Smith Dickson would like to congratulate and thank all fathers and grandfathers! You help to guide and provide for all generations!
One of the key areas that dads typically help is in the financial realm. Along these lines, we thought it would be interesting to read some survey results.
The Best Financial Advice from Dad
A recent survey by GOBankingRates was done to uncover the best financial advice respondents learned from their dads growing up. The survey asked: What's the best money advice you learned from your dad?
The responses — in order of most selected — were:
This study could shed light on how major financial crises in the fathers' generations affected the way their children approach money management. Here are some excerpts from the survey analysis, focusing on Generations Y and Z (read the full survey results for analysis of other generations):
Generation Y
Studies have shown Gen Y is the best generation when it comes to saving money; the survey found that millennials also heeded their fathers' advice about spending money. Gen Y participants were more likely than any other age bracket to select "don't spend money you don't have" as their fathers' best money advice, at 32.2 percent.
Why? Millennials are the children of baby boomers — and, like their grandparents, weathered hard financial times in formative years. As Gen Y graduated college and entered the job market, the Great Recession was in full force; it's no wonder millennials have learned to live within their means.
Generation Z
Generation Z is composed of young children, adolescents and teens on the cusp of entering adulthood. Many in this bracket are still counting on their parents' financial support and have years ahead to map out their finances.
It comes as no surprise that more of these financially adventurous (yet parent-reliant) 18- to 24-year-old people have taken to heart their fathers' money advice of, "No risk, no reward. Invest!," at 14.8 percent, versus just 3.5 percent of respondents age 65 and older.
After all, as the youngest generation polled, members of Gen Z have the most time to take risks before starting to think seriously about retirement.
Editor's note: Ryan Nguyen, CPA, Forensic Auditing Manager, and Gina Lara, MBA, CFP ®, Forensic Accounting Analyst, recently wrote an article for the Orange County Business Journal in the "Intellectual Property" special supplement. Excerpt from the article:
In litigation support, win or lose isn't as important as by how much. This point is becoming especially significant in intellectual property disputes, where the median damages award in patent litigation increased more than 65% over prior year to $10.2 million in 2017. Here are some examples of what we have seen.
Trademark Infringement
Recently, we were engaged by Defendant's counsel to provide calculations related to a company that imported and sold purportedly "knock-off" designer apparel. Plaintiff sued the company in Federal Court alleging copyright, trademark, and trade dress infringement. Defendant was found liable for damages arising from three years of sales activity. Since the company maintained poor accounting records, Smith Dickson's work involved reconstructing records from handwritten notes, testing the accuracy of the information, identifying sales data and deductible incremental costs, and determining the unjust enrichment of Defendant. Read Article
