Articles by Allison Berger

Allison's Profile

Allison fills a primary advisor role in the Financial Symmetry team. She began her financial planning career by joining us as an intern her senior year of college at NC State. After completing her degree, she worked in an assisting advisory position while studying through the CFP coursework. She enjoys building personalized strategies to meet the unique needs of each client and providing guidance through the changes that life brings.

Link to Allison's Full Bio

http://financialsymmetry.com/our-team/allison_berger_cfp/

Many of our new clients tell us they found out about fee only financial planning by listening to talk radio or watching their favorite financial pundit on television.  Media personalities such as Suze Orman, Clark Howard, and Dave Ramsey do a great service by inspiring consumers to take control of their financial lives. We also [...]

When we start working with a new client, one of the first steps is typically consolidating the number of accounts they have outstanding.  In our experience this makes your finances easier to manage by reducing the mental accounting that needs to take place every time a financial decision is made.  While this has always made [...]

While we emphasize the importance of annual tax planning, it’s also important to not let tax avoidance override your other financial goals.  Liz Davidson, of Forbes.com, wrote a nice piece describing how people lose money when they let tax issues dominate their investment decisions. The article does a great job of examining why payments [...]

If you invest in your employer sponsored retirement plan you have probably heard of Target-Date funds.  These funds are characterized as investments that change the allocation of stocks, bonds, and cash according to your specified retirement date.  In theory, these funds should progressively reduce risk exposure as the target date approaches.  However, there are no [...]

When selecting mutual funds to use in our client’s accounts we use various quantitative and qualitative factors to evaluate if we believe a fund can add value.  Morningstar is the most widely used source of mutual fund data and analysis, so we rely on their data for a significant portion of our research.  One thing [...]

On November 1st, 2009 Allison Berger completed the Rex Healthcare Half Marathon in Raleigh, NC.  She finished with a time of about 2:05:20.  Although the course was hillier than her training runs she still beat her goal of running 10 minute miles.  This was the first distance running event that Allison has participated in and [...]

When researching mutual funds to invest client funds, we evaluate numerous aspects including corporate culture, manager experience and compensation, research philosophy, and expenses. One of our primary concerns is that fund managers have their interests aligned with those of shareholders. In our view we find one of the best measures of this to [...]

On Tuesday, September 15th, Allison Berger, CFP® and Chad Smith, CFP®, both junior partners at Financial Symmetry, Inc., returned to their alma mater to speak to NC State’s Personal Finance Club, which is based in the College of Management.
The club was created for students who are interested in careers in financial planning, who want to [...]

A key aspect of financial planning is managing expenses.  However, setting a budget and consistently monitoring it is easier said than done.  That is why we recommend using an expense tracking software to keep track of your spending.  Mint.com is a relatively new personal finance website that takes a lot of the work out of [...]

The recent economic turmoil has left many people with hard-to-answer questions. That’s why local professionals have combined their efforts to give back to the public through the “Your Money Clinic” scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 19th from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.