Weekly roundup of recommended personal finance articles from around the web. Why bribing kids backfires (Psychology Today). It’s important for kids to learn key life lessons early in life, but gaming the system is not one of them. Minimalism and decluttering are similar, but not congruent (The American Genius). A helpful distinction for those who […]
Throughout their marriage, John and Jessica had maintained separate credit cards and apparently didn’t talk about how they were each using their cards. After 12 years of marriage, Jessica was shocked to discover that John had racked up $68,000 of credit card debt. Instead of asking for forgiveness, John asked Jessica to co-sign for a […]
During what would turn out to be my father’s final year of life, he had several caregivers in and out of his house. Since I worked within about a 45 minute drive of where he lived, one day I decided to take a long lunch and pay a surprise visit to check up on the […]
In a previous post, I provided some guidance as to who needs life insurance. If you determine that you need it, the next question is, “how much?” You’ll hear about various guidelines for answering that question, usually based on multiples of your salary. Some say you should carry life insurance with a death benefit equal […]
There’s a new report out that says a growing but still small number of Americans are financially healthy. Working with researchers at the University of Southern California, the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) administers an annual eight-question survey among a representative sample of U.S. adults, leading to what it calls the U.S. Financial Health […]
When it comes to managing money, there’s a lot to know. Which retirement savings vehicle is best, an IRA or a 401(k)? Which type is best, traditional or Roth? How much should you spend on a house? But there’s a type of knowledge that’s arguably even more important. Not having this knowledge can cause all […]
When Hal and Dee were in their mid-fifties, they found themselves with $50,000 of credit card and tax debt. That would have been bad enough, but they had been there before, which only made it worse. They had been riding a financial—not to mention emotional, spiritual, and marital—roller coaster for years. Repeating history Early in […]
Weekly roundup of interesting and helpful personal finance articles from around the web. Magic beans (The Reformed Broker). Who are you listening to for investment advice? I no longer want to shop (NY Times). How some time away from the mall changed this writer’s perspective on shopping. How has the pandemic changed your financial habits? […]
“Few people attain great lives, in large part because it’s just so easy to settle for a good life.” – Jim Collins, “Good to Great” On the first page in the first chapter of his book, “Good to Great,” Jim Collins makes the intriguing statement above. While it’s a business book, focusing on how some […]
At first glance, managing money seems pretty simple. In order to use a budget, you just need to gain some knowledge about how a budget works. In order to invest well, you just need to learn about different types of investments and how to buy them. But it isn’t that simple, is it? Sometimes, even […]
