Clients may need your help discovering the childhood beliefs affecting their financial decisions today.
Every financial planner has had this experience. A client couple comes to you in some financial distress. And they came to the right place: This is what you do, and you’re good at it (if you don’t say so yourself).
After establishing rapport, [...]
Times are tough. The recession may be over on Wall Street, but no one has told Main Street. Budgets are still being trimmed, layoffs continue, and jobs are hard to come by. Many of us have been forced to downsize and are still struggling to meet our monthly expenses. All of this anxiety and stress [...]
Fourteen-year-old Emily was thrilled. After six months of intense lobbying, she finally convinced her parents to buy her a cell phone. Emily’s parents gave her a cell phone with the stipulation that she could use only 500 minutes per month. They warned her not to go over her minutes and showed her how to check [...]
The basics of personal finance are simple. Regardless of how troubled their financial lives, I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t already know what they should be doing. Everyone knows they should save for the future and not spend more than they make. Despite hundreds of books, thousands of newspaper articles, and prime time [...]
Times are tough. The economic recession is having an impact on all of us. Tourism is down, budgets are being trimmed, layoffs are on the rise, and jobs are becoming increasingly scarce. Many of us are worried not just about our financial future, but about our ability to meet our monthly expenses. All of this [...]
We know better, but we just can’t seem to stop. Sound familiar?
It does if you have ever struggled with a substance use disorder, overeating, or any other self-destructive behavior that gets out of control and leads to negative life consequences. Many of us reach a point where we know these behaviors are hurting us, but [...]
Tis the season to overspend. We know better, but we just can’t seem to help it. But responsible financial behavior is no mystery. We all know we shouldn’t spend more than we make and we need to save for the future. However, this knowledge is not enough to make the average American do the right [...]
MEET ALLISON, 35
From the time my mother and stepfather got married, when I was almost seven, they’ve always been what they call “behind the eight ball.” They never discussed money problems with us directly but there were always comments like “Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know” and “We’re one big expense away from real [...]
High self-esteem is good, right? What possible good would a lack of confidence do for me? In the past few decades, much attention has been given to the value of high self-esteem. We try to raise our self-esteem through workshops, affirmations, school programs and outlawing the use of red ink in grading papers, cooperative games [...]
We became interested in the psychology of money after I had a traumatic event. I lost half of my money in the Technology Bubble burst in 2000. It hurt. The impact of that event led me on a path of self-discovery, where I questioned how an intelligent and well-educated psychologist could make such an enormous [...]
