Moving Forward After the Loss of a Spouse

During the month of March, I had the honor of being a featured guest on The Retirement Answer Man® Show to discuss “Going from Two to One”. We explore the difficult topic of losing a spouse from both a non-financial and financial perspective. No matter how well we plan for life after early retirement, twists and turns are inevitable, however, losing a spouse and moving forward may be one of the biggest challenges of all. Continue Reading →

What Is Your Why?

As you may have gathered from my previous blog posts, I am passionate about teaching financial literacy to others – particularly the next generation, which includes my daughter. One of my outlets for this is teaching a financial literacy class to high school seniors at our local public high school. We cover many key topics including tracking spending, calculating and monitoring net worth, discussing various assets and liabilities, understanding interest and compounding, appropriate insurance coverage, personal income taxes, etc. It Continue Reading →

Learning the True Value of Financial Independence

Over the past five months, during which I have been absent from posting on the blog, I have had a number of significant life experiences. My father passed away after a long battle with cancer, my daughter graduated from high school and then went off to college – my wife and I are now “empty nesters.” Experiencing these life changes has caused me to reflect on the value of financial independence. When my wife and I originally embarked on our Continue Reading →

Rule #1: Spend Less than You Earn

In order to save and invest for our financial goals, we must live within our means – it is really as simple as that – but often challenging for many people to accomplish. All financial goals require a savings plan, but if all cash flow is allocated elsewhere, these goals cannot be funded. The only way to really know if we are living within our means is to compare and analyze our income and expenses. This is where tracking spending Continue Reading →

A Financial Fresh Start

For the past few years I have been volunteering my time co-hosting a financial literacy series at our local library in Crested Butte, Colorado. This program, called Common Cents for Colorado, was made possible by a grant from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation through Smart investing@your library®, a partnership with the American Library Association. The main program series consists of a 5-Part Seminar Series covering the topics of: Goal Setting & Financial Planning, Key Investment Concepts, Retirement Savings Vehicles, Common Investment Types, Continue Reading →