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“How do I change my behavior?” That’s the question one of my students asked after a GCC Money Talks session. It was the Fall of 2019 and Money Talks had just launched and this student was one of the first to participate. It was a great question, unfortunately, I didn’t have a great answer. I did find a blog post with 5 Ways of Changing Your Financial Behavior but I knew that I needed a better answer.  Fortunately, I found that I already had a great resource on my bookshelf. The book, Change Anything is exactly that – a great answer and set of strategiesRead More →

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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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To appreciate something is to pay attention to its value (and in so doing, to increase its value in our own eyes). When we don’t do this, we fail to see the value in the people, situations and things around us – they depreciate (lose value) in our eyes.  So, why do we do this? After all, why would we want any part of our lives to lose value? Well we don’t want to but often people get focused on other things and many things get overlooked or taken for granted. This Thanksgiving weekend, I want to remind you of the value of appreciation.  GratitudeRead 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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Generational wealth is a topic that many have become interested in and that’s a good thing. But the focus is largely on passing along wealth in the form of assets and savings. But money without money management skills only leads to bigger money issues. Don’t believe me? A CNBC article reported that lottery winners are more likely than average individuals to declare bankruptcy. And just google: ‘celebrities who went broke’ to see more examples of how money without financial education (and self control) led to bigger money problems than the individual previously faced. I’m on a mission to break generational legacies of being broke andRead More →

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If you’re in debt, you’re not alone! After a decline last year, credit card debt is up again and nearly 1 in 5 Americans have credit card debt of $20,000 or more. As we covered last week, compound interest can work for us or against us – when we have debt, especially credit card debt, then compound interest is definitely working against us. While it may take time to get out of debt, it helps to have a strategy. In this post, I’ll share 3 strategies – each is not better or worse than the others, just different. Focus on deciding which one makes theRead More →

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No one will ever care as much about your money as you do. This is a point I like to make in my financial education sessions with students. It’s our money and our responsibility to manage and grow it. But I also say this to make a point about how interest goes both ways, that is, you can earn it or pay it.  Interest is simply money paid for the use of money. Are you borrowing money? Then you’re paying interest to use that money. Are you depositing money into your savings account? Then the bank will pay you interest on your savings. They canRead 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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Sometime in the last year or two I finally got around to listening to the audiobook of The Millionaire Next Door.  I’d come across the book and also heard from one of my favorite authors, that one of the key takeaways was the importance of managing your money. After hearing that, I actually felt less motivated to read the book but it would still cross my mind. Eventually I took the plunge and I’m glad that I did.  While this book is not one that I would necessarily recommend to someone who is just starting to learn about money (The Automatic Millionaire is a betterRead More →