The Path to Financial Confidence Starts Here
The Path to Financial Confidence Starts Here
Practical steps to gain financial confidence and command your future.
Gaining financial confidence can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be! You don’t need to master every detail overnight. Financial confidence comes from small, intentional steps. Ready to take control? Let’s break it down:
1. Know Where You Stand
Before you can move forward, understand where you're starting. Think of it like a road trip—you need a starting point to map your route.
Action Step: Write down your current income, monthly expenses, assets (savings, retirement), and debts. This gives you the power to make informed decisions.
2. Set Clear Goals
Financial confidence grows when you see progress. Start with small, achievable goals.
Action Steps:
Short-term: Build an emergency fund, beginning with "can't skip" expenses.
Long-term: Plan for retirement—what do you want life to look like in 20 years?
3. Track Your Spending
Auto-pilot spending happens, but that information can be powerful. Tracking your expenses helps you reprioritize where your money goes.
Action Step: Track your spending for 30 days. Notice patterns, and look for areas to cut back.
4. Learn the Basics of Saving vs. Investing
You don’t need to be a finance expert to start investing. Learning just a few basics can boost your confidence, beginning with understanding that saving is secure “could need it right away” money, and investing is “don’t need it right away and want it to at least keep up with inflation” money.
Action Step: Spend an hour this week learning about simple investment tools—podcasts, articles, or online videos are a great start. Avoid overwhelm by searching for resources that describe your situation well.
5. Talk About Money
Many women avoid money conversations, but sharing your financial goals and challenges can be empowering.
Action Step: Start a money conversation with a partner, friend, or financial advisor. Talking helps build a support system around your financial journey.
Take Control Today
Financial confidence doesn’t require a big leap—just small, practical steps. Whether it's tracking your spending, setting goals, or learning about investments, each step puts you in the driver’s seat.
What’s one action you can take today to get started? The journey begins with a single step.
Your journey begins with a single step—and if you’d like personalized guidance to make the road ahead clearer, let’s talk! Schedule a free call with me to learn more about building your financial confidence and crafting a plan that aligns with your goals. Together, we’ll set you on a course toward the secure future you deserve.
HOMESCHOOLING: Haven or Havoc?
Your child's school years are precious and fleeting.
Now could be your best time to step up where your school is letting your child down. Let this series of myth-busting short chapters encourage you.
2 Major Mistakes
Which one will you make?
Which of these 2 retirement mistakes are you making right now? It's impossible to entirely avoid both mistakes.
You won't know for sure which mistake will work out better for you until it's too late.
How to choose?
Finding the Will
(Part 1)
Part 1: Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions
Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions (Part 1)
Ensuring your children or other Loved Ones can readily access your important papers when you die entails a sound process versus one or two conversations. You must overcome aversion to the subject of death, procrastination of anything that is long-term, and the tendency to assume things will be fine. Family dynamics can be sweet, spicy, or dicey.
Finding the Will
(Part 2)
Part 2: Getting Organized
While the internet permits convenient access to accounts, policies, and stored documents, it presents a plethora of password management problems. which too many people avoid by succumbing to password laziness, such as:
- re-using passwords for multiple logins, or
- use simple, easy to remember passwords, or
- writing them on sticky notes placed on their monitor or under their keyboard, or
- keeping them in a spreadsheet on their computer, or
- letting their browser remember passwords for them
Embrace Your Clarence
Is Clarence your future?
Golden insight from a golden retriever.
Post-Pandemic W.E.L.L.ness
Working, Earning, Learning, and Launching to Thrive
Where life drastically changed forever two years ago, everyone adjusted to the best of their abilities.
Here are a few of the key adjustments--"pandemic pivots"--that sustained some and prospered others.
Prenuptial Adulting
Equip Them for Happily Ever After
“Mom, Dad, we’re getting married!"
“Wonderful, congratulations! Here’s what you both need to do first.”
Equipping newlyweds with essentials of responsibility leaves plenty of life yet to be discovered on their own. Adults understand that love isn’t oogly feelings; it’s a hard choice. It’s putting your commitments and your money where your mouth is.
Many of the following steps also apply to one’s turning 18 years old. Becoming engaged adds urgency and a deadline.
Rethinking Competing Funds for College and Retirement
We live in a time of skyrocketing inflation topping decades of unbridled higher education costs.
Is the tension between funding your retirement and funding (at least partially) your children’s college education keeping you up at night?
You’re not alone.
Married? Is Your Endgame 100% or Just 50%?
Are you single? That other 50% could be whoever is most important to you.
Multiple unforgiving players factor into your retirement and estate plans (collectively your “endgame”). Household names include the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Key decisions with these players are nearly impossible to reverse. Plus, if you qualify for a pension, how you activate it is another irreversible decision.
Are you more of a planner than your spouse? It’s all too common for one spouse to blindly trust the planning spouse. Countless endgame “plans” were created by 50% of a couple:
