When my husband and I sat down with a retirement planner a few weeks ago, we nearly fell off our chairs when he told us how much we needed to have saved. According to his figures, the amount we should be putting away for retirement is more than we both make in a year. Only later, after we... Read More >>
When I was growing up, my parents didn't buy a television until I was eight years old. When they did finally break down and buy one, it was a small black and white set, which received about five channels. Color television was not the only thing missing in my childhood home; we also had no video game... Read More >>
My husband and I recently embarked on a diet program. No, we didn’t need to lose weight. We needed to trim some ugly flab that had crept into our financial management plan, and the only way to take care of it was to put ourselves on a strict spending diet. Had you asked about our family’s financi... Read More >>
If you have adult children, you know how difficult it is to let them make their own mistakes and bear the consequences of their bad decisions and impulsive actions. Just like you tried to protect them from skinned knees and broken hearts when they were growing up, you want to protect them now f... Read More >>
The other day, I calculated that if my husband and I had agreed to all the requests we’ve received over the years to cosign loans for family or lend them money, we’d have over $100,000 in family-related debt. I love my family, but realizing how far under we’d be if we hadn’t turned down their r... Read More >>
