crop unrecognizable financier using calculator on smartphone near dollar banknotes

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As a College Financial Educator, I’ve become familiar with several mistakes that students, and their families, make when paying for college. And one that concerns me is when parents prioritize college over building their own retirement fund.  I get it, parents love their kids. But here’s the thing, there are loans for college, no one’s going to give you a loan for your retirement. I also get that your kids are headed to college before you’re retiring, but your money needs time to grow. For every 10 years that you hold off investing, you’ll need to double the amount of money that you invest toRead More →

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I’m a fan of personal development – and analogies. One of my favorite analogies is that learning is like making a candy apple. You see, to make a candy apple, you don’t just dip the apple into the red, candy syrup once – you dip it in and then let it set and then dip it in again and let it set and repeat this process to build up that candy coating (well, at least that’s the metaphor – the recipe I just saw is nowhere near that labor intense). And this serves as a metaphor for learning. We don’t learn things by spending aRead More →

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak at our District’s Student Success Conference on the topic of ‘Turn Your Money Mess into Your Money Message’. It might surprise some, but for a long time I saw myself as not good with money and not the money type. So, sometimes it even surprises me that I’m now a Financial Educator. But then again, the journey that I took is part of the reason that I’m passionate about Financial Education.  It’s because I know what it’s like to struggle with money, not only the money issues but the emotions and the stress. I remember times when IRead More →

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You’re probably very familiar with the many health benefits of drinking water; water aids digestion, flushes out toxins and boosts your immune system and metabolism. But do you struggle to get enough water each day? One strategy that can help is to start tracking your water intake – you can do this on paper or with an app.  I started doing this over a year ago. Originally my tracking consisted of tallies. It worked well but there were times when I lost track and wondered if I’d tallied that last glass of water or not. So my new system is that each day I writeRead More →

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Comparing ourselves to others is a somewhat normal, human activity. But we’re doing ourselves a disservice because we’re not, as they say, comparing apples to apples. You see, when it comes to our own lives, we know all the nitty gritty details, all the imperfections – and that’s fine, but is that what we compare, too – no! Because we don’t have that same perspective on other people (thankfully, because I wouldn’t want to know all those details about others’ lives and I wouldn’t want everyone knowing all that stuff about me – TMI). So, what do we compare ourselves to? Not to actual peopleRead More →

decorative purposes - one whole egg surrounded by broken eggs

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Of course, you’re leading your life. But, that’s not the same thing as being the leader of your life. In truth most of our decisions are automatic – that is, we don’t really even think about them anymore. And even when we do think about our decisions we may rule out or not even realize some of our options. Why?  Because instead of leading we’re more concerned about fitting in. We’ve learned since we were little to go along and most of all to avoid standing out.. That means doing what others do and what others would find acceptable while avoiding anything that others wouldRead More →

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It’s interesting how sometimes a word or a phrase can have a connotation for someone that others don’t have. Recently, it crossed my mind that something inside of me cringes at the phrase ‘live within your means’ yet, I feel empowered by the idea of living on less than I earn. The directive, ‘live within your means’ is advice that I heard frequently growing up and for me, it always seemed to suggest that people should live within their ‘station’ and be satisfied with their lot in life. Looking back, I’m pretty sure this is far from what was intended when people gave this advice.Read More →