Want to Make A Big Move?

Tired of feeling like all you do is work just to pay your bills? If yes, you are not alone. Redfin reported that  San Francisco lost more residents than any other US city in the last quarter of 2017. And in 2018, 49% of Bay Area residents said they would consider leaving California because of the cost […]

Maximizing Fun

I love doing fun things! Who doesn’t? Living in Europe provides me with a new playground of opportunities, and after being in France for more than a year I can look back and see how much money I have spent on that fun. My budget is not unlimited, so for the next year I am […]

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 […]

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 […]

Financial Activism

News Flash: It is expensive to live in the Bay Area. For most families with young children, every dollar is needed to live the life you want to live. There are the basic needs, and then add on childcare, home improvement, taking a vacation, saving for retirement and maybe putting aside something for college. What’s […]

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 […]