CFP Talk

Who else hates double negatives? One thing I will not miss about preparing for the CFP exam is the use of double negatives in multiple choice questions. For example:
“Which of the following is NOT a requirement for a payment to be considered alimony?”
One of the choice is:
“Not be designated as being other than [...]

I just completed the chapter on charitable contributions and deductions. Some interesting (LOL) facts from the chapter:

A donation to an educational institution that, in return, allows you to purchase season tickets is only 80% deductible! So that means if I chose to donate $1,000,000 to Lafayette College, one of my alma maters, and in return I got season tickets to Lafayette Leopards football I would only be able to deduct $800,000. Meaning that the season tickets cost me $200,000 of deductions. Ouch!

My goal for December is to complete the Tax Planning module of the Boston Program for Financial Planning. I thought it would be helpful for you to know how long it is taking me to complete this module. For me it is the last module (of six) that I need to complete before I qualify for the exam.

Spoiler Alert: It took 62 minutes.

Blogger “It’s Just Money” passed the exam in 2007.  He met the educational requirement for taking the exam by using the College for Financial Planning self paced program.  It took him two years to complete the course work after which he took a crash course offered by the same company.  I found his general comments [...]

After several attempts I finally passed the Estate Planning module of the required CFP course work.  As a reminder, I’m using the Boston University on-line program.  I found this module to be the most difficult to date.  This surprised me because estate planning is a subject that I’ve been particularly interested in for many years.
One [...]

In order to be designated a Certified Financial Planner you have to fulfill several important requirements. The CFP board refers to these requirements as the “four Es.” Pretty clever! I’m kidding, it’s not very clever but I’ll describe them briefly for your convenience:

* Education
* Examination
* Experience
* Ethics

Tool: Dalton Review Flash Cards
What: Nearly 500 cards covering 6 subjects.
Price: $125
The Good: Concise format makes it easier to remember important rules and concepts.
The Bad: Some typos. No visible difference between the front and back of the cards (which makes it easy to get disorganized).
Summary: I like them a lot (see caveats below).
Last Friday I [...]

Good afternoon!
Today is November 19th 2009.  I was SUPPOSED to take the CFP exam this weekend.  I’m not going to take the exam because I’m just not ready.  In the months preceding the application deadline (October 6th) I became increasing distracted by all of the other things going on in my life (building a house, [...]