Keep On Truckin’
In 2014, I started working with Bill. He wasn’t my typical client. Divorced, dad to two teenage sons, not working in finance, law or technology. He was laid back, and he knew what he loved: his boys, his dog, music and surfing. Financially speaking, he felt like a wreck. He wanted a budget, to get […]
THE COST OF COMMUTING
Unless you land a 100% virtual job, most people have some commute to work. If you live in a major metropolitan area, you can either live in the city and paying more for housing or move out of the city to hopefully save on the cost of housing and get some extra space. While urban […]
MONEY = FEELINGS
Money means so much to people and is a representation of our values. Strangely, this is why you are not supposed to talk about it or ask about it. If your parents didn’t talk about it, how are you supposed to know how to talk about money and communicate with your partner. According to Financial […]
The Merkel Plan
Alia and Tim were like many of my clients: living in a major metropolitan city, earning a good living, bought a great house they wanted to fix up over time. They came to me for advice and to learn what it would take to scale back work in ten years and still be on track […]
Should You Both Work?
Affording life in the Bay Area is expensive. In general, it takes two working parents to make ends meet and be able to save for your bigger financial goals like home, retirement and education savings. The breakeven point is trending upward with the cost of housing, which is most families largest expense (25-45% of all […]
Cost of Taking Care of You
The sky could be the limit when it comes to spending money on self-care, but as a busy parent, it is hard to find the time and sometimes hard to justify the expense. Adulting is physically exhausting. With grandparents no longer living down the street to help with the kids, most parents are “on” all […]
Keeping up with the Joneses and Social Spending
“Keeping up with the Joneses” refers to benchmarking oneself vis-à-vis your neighbors or social circle when it comes to material goods or social class. This idiom dates back to a comic strip that started in 1913 and ran all the way to 1940. While social climbing and keeping up with your neighbors is mostly seen […]
Optimize Your Employee Benefits
For a lot of working people, open enrollment is approaching (October through November). This usually means boring emails from your HR department and having to make a bunch of decisions to make that you may not be sure about. According to the Department of Labor, benefits through work account for 31.8% of the cost of […]
How to Teach Your Children that Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness
My son is seven years old and thinks it is super cool to pretend to “make it rain” with his hands and imitate stacks of money flying in the air. My first reaction is to cringe and wish he didn’t think it was cool. Sometimes I hear him say things like, “If I had a […]
YEAR OF THE EARTH DOG 2018- HOW TO MANAGE YOUR FINANCES
We have had two straight years of craziness with the year of the Monkey followed by the year of the Rooster. The Rooster symbolized the need to be heard, as well as egoism, despotism and belligerence. The impulsiveness and emotional instability of the Rooster meant that taking action without thinking won out! February 16, 2018, […]
