Banknotes Blog

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 99 percent of all companies are considered small businesses. And, while 80 percent of small businesses are sole operations with no employees, the remaining 20 percent are still responsible for employing 48 percent of all private sector employees. That’s one of the reasons why Lake Ridge Bank has dedicated an entire department specifically to serving small businesses in our local community.

If you’re like many people, your understanding of how an annuity works probably looks something like this: You give an insurance company a sum of money, and the insurance company returns the funds to you as a monthly payment for the rest of your life. While accurate, that understanding encompasses only what are referred to as immediate annuities – there are other types available that may be more beneficial in certain circumstances.

For business owners, there’s never enough time in the day. Whether you’re meeting with current or potential clients and talking to vendors, or putting out fires and managing the day-to-day operation of your enterprise, you’ve got a lot on your plate. The best way to buy yourself time is to find efficiencies when and where you can.

Since the start of the pandemic, the interest rate environment has presented plenty of challenges to commercial borrowers and depositors alike. Although a bank money market account offers a safe place to keep funds with immediate availability, there are other alternatives a business might want to consider before parking excess capital there for the long term.

With the current inventory of homes for sale in Dane County down more than 10 percent from last year at this time, many people on the hunt for a home are considering building as another option for their situation. While there are distinct pros and cons for both building and buying a home that make either option a viable solution, the financing process can be more complicated to navigate when building.

You would never just settle for “good enough” in your personal relationships. Your business banking relationship deserves the same standard of excellence. Let’s review some questions to consider when researching your banking options.

Baby Boomers are rapidly retiring, and Gen-Xers aren't far behind. It's easy to imagine their positive expectations, but it's important to recognize that, for many, retirement also presents a few downsides. Here are four non-financial “lost benefits” for your consideration as you plan and prepare for your eventual retirement.

There are plenty of economic reasons to not want to revisit the Seventies. Unfortunately, we're dealing with many of the same issues now that we were then, plus Covid. There's good news to be found, though. Here's why it's unlikely we're going to see a full repeat of history.

As a business owner, the security of your operation is likely never far from your mind. Trouble is, when it comes to safeguarding your business against fraudsters, scammers, and other external threats, it can be difficult to know where to start. To that end, we’re sharing a blog published by the Federal Trade Commission that provides some foundational support for any business owner looking to stay safe and keep their enterprise running smoothly.

Your credit score is an important part of your financial health. Credit Sense can help you understand your current credit score and provide suggestions for improvement based on the criteria that go into the equation.

As any business owner knows, there are many financial considerations to make when deciding how to run the company. A qualified tax adviser can help.

Trying to time the market is generally not in an investor's best interests. A better strategy is to bucket and diversify.

For those who didn’t purchase or refinance last year, you might be feeling like you missed the boat on low mortgage interest rates. Current rates may be making people experience a bit of sticker shock comparatively. Is it too late to take advantage of the low-rate trend? The answer is no … relatively speaking.

People usually get into farming thanks to family ties, along with a deep love for the land and the lifestyle. We want to support that passion and the rich culture and traditions it upholds. If you hear the call of farming entrepreneurship, we don’t want you to give up your dreams out of fear of lost fortune. Here are a number of ways we're prepared to help you succeed in your farming endeavors.

If you're retired and interested in returning to work for personal reasons or to help ease the burden of a national shortage of workers, then you might be in a position of power to set up your situation so you can enjoy work more than ever before.

We’ve lived for 20+ years – at least – since inflation was a problem. (The reality may be closer to 40 years.) Here’s a quick review of what inflation is, how it affects normal people, and how to adjust your finances accordingly.

In the financial world as everywhere, change is inevitable. It happens both in the blink of an eye and slowly, over time, for reasons obvious and subtle. Recently, investors have seen change spurred on by government policies, corporate profits, economic factors, and geopolitical events. Echoing the title of the Bob Dylan classic, the times they are a-changin’.

Some of the most popular and effective scams being run today center around the practice of phishing, whereby fraudsters trick victims into divulging sensitive personal information that can then be used to exploit their identity and bank account. A while back, the Federal Trade Commission put together an article on the subject that contains information as relevant today as ever. We're sharing it here in its entirety.

The Wisconsin State Senate is currently considering a bill to help modernize some language that no longer applies in today’s financial landscape, and therefore causes some administrative hassles for credit unions, specifically. To be clear, we are in support of the majority of the bill. However, there are four provisions that blur the lines between credit unions and banks that we believe should be removed.

Interest rates have been extraordinarily low for the last 10–20 years, giving a generation of business owners confidence in their ability to repay loans to grow exponentially and operate more efficiently. That may change soon. When making decisions about new equipment, business expansion projects, or modernizing processes, you have several choices.

Given how strongly equity markets have recovered since the 2008–2009 financial crisis, one might easily forget that volatility (i.e., risk) and losses are a normal part of investing life. To help understand why, let’s take a closer at how domestic large company stocks, as defined by the Ibbotson Large Company Stock Index, performed over the longer term, from 1926 through 2021.