Managing Money

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes from being the person everyone else relies on. You’re the one who remembers the birthdays, keeps track of the appointments, notices when something is wrong, and quietly steps in before…

Kathryn sat across from me with a legal pad full of numbers and a look I’ve seen hundreds of times. She was 63, planning to retire within the year, and totally convinced she’d have to give up everything she enjoyed. The book club dinners. The annual trip to see her sister in Seattle. Even the occasional splurge at the garden center…

I have heard many people state the basic rule of thumb for an inheritance account: if you want to keep your inheritance separate, don’t put it into a joint account. That means if you deposit an inheritance into a shared…

In the classic movie American Beauty, Lester explains to his daughter that he didn’t “lose” his job. He explains that if this were true, he could have found it again. If this were the case for all of us who’ve experienced losing a job, we wouldn’t be…

A woman once told me something that stopped me in my tracks. She said, “I don’t know what my children think I’m planning… and honestly, I’m afraid to ask.”
She wasn’t worried about conflict. She loved her children deeply, and they had a good relationship. But underneath it all sat a quiet uncertainty: Do they expect to inherit the house?

In my recent article,“Four Questions Answered About Encore Careers,” I discussed how encore careers are less about starting over and more about building forward into work that feels purposeful and aligned with who you are today…

Here’s something nobody really prepares you for. You work for 30 or 40 years, and every two weeks, money shows up in your account. You know exactly what’s coming. You plan your life around it. Then one day you retire, and that rhythm just… stops. You’re sitting there looking at a number…

A woman once told me something I’ve thought about many times since. She said, “I don’t feel poor… but I don’t always feel free either.” Her home was paid off. She had savings. She had done everything right. And yet, when unexpected expenses came up – a repair, a larger bill, or even something she simply wanted to do – she hesitated…

I am a fan of national theme months, of which we have many in this country, so of course I love Financial Literacy Month in April every year. But I’m also realistic enough to know that most of the themes are best practiced all year long, whether they are health related, money related, or otherwise…

You may remember watching your children or nieces/nephews spend “their” money differently than “your” money? Suddenly, what they asked you to buy, was not what they were willing to spend their own money on, remember that? That always made me chuckle. And now I am seeing the same scenario in our grandchildren…