When you can gain control over your cash flow and aggressively pay down loans and balances, you know it’s only a matter of time before you pay everything off and reach debt freedom. That’s an exciting proposition if you’re already on this path and have spent some time chipping away at student loans, credit card…
The 4 Fundamental Rules of Personal Finance
How do you feel when you hear the word “money?” Does thinking about finance make you feel positive or negative? Eager or worried? Motivated or overwhelmed? Personal finance feels complicated because it’s never just about the numbers. Personal finance is personal, and it’s also highly emotional. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and confused by what…
How to Leverage an HSA Account to Grow Your Wealth: A Real-Life Example
Have you considered a high deductible health plan, or HDHP, as an option for your health insurance? It might be worth switching to one so you can use an HSA account. An HSA account is a health savings account — meaning, it’s a place that allows you to save and even invest money specifically for…
Trying to Chase the Best Interest Rates? Here’s Why That Might Backfire
A few years ago, countless headlines (and a whole lot of real estate agents) were crowing about how you HAD to BUY NOW because interest rates were DEFINITELY going to rise. Better get in now now now before it’s too late! Turns out, it wasn’t too late. Interest rates today, in the summer of 2019,…
3 Phases of Financial Planning for Young Professionals
There was a time, not too long ago, that serious financial planning for young professionals was something almost impossible to find. Experienced financial experts gave advice and created financial plans for people, sure — but they only served older people on the brink of retirement, who were already wealthy. I’ve always thought this was a…
You Don’t Need Life Insurance Until You Have This
I’ll be honest with you: I’m not a big fan of life insurance. It’s a product you pay for with hopes that you never have to actually use it. It’s also a product that gets pushed hard by salespeople who often try to use guilt and fear to give into their pitch. That kind of…
Managing Lifestyle Creep: A Real-Life Example of Keeping Expenses Low (Even As Incomes Rise)
The term lifestyle creep describes what happens when you spend more money as you earn more money. You might also hear this referred to as “lifestyle inflation. It means the same thing: you inflate your lifestyle to match your income. There’s never much of a gap between what you earn and what you spend. If…
Don’t Have Specific Financial Goals? That’s Okay If You Have One of These Instead
It’s hard to plot out every goal you want to accomplish in your long life — especially if you’re in your 20s, 30s, or 40s right now. You have decades of life to live ahead of you, and these are the prime years in which to experience and enjoy some major life milestones and changes….
Saving for College: What to Consider and What Tools to Use
Worried about saving for college and having enough to fund your kid’s education? Then let’s start with the good news: there are so many ways to pay for college. You have a lot of options to explore. Now for the tricky part: you have a lot of options. There are a lot of variables and…
The Biggest Challenge in Creating Your Financial Plan: Finding Balance
It’s certainly not easy to find the perfect middle ground between saving and investing enough to secure your future goals while allowing yourself to spend enough to truly experience all the years in between now and then. Most people tend to fall on one end of the spectrum or the other. Either you’re more inclined…