New Year, fresh start. It’s a time when many of us make new and exciting goals, including goals around our money. Yet, even with the best of intentions, as the month of January rolls on, many abandon their goals.
Study after study shows that most people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by the end of January or early February. That’s not what we want!
One of the most important parts of your financial plan is your goals. In order to find clarity and reduce our guilt around our spending, we have to have clear goals. That means knowing how much we need for each goal, by when we will achieve it, as well as which goal comes first.
Is it more important to me to pay off ALL of my student loans before saving for my future home? Do I want to aggressively save for retirement (and retire early!) or take an extra vacation each year?
With a very unpredictable 2020 finally behind us, it might seem futile to attempt to draft a 2021 financial plan. How can we possibly predict what’s going to happen? Isn’t this a waste of time?
While plans can and will change, starting the year with a vision for what we want to happen in our financial lives can make all the difference. It’s also always worthwhile to gain awareness of and clarity on how we’re spending and allocating our money.
You meet “the one,” decide to spend your lives together, and get married. Months later you find out that your partner has a low credit score, is deep in debt, spends outside of their means, or all of the above. Now you are arguing about money on the daily and are worried about how you’ll ever get a mortgage. How had this not come up before you got married? Why don’t you talk about money with your partner?
A coach is someone who helps us create goals, overcome setbacks, and break through the barriers holding us back from those goals. They hold us accountable and are our biggest cheerleaders. Every time I’ve hired a coach for a specific goal, I immediately feel excited and more confident that I will actually achieve the goals I set out to accomplish.
A good financial coach is no different. A financial coach should help us get clear on what’s important to us, set goals that are aligned with our values, and then help us get there. They ask good questions. They create a judgment-free zone. They help us keep going when we fail or make mistakes.
Congrats! You are having a baby! As someone who’s self-employed, you not only have the normal parenting fears and questions like “will I ever sleep again?” but also the big question mark around parental leave. How much time can I take? How much time will I need and want? Will my business survive without me? And often the most concerning - how will I afford this?
I get it and so do many others. Here’s a step-by-step guide to navigating parental leave as an entrepreneur or freelancer.
The cost of childcare has risen dramatically in recent years. Since the 1990’s, the cost increases have doubled that of inflation, making it completely unaffordable for many families and a tremendous financial strain on others.
It makes sense that parents with two incomes question when it makes financial sense for one of them to take time away from their current job to work inside the home on childcare. Does it make financial sense to pay for childcare? Is the cost of childcare worth it?
Only 25% of the parents in the Fiscal Femme community felt financially prepared to have a child. Most reported that they didn’t really know how they were going to make it all work financially but they figured it out.
I share this because if you are ready to have kids but aren’t feeling prepared financially, you are not alone.
We hear kids are expensive (to say that least), but what does it even mean to prepare financially? What can we do to prepare ourselves for this big change? Is it worth delaying starting a family if we aren’t financially ready?
The average cost of raising a child in America is $233,610 (excluding the cost of college). Raising a child 0-2 carries an average annual cost of $12,680, while raising a teenager costs parents about $13,900 each year. Given that in 2017 the median household income in the U.S. climbed to $61,372 (before taxes), it’s no surprise that raising a child is a huge financial strain - and the average household has 1.9 children.
For those of us who have the privilege and opportunity to choose where we spend our money, it’s very much a personal choice that feels best when we align our spending with our values. This means that we prioritize spending on what’s most important to us.
If paying for your child’s college education is one of your financial goals (and even if it’s not), you’ve probably heard you should start saving in a 529 plan. Here’s the lowdown on 529 plans - what they are, their benefits, their potential downsides, and how much you (generally) want to be putting aside for your child’s (or future child’s) education.
