BKFi Events

Upcoming Webinars

Past Webinars

WEBINAR: Product Demo: What’s in a Brooklyn FI Financial Plan?

(Coming Soon)

WEBINAR: Rent vs Buy

Recorded: Wednesday, October 11, 2023 05:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: Credit Card Points, Travel Hacking, and How to Have Fun for Free

Recorded: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 05:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: What to do if you're laid off from your job

(or how to prepare if you think it's coming

Recorded: Wednesday, February 01, 2023 05:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: Rent vs. Buy

Recorded: Friday, November 11, 2022 12:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: 2022 Charitable Gifting

Recorded: Tuesday, September 15, 2022 6:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: Negotiating Your (Equity) Compensation in Today's Market

Recorded: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 6:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: The Brooklyn FI Guide to Marriage and Prenups

Recorded: Thursday, March 24, 2022 6:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: It's IPO Time: How to Read Your Company's S-1

Recorded: Thursday, March 10, 2022 6:00 PM ET

WEBINAR: Are You Ready for Home Ownership?

Recorded: Thursday, Feb 17, 2022 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: Comprehensive Guide to Charitable Gifting: DAFs, Appreciated Stock, Cars, and more

Recorded: Thursday, Nov 4 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: Year-End Tax Planning for Businesses

Recorded: Friday, Oct 29, 2021

WEBINAR: AMA: Open Enrollment

Recorded: Thursday, Oct 14 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: Year-End Tax Planning for Individuals

Recorded: Thursday, Oct 7 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: Saving For College 101: The 529 Plan, FAFSA, and More

Recorded: Thursday, Sep 9 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: How to Choose the Right Retirement Plan for Your Business

Recorded: Thursday, Aug 26 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: How a Job Change Impacts Your Financial plan

Recorded: Thursday, Aug 12 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: Estate Planning: It's Life and Death

Recorded: Thursday, Jul 15 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: Which Entity Type is Best: S-Corp, LLC, or C-Corp

Recorded: Thursday, Jun 17 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: How to Prepare for an IPO

Recorded: Thursday, Jun 10 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: AMA (Ask-Me-Anything: Equity Compensation)

Recorded: Thursday, May 13 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: The Brooklyn FI Guide to Getting Married

Recorded: Thursday, April 8th at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: Introduction to Bookkeeping and Financial Reports

Recorded: Thursday, Mar 25 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: How to Evaluate a Job Offer in Tech and Negotiate for What Matters

Recorded: Monday, March 8 at 6 pm ET

WEBINAR: The Great Debate: Rent vs. Buy

Recorded: Thursday, Feb 25, 2021

WEBINAR: Ask-Me-Anything: Tax Season 2021

Recorded: Thursday, February 11, 2021

WEBINAR: What to Expect for Tax Season 2021

Recorded: Thursday, January 21, 2021

WEBINAR: What to Expect for Tax Season 2021

Recorded: Thursday, November 19 at 5 pm ET

COVID-19 and Your Money

Check out our events page for more content

Financial relief

• Did you move during the pandemic? How will that impact your taxes? We’ve got a comprehensive webinar on that topic.

• Buying a Home - Is now a good time to buy a home? We invited a real estate agent and a mortgage expert to chat about how buying a home is different during lock down. Watch here.

• Student Loans - The US Department of Education has instructed student loan servicers to allow for an automatic administrative forbearance to any borrower impacted by the Coronavirus. Here’s more information from a trusted authority on student loans.

• Mortgages - New York State has instructed banks to give borrowers impacted by the Coronavirus an extra 90 days of payment relief. This is HUGE.

• FHA Loans - HUD implemented a foreclosure and eviction moratorium for single family homeowners with FHA-insured mortgages for the next 60 days.

• Taxes - The IRS has moved the federal deadline from April 15th to July 15th for taxpayers to file the return and pay any taxes due. More info here.

• Health Insurance - New York state has opened up a special enrollment period through April 15th for uninsured individuals. Sign up here.

• Relief - Here’s a guide to the $2 Trillion dollar relief package designed to help Americans navigate this crisis.

• Individual Relief - Below you will find a guide to the $1,200 per individual that will automatically be deposited into the bank accounts of every taxpayer who qualifies. Visit our stimulus check calculator.

Volatility in the stock market

It may come off as flippant to continue to advise you to “stay the course” or “avoid even looking at your portfolio,” but I do have to say it again. Stay the course and stick to the plan.

We’ve been having lots of conversations with our clients about the market and how they are feeling now that their portfolios are worth about 75% of what they were back in early February. Fortunately, as clients of Brooklyn FI, you have a long-term financial plan in place. Any money you’ve invested in the stock market is earmarked for a purchase or a retirement that won’t occur until well after the market has recovered.

Most of our clients are in their ‘30s and ‘40s and didn’t have significant wealth to lose in the 2008 financial crisis, so the current crisis (if we want to call it that) is a first. The first time doesn’t feel good, I’ll tell you that much. What I hope I can offer here is some perspective. While this scale of this pandemic and resulting loss of revenue and jobs is unique, we have seen the stock market react like this to previous crises. Eventually, the market always recovers.

That recovery has never been easy. With each crisis, millions of lives were impacted. But, again, the economy has bounded back after every recession in recent history.

I especially like this perspective from TD Ameritrade’s brochure: “It is evident that stocks are prone to sudden declines in value. These declines seem to happen at random, and there are many different reasons for stock market crashes and bear markets. Sometimes stocks recover their value quickly, while other times the decline lasts for a while. The recovery period may be painfully long. Often, the decline is preceded by a period of high returns, which lulls investors into a false sense of security. Because no one can predict market declines with certainty, a diversified portfolio may be the best solution for a long-term investor.”

Here are some charts that illustrate the market’s recovery after drops in the past.

Market Downturns and Recoveries

What are we looking at here? We’re examining the length of every market downturn and amount of time it took to recover. The Great Depression in the 1930s was labled great because it lasted so long, 151 months is more than 12 years. There was a world war in there as well. In more recent history, the Great Recession was swift, lasting just shy of a year and half. The recovery took just over three years.

U.S. Market Recovery After Financial Crises

What are we looking at here? We’re looking at a balanced portfolio, one that is 60% stocks and 40% bonds, and how it does after a various global events like September 11th and the Great Recession of 2008. We can see that the portfolio takes time to recover but in every case, after five years, we’ve seen double digit growth. Five years is a long time to wait, but if you’re in a balanced portfolio invested according to your goals, you have PLENTY of time to recover.

The Importance of Staying Invested

What are we looking at here? Here’s an example of an investor who had $100,000 invested at the start of the 2008 financial crisis. The light blue line represents someone who stayed invested. The dark blue line represents someone who sold their portfolio and then reinvested a year later once they thought the market was on the way back up. The green line represents someone who moved to cash and never reinvested. Keep your money in the market under most circumstances and you’ll end up like the light blue investor.