If you have read much at all about personal finance, you’ve run across a list of good financial habits like pay yourself first or track your spending. Unfortunately, there is almost never any follow-up information on how to make something a habit, and that is where The Power of Habit comes in.
Is Pet Insurance a Good Idea?
We got Corabelle after staying at a Bed and Breakfast in Northern Wisconsin where the two sisters that ran the place had Bart. Bart was a Burmese cat that sat on my lap when I… Read More
The Process Of Buying A New Car
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… Read More
Thinking Through Buying a New Car
The phrases “car guy” and “financial advisor” don’t normally go together. The average American owns 13 cars in his or her lifetime at a current average cost of $30,000 per car. If your goal is… Read More
Prioritizing Paying Down Debt versus 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… Read More
How Much Life Insurance Do You Need?
If you read the last blog post I wrote on insurance, you understand why term life insurance is usually a better option than whole life insurance. As I covered in that post, we typically use… Read More
A Few Thoughts on Debt and Financial Planning
In 21st century America, the list of things that are more common than debt is depressingly small. From mortgages to student loans to credit cards, the types of debt and the terms of that debt… Read More
Roth IRA or Traditional IRA – What Works Best for You?
One of the questions clients ask most often is whether they should invest in a Roth IRA or Traditional IRA. There is no one right answer – as with most issues in financial planning, it… Read More
Retirement Planning: Keep a Pension or Cash it In
Not so many years ago, financial advisors viewed retirement planning as a 3-legged stool. The first leg was a pension, the second social security and the third being the retiree-to-be’s savings. In the intervening years,… Read More
What We Can All Learn from Financial Planning for Teachers
When my aunt founded Minerva nearly 30 years ago, one of the first groups for whom she did a good deal of work were teachers. At the time, the State was looking for assistance with… Read More