Kevin Kroskey's Money & Mind

Anybody who was surprised that the Federal Reserve Board decided to raise its benchmark interest rate in December 2016 probably wasn’t paying attention. The U.S. economy is humming along, the stock market doing well, the unemployment rate has fallen to a low level -- now considered to be 'full employment.' We are more recently seeing evidence of increasing wages as well. The rate rise is extremely conservative: up 0.25%, to a targeted range from 0.50% to 0.75%—which, as you can see from the accompanying chart, is just a blip compared to where the Fed had its rates ten years ago when it was north of 5%. Keep in mind the prime rate -- more commonly used in consumer finance -- is the federal funds rate plus 3%. So prime was north of 8% in 2007. The bigger news was the announced intention to raise rates three times next year, moving to a more “normal” 3% by the end of 2019. This is faster than prior market expectations, heading into the meeting, although still some...

I was recently interviewed for an article done by Betty-Lin Fisher, Business Writer with the Akron Beacon Journal, about whether bi-weekly payment plans and mortgage prepayments in general are a good thing. She wrote: Claytor and Kevin Kroskey, a certified financial planner and owner of True Wealth Design in Fairlawn, both agreed with McBride that paying off other high debt and funding other accounts should come before prepaying a mortgage. Another option is to do a little more each month. Claytor and Kroskey said they both round up their mortgage payments to add a little extra to their principal. ''By and large, paying down the house is a good idea,'' said Kroskey. But there is a caveat, he said, where he sees people making mistakes. Often, as people are getting closer to retirement and if they haven't done a really good job of saving, they might think, ''I have to pay off this mortgage before I get into retirement. It's what Americans are supp...