Hotline Summary, provided by Randy Harrison, CFP®  

“Of note every year to me is the relation to what current economic conditions are to the percentage of calls in each topic.  Normally retirement and investment questions are number one and two which they were this year as well.  Retirement was the subject of 27% of calls and investments were 22%.  In  the October  '08 Hotline in the midst of the melt down, the calls related to investments jumped to 53%. Normally our catch all area of "others" comes in at last or near last.  This year it was at 14% and the majority of those had to do with the debt such as what and how to pay of personal debt including mortgages, credit cards etc. (It's a Catch 22. People are sitting on cash and paying down debt which is a good thing for them personally, but a bad thing for a country trying to come out of a recession). 

The callers by age is similar to previous years. 

Ages 56-60 and 66-70 were 17%

61-65 -  15%

71-75 -  12%

76-80 -  6%

81-85 -  3%,

Under 55 30%

(under 45 17%).

In summary, it was a successful event and we helped over two hundred people and more than that when you consider spouses and other family members. I thank all of the 28 participants for taking time out of their Sunday to help provide this valuable service!”