Start Your Emergency Fund – Part 2

By admin|April 16, 2018

      It Takes Forever to Save up $1000 It seems like it takes forever to fill an emergency account and accumulate $1,000 in savings.  As soon as I feel like I have a decent start at building my savings, something will happen, and I have to drain it and then start all over again.  It is frustrating, and I always feel like it takes forever.  This is one

Read More

Start Your Emergency Fund

By admin|April 9, 2018

        It Takes Forever to Save up $1,000 Last week, we talked a little bit about the benefits and “secure” feeling you have when you have a little bit of money in the bank.  Establishing an Emergency Fund is not easy and trying to save $50 each week can get you to your goal but it seems like it takes FOREVER to get there.  If you put

Read More

Back to the Basics

By admin|April 3, 2018

        Do you have an emergency fund? Last week, I decided to go out and take a long walk.  I have been trying to concentrate on healthier activities and so I took a little bit of time to take a 5 mile walk down the new Greenways Trail in St. Charles County.  The morning was gorgeous.  The temperature was brisk but the sun was bright and it

Read More

A Few More Tips

By admin|March 27, 2018

      One Simple Change Last week’s blog post offered a few tips to help you “kick start” your financial strategies for 2018.  We had a great response from several readers and so we thought we would provide a few additional tips. Again, this isn’t intended to be a downer but – hopefully – a little wake up call.  Remember all those New Year’s Resolutions that you made??  Lose

Read More

90 Day Wake Up Call

By admin|March 20, 2018

          One Simple Change Do you want to know what is crazy?  Today is the first day of Spring!  Today is March 20, 2018 and we are almost 25% of the way through this calendar year.  I blinked and just a few days ago, we were putting Christmas decorations away. Time continues to march forward and before you know it, we will be celebrating The 4th

Read More

Financial Literacy Training 101

By admin|March 13, 2018

        How did you learn about handling money? Did your parents sit you down and teach you how to balance a checkbook or how to properly handle a budget?  When did you learn to write a check or how to pay bills? I don’t know about most of you, but these are discussions that I NEVER had with my parents.  We never talked about money.  As a

Read More

Reach Your Financial Goals

By admin|March 5, 2018

        Finances Have Very Little to do With Money I was scanning the internet over the weekend to find a new topic to discuss.  Something popular – something that was currently trending. I came across an article that was filled with valuable information but it didn’t have anything to do with finances and so I moved on to the next article and scanned some more.  After a

Read More

Fear of Fixing Your Finances

By admin|February 26, 2018

        What are You Afraid of? As we have started the New Year and have spent a great deal of time talking and counseling with families about their personal finances, I am amazed at the number of people who want to “put off” meeting about it. “As soon as we get our Tax Refund back, we can set a time to meet.  I just don’t have time

Read More

Debt Elimination

By admin|February 19, 2018

          Snowball versus Avalanche In last week’s article, I talked a little bit about debt and the fact that we all use it in some capacity.  In our society, it just isn’t feasible that we would live our lives completely without using it – in some way.  The more that I have thought about it this past week, the trick is using it the “right” way

Read More

Good Debt versus Bad Debt

By admin|February 12, 2018

    Debt Can Be Overwhelming! I have been reading a lot of articles recently about finance and budgeting.  It seems that everyone put out an article near the end of the year to talk about your personal finances and how to get your year started off on the “right foot”. One thing that seems to resonate within each of the articles is centered on the elimination of personal debt.  

Read More