goals sooner, or with greater confidence, and you know I’m going to encourage this, but it won’t happen overnight. I cannot object […]

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Blind Spots and Seeing the Whole Picture

I’m a huge movie buff. In a different life, I would have been behind a camera, capturing people’s stories on film. One of the best stories I’ve seen on film is a movie making the festival circuit this year, Blindspotting. Daveed Diggs of Hamilton fame, along with longtime friend, poet and fellow actor Rafael Casal, […]

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Awakening From Slumber: Ten Years After The Financial Crisis

Ten years ago I was in Rome and passed a shop on Via del Corso that sold crystal balls.  If I could have figured out how to bring one home without setting off airport security, I would have picked one up for the office. Then when you ask me what I think will happen in the market, […]

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Tax ALERT – What to Know For Year-End Planning

As holiday lights twinkle around me and passersby bundle up against the cold, Congress was hard at work pushing their tax reform bill through the legislature. Their stated goal was to simplify the tax system, stimulate the economy and create jobs. There’s no simplification here, and economic stimulus is dubious, but there are a few […]

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Let the Debate Begin: Waiting for Tax Reform Details

Now that your 2016 tax return is behind you, you might be thinking about how tax reform changes expected under the Trump Administration might affect you. We are expecting a big announcement tomorrow, but despite some advance hype of “massive” changes, we’re likely to get only minimal details. The tax code is 4,029 pages and […]

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Planning in the New Year

You all know I love to plan. The power of planning comes from setting your intention, and taking action to make it happen. It’s about dreaming, but it’s more about doing. Starting a new year is a perfect time to set your intention on how you want to affect the world outside your personal sphere. […]

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Talking Turkey, Talking Trump

This month my book club read Where the Right Went Wrong, E.J. Dionne Jr’s book about conservativism in America, a selection made long before Election Day, and back when we thought we’d be in a different place politically when we met to discuss it. One of our group told us how she was anxious about […]

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A Post-Election Note

Like me, you may have felt that the world would look different this morning (if we even woke up at all) after the results of the presidential election. And yet, the sun rose, the day began, and here we are. What we know after the election is that our country is seriously divided. As we […]

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March (Money) Madness

It’s that time of year again when offices across the country experience an uptick in employees who call in sick, and a widespread reduction in productivity. No, it’s not flu season, it’s March Madness. I played basketball in junior high, shot hoop on the floor of Portland’s Rose Garden, and follow the sport a little, […]

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