What Your Financial Planner Needs to Know About You

December 06, 2012

One of the questions I commonly get from people is about what information to bring to a financial planning consultation.  In my own meetings with employees, some people come with spreadsheets or even thick binders of information while many bring nothing at all. In both cases, they often have no idea what information is relevant and useful in making financial decisions. Whether you work with a planner or manage everything on your own, here is some information that you’ll want to have at your fingertips: Continue reading “What Your Financial Planner Needs to Know About You”

How to Qualify For a Mortgage

December 05, 2012

Susan and I purchased our first home back in 1996. Like many newlyweds, our first home is what you might call a starter home.  It was a modest, two-story, single family home on a small piece of property at the end of a cul-de-sac.  After seven years (and three kids), we were ready to move on, and so we did. Continue reading “How to Qualify For a Mortgage”

Tips to Keep Your Holidays Debt and Stress Free

November 30, 2012

As I write this, it’s only a month before Christmas and all I’ve seen and heard today are ads about Black Friday & Cyber Monday.  I have to admit that it makes me not want to shop at all this year!  (If you’re on my Christmas list, you might want to read another planner’s blog this week!)  Continue reading “Tips to Keep Your Holidays Debt and Stress Free”

How to Prepare for an Impending Divorce

November 28, 2012

Marriage is not easy.  (Can I get an AMEN?)  Marriage takes a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, and a lot of compromise.  Couples must find a way to bring two separate worlds together, and that means finding common ground on everything from having children, to where you spend Thanksgiving.  Continue reading “How to Prepare for an Impending Divorce”

How Can You Avoid Being a Slave to Your Mortgage?

November 16, 2012

Lately I have talked to a lot of people who are interested in buying their first home and with a combination of today’s low interest rates and a housing market that does not have prices appreciating rapidly, this might just be a great time to be in the market to buy a house.  They understand that part of it but then don’t know how much house they can afford.  They are getting different opinions from different people in their lives.  So, are there any objective measures by which we can figure out how much house someone might want to consider buying?  Sure… Continue reading “How Can You Avoid Being a Slave to Your Mortgage?”

Is Your Budget Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?

October 12, 2012

I talk to a lot of people about their cash flow, budgeting, and debt and when we dive into the details of their monthly cash flow, we tend to look for relatively easy ways to trim spending.  We will look at things like keeping vs. ditching a land line, cutting back on the premium movie channels, and cooking more and going out to eat less.  These are all worthy pursuits and can all lower your monthly cash outflow for years to come.  But I’ll put them in the “micro” budgeting category.  Micro budgeting can save money, for sure.  But is it possible to make an even bigger impact on your budget?  Continue reading “Is Your Budget Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?”

Should Married Couples Have Separate Accounts?

September 19, 2012

Susan and I have been married for seventeen years, and when we were first married, we decided to pool our financial resources and have one checking account. This made sense since at the time, we shared all of our expenses. In fact, for most of our married life we have maintained a joint checking account, but several years ago, I asked Susan to open her own checking account. With all of the different inflows and outflows of money, it was getting harder and harder to keep track of how much was available at any point in time, so I asked her to open a separate account as a way for us to keep better track of how much we could spend on food, clothing, and other expenses associated with running a household of four kids on a daily basis. Continue reading “Should Married Couples Have Separate Accounts?”

Who’s More Frugal? Me vs. Mr. Extreme Saver

May 17, 2012

Last week, one of our guest bloggers, Mr. Extreme Saver posted a great blog post about how he is able to live in NYC on only a $1k a month of spending. That got me thinking. A lot of spending consists of “trying to keep up with the Joneses.” But what if instead of competing on how much we can spend (which is a lose-lose scenario), we were to compete on how little we spend? Here is my budget and how I stack up to Mr. Extreme Saver: Continue reading “Who’s More Frugal? Me vs. Mr. Extreme Saver”

How to Solve What Seemed Insolvable

May 11, 2012

I recently had a meeting with a woman who is struggling financially and she was looking for a way to make things better for herself and her kids.  She has had a rough last 12 months and is trying to put the pieces back together and find a way to move her life forward.  This time last year, her husband was killed in an auto accident and that has obviously changed the course of her life.  Unfortunately, he was unemployed at the time and his only life insurance was with his prior employer and he did not transfer it to himself when his company closed their doors for business.  So, she is a relatively young widow who received no life insurance benefits and was the sole income earner for several months prior to that.  She has maintained her sense of humor and can smile and say “Worst year ever!” She knows that she will recover and rebuild, and now she’s ready to.   The only thing she didn’t know was where to start.  So, she started with a conversation… Continue reading “How to Solve What Seemed Insolvable”

Are Your Brackets AND Your Budget Busted?

March 23, 2012

Last weekend, Lehigh beat Duke in the NCAA basketball tournament.  Norfolk State beat Missouri.  Ohio University (a small school), not Ohio State (the behemoth), beat the University of Michigan.  Several serious underdogs beat overwhelming favorites.  These were all David vs. Goliath games and 3 of the little Davids won.  That made a lot of alumni at those schools very happy.  Is there any downside?  Only if you are one of the tens of millions of people in this country who, for entertainment purposes only, fill out an NCAA Tournament bracket.  These games are what basketball fans, and non-basketball fans, who fill out NCAA brackets (for those who are unfamiliar, your bracket picks winners of each game up through and including the championship game) call “bracket busters.”  For example, if you had Duke vs. Missouri in the championship game, your bracket is essentially finished before the action has started.  I had Missouri as a team in my Final Four, so my bracket is toast.  Oh well, there’s always next year…. Continue reading “Are Your Brackets AND Your Budget Busted?”

Becoming Healthy and Wealthy at the Same Time

March 19, 2012

Becoming healthy and wealthy at the same time seemed like an insurmountable goal to the caller I talked to last week on our financial helpline. Moneywise, Gail (*not her real name) was behind in her bills every single month and extremely stressed about it.  At the end of each pay period, she literally ran out of money so she wrote checks that she knew would put her account in the deficit. Continue reading “Becoming Healthy and Wealthy at the Same Time”

How I Recovered From More Than $30,000 in Credit Card Debt

February 23, 2012

When I was 18, I got my first credit card. What should have been an occasion to mark the beginning of wise financial habits instead began a three-year period of reckless spending and horrible choices. By the age of 21, I found myself in debt to the tune of $30,000 – in addition to nearly $10,000 of personal debt to my parents, who financed my college education. Unfortunately, like many other Americans, I wasn’t able to use credit cards and rewards wisely. Continue reading “How I Recovered From More Than $30,000 in Credit Card Debt”

Is Love Draining Your Money?

January 16, 2012

This is an extreme example. I’ll say that right up front but there are lessons here we can all take away.  Yesterday, I took a call to our financial helpline from a caller who was having trouble making ends meet.  She said that she made good money but was always scrambling at the end of the month to get her bills paid.  As I always do, I started asking her questions not only to get to the root of the problem but to tap into her strengths.  Building on people’s strengths is a much better way to achieve real behavior change than to focus on only the problem and the obstacles.  Anyway, long story short, the root of the problem soon emerged. Continue reading “Is Love Draining Your Money?”

So You’re Having a Baby? Six Ideas to Get Ready Financially

August 01, 2011

I just heard the news that my niece is pregnant with a little girl!  I am doubly excited for her since as a mother of three boys (and one girl), I am still “underweighted” in girls.  Bring on the pink.  What I’m about to say may come as a shock to you, and I feel I have license to say it because of personal experience with pregnancy (even though it has been over twenty years): When women are pregnant, they tend to act differently (read c-r-a-z-y).  (Any husbands want to second that?)  I can promise you that at some point in your life, you will have a pregnant woman say, or do something, that will leave you scratching your head.  Whether it’s eating pickles and peanut butter together (yuck!), eating entire boxes of frozen spinach (guilty), crying uncontrollably for seemingly no reason, having an uncanny sense of smell and being able to tell what people had for lunch or forgetting how to do things they’ve done a thousand times before, it will happen. Continue reading “So You’re Having a Baby? Six Ideas to Get Ready Financially”

Budgeting: You May not Think You Like it, but Give it a Try

May 27, 2011

So, this just might be the most embarrassing thing I have ever written. This is one blog I hope that NONE of my friends read, because this is just far too much information for them to have at their disposal. Here it is, my confession, I really like the show “Glee.” I can’t believe I’m admitting that. I watched one episode to see if it was acceptable for my kids to watch, and I won’t share my opinions about that part, but my daughter and all of her friends are huge Gleeks (fans of Glee), and now…so am I. Why do I tell you this most embarrassing of admissions? Continue reading “Budgeting: You May not Think You Like it, but Give it a Try”

Money Management: How NOT to Spend Your Money

May 18, 2011

I’ve been arguing that if the government cannot control spending there are some serious implications that you and I need to prepare for.  In my last blog I outlined precautionary steps to take if the government continues on this path.  In this blog I’ll discuss what NOT to do so that you can avoid a similar fate. Continue reading “Money Management: How NOT to Spend Your Money”

You Don’t Have to Look Shabby Just Because You are Frugal

May 09, 2011

You don’t have to look shabby just because you are on a budget.  That is exactly what we told my son Rick, I was going to say the family gave him some tips but it was actually more of an intervention than that.  Rick was planning a trip to Spain to see his girlfriend who was spending the year abroad – Rick had the money for the plane ticket and got some spending money for Christmas but otherwise is a frugal college student living on a very limited budget.  His older brother took him aside and said something like, “You can’t go to Spain to see your girl looking like that – seriously.  She is around all the European men and you need to measure up, man.”  Continue reading “You Don’t Have to Look Shabby Just Because You are Frugal”

A Balanced Budget is a BIG Deal

May 04, 2011

While on vacation recently I had an opportunity to do something I don’t often find the time to do: think.  I had the chance to read the morning paper and scan a few of the opted articles that had differing viewpoints on a topic that seems to be getting a lot of attention these days: our nation’s debt and the importance of balancing the budget.  Now when I was in college, I had a roommate explain that the national debt really wasn’t that big of a deal because we essentially owed the money to ourselves, so who cares?  Well, I’m not really sure that’s how it works, so I wanted to spell out why the national debt and having a balance budget ARE BIG DEALS when it comes to our economy as a whole. Continue reading “A Balanced Budget is a BIG Deal”