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A Lesson from My Closet

By Carol H Cox

Recently, my husband and I cleaned out a walk-in storage closet in our home. This is a closet that had been created when we remodeled our house about 20 years ago, upsizing to fit our growing family. We have been filling this closet with books, papers, electronic paraphernalia, bags and backpacks, office supplies, documents, records, CDs, DVDs, and so forth for the past two decades.

All manner of things went into this closet over time, but rarely did anything come out. So we were faced with a monstrous cleaning project. We took all the boxes, bags, and piles of stuff out of the closet and lined them up along the hallway. This overwhelming task of sorting through everything, deciding what to keep, and disposing of items took us three weeks.

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Audiobook Recommendation: Jill Schlesinger’s New Personal Finance Book

by Carol H Cox

If you’ve ever listened to Jill Schlesinger’s podcast, you know that she’s a straight shooter, smart, and as to the point as you could wish for in a financial adviser. I really respect the woman and was excited to hear that she had a new book out, The Dumb Things Smart People Do With Their Money: Thirteen Ways to Right Your Financial Wrongs.

Because I love the way she banters on air and her manner of making me feel like she’s talking to me personally on her show, I decided to listen to the audiobook version, which she narrates herself. Great choice!

It’s an enjoyable, no holds barred dive into how not to make stupid mistakes with our money. If we’d only follow her advice, we’d no doubt be much better at such practices as investing using reason instead of emotion, avoiding obsessive emphasis on money, finding affordable ways to send kids to college, prioritizing retirement savings, and demystifying the allure of real estate, and so on.

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Teaching Teens Money Matters Before Graduation

by Carol H Cox

No, it’s not too late to talk to your soon-to-be-graduating high school senior about personal finance! In fact, now is a great time to begin the conversation. My parents never had these talks with me when I was graduating from high school, but I also wasn’t facing tens of thousands of dollars of student loans in my future either, and credit card debt wasn’t the huge problem it is today.

Managing money well is now more important than ever. The average college grad leaves school with about $28,500 in student loan debt, and the average American struggles with over $6,900 of credit card debt carried from month to month.

You don’t need to be an expert to give good advice to your child, and you don’t have to have your finances in perfect working order either. We’ve all screwed up our finances on more than one occasion. It’s tough for us parents to admit that we’ve made money mistakes, but these may be some of the best teaching lessons. They’re real. They’re memorable.

Life is messy. It doesn’t follow neat little rules—although financial experts sure like to draw them up. So take comfort in knowing you’re not alone. Many Americans are in difficult financial situations, like too much debt, flabby credit scores, savings deficits, and the like.

Now, where to begin?

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Why Spending Less Makes More Sense than Working Harder

By Carol H Cox

Image by rawpixel.com

When our budget is out of whack, getting it back in balance by spending less is usually easier than working extra hours to earn more. Let me say that again a little differently: Spending less money is easier than earning more money.

This may seem obvious, but it’s the opposite of what many of us do. The Internet is full of suggestions on how to make an extra buck in the gig economy. From ridesharing our cars, to delivering groceries, to completing online surveys, there is no shortage of ways that we can occupy our time to make more money.

But is making more always the answer? Maybe deciding to consume less is something we need to consider first. When we need to come up with a little extra money in our monthly budget, it’s more efficient to not spend on something than it is to work extra hours at our job or do some side-hustle to bridge the gap.

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Sole Proprietor Banking Options

By Carol H Cox

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

When there’s only you at the helm of your business, you essentially are the business. And it can be tempting to mix your personal funds with that of your business. If you’re starting off small, it might seem at first much easier to just to use your existing personal bank account to make business purchases and to make business deposits. Why bother with opening another bank account, right?

Well, after a few shipping expenses, supply purchases, website hosting fees, book purchases, website design fees, subscription fees, and so on, you’ll soon be spending lots of time keeping side records of what belongs to what.

Was that book you purchased last month a personal expenses or a business buy? What about that trip last week to the post office? Those Amazon purchases, were they all personal or some business, and which were which?

I think you understand what I’m getting at here. It is so much simpler to track your business financials if you start out with a clear dividing line between your personal affairs and your business affairs.

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Access Lynda.com for Free Through Libraries

By Carol H. Cox

Today’s fast-paced constantly-changing work environment often requires that we periodically update our vocational skills if we want to maintain our position or advance in our jobs. Regularly enhancing our knowledge will help us remain current and competitive in our field. But finding time in our busy lives to complete coursework and attend seminars can be challenging.

One of the most convenient and efficient ways to approach this is through online coursework. I recently discovered an extensive and free source of excellent online tutorial classes accessible through many libraries—Lynda.com. That’s right, you can utilize the impressive and extensive offering of this online learning company for free through subscribing libraries where you have a library card. Continue reading “Access Lynda.com for Free Through Libraries”

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Four Money Books to Match the New High School Grad

by Carol H Cox

 

young woman thinking

Perhaps reading a personal finance book is not the most exciting way to spend an afternoon for most people, but it can be a great way for teens and young adults to learn some important money management skills they’ll need once they’re on their own.

You may be a young adult wanting to educate yourself about personal finance or maybe you’re a parent or grandparent searching for a helpful money book for a graduating high school senior. Whatever the case, choosing a personal finance book with an approach that matches the reader’s personality will likely be the easiest to digest. Continue reading “Four Money Books to Match the New High School Grad”

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A Cheaper Path to a 4-Year College Degree

By Carol H Cox

Full-time employees with bachelor’s degrees have median earnings that are 67% higher than high school graduates, according to 2016 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately $60,100 versus $36,000. An individual who has a 4-year college degree improves his or her potential income by hundreds of thousands of dollars over 40 years or more of employment.

Yet, to achieve a bachelor’s degree is increasingly expensive in the U.S. and out of reach for many individuals unless they and their families are willing to shoulder student loans in the tens of thousands of dollars. Encouraging young adults, age 18 and older, to take on sizable debt is not a very appealing solution, although that is what is happening in the U.S. today. Continue reading “A Cheaper Path to a 4-Year College Degree”

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On the Front Line for Teen Literacy

By Carol H Cox

 

Public school systems that offer personal finance courses are still the exception, and not the rule. The 2016 Council for Economic Education Survey of the States found that only 17 states required high schools students to complete a course on personal finance. State public educational systems are huge bureaucracies that take a long time and a lot of energy to change course. We can’t solely depend on public education to provide the personal finance training that our children need to prepare them for post-high school life. We parents need to fill this void. Continue reading “On the Front Line for Teen Literacy”

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