Decisions

Should you let your partner handle your money for you?

When you share finances with a partner, you can outsource the budgeting to the one who is most interested, but there are good reasons not to. After doing this for many years, I’ve learned a surprising fact: not everyone is … Read MoreRead More

How to take advantage of a student loan payment freeze

During the student loan payment and interest freeze, if you are able to make payments now, you’ll have a much greater impact on your loans. A lot of the benefits that were passed to ease the crisis for people dealing … Read MoreRead More

Freed from the golden handcuffs: the surprising joy of being laid-off

Anyone can feel like they have golden handcuffs even if they don’t make a lot of money. But breaking free can give you surprising relief. There is a lot to be unhappy about right now. Rampant injustice, an economy that … Read MoreRead More

Where you can find me on social media (and why)

An update on my social media channels, including reasoning for why I’m on (or not on) certain sites. A few years back, I talked about what social media I was using (and, more to the point, not using). It’s a … Read MoreRead More

If you’re thinking about taking an early withdrawal from your 401(k)

New legislation eliminates penalties for some early withdrawals from your 401(k). However, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. UPDATE: This legislation has expired as of the end of 2020. Penalties will apply again for early 401k withdrawals. These … Read MoreRead More

The affiliate trap: How professionals can lose both trust and income

Amazon just severely changed its commission rate, showing how easy it is to lose not only trust with affiliate marketing, but also income. There are many ways that flout conventional wisdom in building my financial coaching business. For one thing, … Read MoreRead More

Time to plan for the unthinkable

Now that we’ve seen firsthand how the unthinkable can happen, we need to prepare for other situations that can (and probably will) happen. By now, we’ve all been dealing with “the unthinkable” for many weeks now. “Nobody” thought this could … Read MoreRead More

Why I’m going for my AFC® certification

I started the process of becoming an Accredited Financial Counselor®, to gain more skills and for people who prefer want to work with certified professionals. Years ago, I wrote a post called, “Do you need to be certified in order … Read MoreRead More

The Roth IRA danger zone (part 4): How to withdraw an excess contribution at Vanguard

After having decided to remove my Roth IRA excess contribution, I went through the process at Vanguard for making it happen. More posts in this series: The Roth IRA danger zone (part 1): What to do when you almost make … Read MoreRead More

The Roth IRA danger zone (part 3): How I resolved an excess contribution

With a number of different ways to resolve this problematic situation, here is how I dealt with an excess contribution to a Roth IRA. More posts in this series: The Roth IRA danger zone (part 1): What to do when … Read MoreRead More