If you aren't using an online password manager, you should be.

Password managers create, securely store, and let you easily access secure passwords for all of the internet sites you use.

1)  Security.  still using the same password for every site?  Bad, bad, bad.  Someone finds, guesses, or hacks that password and you are toast.  Good password managers will easily create unique, long, random passwords that you can use for each site you visit.  Such passwords are more secure since they are typically unguessable and since you use a different one for every site.  You can also ditch the "password list in the desk drawer" technique which is clearly inadvisable.

2)  Convenience.  Good password managers allow for automatic login when you go to a specific site.  No more keying in user IDs and passwords or worse, searching through post-it notes to remember your login credentials.  This saves a lot of time and frustration.

3)  Estate planning.  With one master password (carefully chosen and not written down), your spouse or other family member can gain access to your entire online world, making death or incapacity an "easier to navigate" puzzle.

Read Lifehacker's Five best password managers. (I use last pass...)

Those of us who live in Texas are faced with a fairly hospitable tax code upon death, but others are not so lucky.

In addition to the federal estate and gift tax, sixteen states plus DC have their own estate tax and six states have their own inheritance tax.

Maryland and New Jersey, take "death and taxes" to a new level by levying both an estate tax on the departed and an inheritance tax on their beneficiaries.

Read Estate taxes:  the worst places to die.

Much can be said about the college experience:  the learning experience, the social development, the preparation for the real world.

But with the high and rising cost of college, is it a foregone conclusion that from a strictly financial standpoint, college is worth the cost?

Not according to Laurence Kotlikoff, professor of economics at Boston University. 

He has found that more often than not, people can have a better lifetime standard of living by choosing NOT to get an advanced degree. And, he says that people can be better off financially by not obtaining an undergraduate degree at all.Professor Kotlikoff makes his case by comparing the livelihoods of plumbers and doctors.  Yes, doctors have a bigger salary.  But, doctors have to endure nearly a decade of expensive education before making any real salary, after which the doctor is hit by a very high progressive tax rate.  Because of all the costs the doctor incurs, the taxes and the lost wages, he says, “plumbers make more, and have almost the same spending power over their lifetime as general practitioners."

Read the story, Forget Harvard and a four year degree.

Frisco Financial Planning LLC is legally required to offer a regulatory disclosure (Form ADV Part Two or "disclosure brochure") to clients annually.  So, here it is:

FFP's Disclosure Brochure (Form ADV, Part Two)

Additionally, here is FFP's Privacy Statement:

Frisco Financial Planning LLC
Privacy Statement

We respect your privacy. This statement details how we obtain information, what information we share and with whom, and measures we take to ensure your privacy. This statement applies to current and past clients and prospective clients.

Sources of information

• Information provided by you*.

• Information provided by third parties such as other advisers or financial institutions, family members, doctors, or medical facilities.

• Information provided by publicly-available sources.

Such information may be in verbal, electronic, or written form. We use reasonable means to verify the accuracy of information obtained from sources other than you. We assume that information provided by you is accurate and fully disclosed.

* We ask that you remove social security numbers and account numbers from any material that you provide to us (the best protection you have against misappropriated information is not disclosing it).

Who we share information with

• Current legally married spouses. We freely share information with the current legal spouse of a client. We consider current husband and wife to be a “joint client.” This policy is effective even though we only require one spouse's signature on our client agreement.

  Any information that we communicate to one spouse is considered to be relayed by the recipient to the other spouse.

  It is your responsibility to notify us promptly of any marital status change and/or electronic mail address change(s). References in this privacy statement and in our client agreement and disclosure brochure to “you” or “client” refer to either husband or wife or both.

• Parties that you give us express consent to share information with (although it is our preference that you share any desired information directly with such third parties).

• Any party, when required by law.

Electronic information storage

We store information such as planning documents, investment statements, tax information, meeting and conversation notes, and other items electronically. Such information may be stored on “local” workstations as well as on “cloud-based” internet servers.

Local workstation data is encrypted and password-protected. “Cloud-based” services that we use employ password protection and 128 bit SSL encryption to protect your information. Additionally, several of the services we use provide additional security such as server-level data encryption and/or 24/7 on-site security.

If we become aware of a security breach that might compromise your personal information, it is our policy to notify you promptly.

Non-electronic information storage

We limit non-electronic information storage to a small collection of current client work papers. We follow reasonable measures to protect such documents including the use of locked file cabinets and offices.

Electronic communications

We consider social security numbers, account numbers, dates of birth, and specific health-related conditions to be confidential information and we will not send these items electronically without using a password-protected document and/or encrypted e-mail or similar means.

We consider financial information such as account types, account values, statements of financial condition, and specifics to your financial plan (ie, assumptions, recommendations, and illustrations) as semi-confidential. This means we will use unprotected electronic means to communicate such items to you but we will not communicate such information directly to other parties (except as detailed above). In short, you agree that for such semi-confidential information, the ease of unsecured electronic communication outweighs the possibility of such information being intercepted by others.

We use several third party internet communication services to communicate with clients. By providing us with your email address, you give us permission to communicate with you via e-mail and via such services. We will not give away or sell your e-mail address to any other third parties.

Employees and contractors

This privacy statement applies to all employees and contractors of our company. When possible, we limit employee and contractor access to certain information and we use reasonable measures to prevent the unauthorized release of your information.