by Micah Porter | Apr 11, 2018 | Blog, Budgeting, Habits
Several years ago, my wife and I sat down to work on a budget. Our goal wasn’t to reduce spending so much as it was to plan our spending. We had recently purchased a house in a pricey in-town neighborhood and that purchase happened just over a year after the birth of... 
by Micah Porter | Nov 22, 2017 | Blog, Budgeting, Habits
About 10 years ago, I put together a year end checklist. I did so because I wanted to see how much financial progress we had made during the year and because I didn’t want to be blindsided by our tax bill on April 15th. In the years since, my wife and I also began... 
by Micah Porter | Jun 6, 2017 | Blog, Budgeting, Buying a house, Buying a New Car, Retirees
In last week’s post, I walked through a series of questions you should consider when it comes to a new car purchase. If you’re like me, it’s tough to resist the combination of new car smell and the technology bells and whistles that each new model year brings. For... 
by Micah Porter | May 25, 2017 | Blog, Budgeting, Debt, Savings
Things are going well. Your income is up, expenses are steady and you’ve got money left over at the end of every month. You’re not planning on spending the excess cash, so you face a choice of paying down debt versus saving. How do you choose? The first thing you’ll... 
by Micah Porter | Mar 16, 2017 | Blog, Budgeting
A few months back, I wrote a post on the experience my wife and I have had over the last year in implementing a budget. The experience has been largely positive, and several clients have asked me for some pointers on beginning the budgeting process. Here are some... 
by Micah Porter | Dec 27, 2016 | Blog, Budgeting
One of the biggest financial changes my wife and I made over the last year was to put a budget in place. It may seem strange that a fee only financial planner wouldn’t have a budget in place, but we had always done a decent job of living within our means and hit our... 
by Micah Porter | Dec 20, 2016 | Blog, Budgeting, Fee Only Financial Planning
In last week’s post, I outlined things I could have learned from a good financial advisor had I been working with one early in my career. The list is – sadly for me – on the longer side, so I wanted to revisit the topic and add a few more items in this week’s... 
by Micah Porter | Jun 1, 2015 | Blog, Budgeting, Federal Government Employees, Finances in couples, Retirement Planning
One of the most rewarding aspects of being a financial advisor is working with clients when they realize a financial plan isn’t really about finances, per se, but rather what they want to accomplish with their lives. At that point, the conversation shifts abruptly... 
by Micah Porter | May 15, 2015 | Blog, Budgeting, financial plans
Budget. If there is a another word in the financial advisor’s lexicon that generates such a strong reaction among clients, I’m not aware of it. For some clients, budgeting is something they’ve always done automatically, while for others it is the financial...