Individual expertise matters. But in complex situations, making good decisions also depends on your financial professionals sharing information. When you support and expect their collaboration, you are no longer the communication relay.
Those driven to give to the point of harming themselves may be acting less from generosity than from deeply ingrained obligation, guilt, and fear. Helping clients navigate these conflicts requires compassion and a willingness to help them explore the emotional complexity of their money decisions.
Student loan debt is a legitimate concern, and the return on a college degree varies enormously by field, institution, and student. The key is to look realistically and specifically at each student’s needs and interests, each family’s finances, and all the sources of funding and support that might be available.
Setting and working toward a financial goal that represents your own freedom number is well worth doing. I suggest treating that number as a beginning and a continuing journey rather than a destination. Recognize that achieving financial independence alone is no guarantee of happiness and wellbeing.
The rationale is that government should be neutral on asset classes. It should not put its thumb on the scale by favoring some investment types over others. Marcia S. Wagner, founder of The Wagner Law Group, framed this clearly in a presentation at the 2026 Financial Planning Association SHIFT Conference.
If you have an aging parent whose bills are starting to be neglected, or a client who needs more hands-on financial oversight than a planner provides, you might consider hiring a daily money manager. The American Association of Daily Money Managers can help you find someone in your area.
Early in my financial planning career, if a client told me they had a terminal diagnosis, every alarm in my head would go off. Before the meeting was over, I would have a to-do list that was three pages long.
Shadow advisors don’t have to be a problem. If a family member has genuine knowledge or carries enough emotional weight to influence your decisions, it may be better to include them than to pretend they don’t exist. The key is transparency.
Financial therapy can help men explore their internal parts to learn to recognize and begin to heal the emotional beliefs driving their economic behavior. The point of financial therapy is not to dampen ambition, but to heal beliefs that may be souring it.
I suggest looking both inward and outward to answer two central questions: “Can we afford to help without harming our own financial future?” and “Will this increase or decrease the child’s movement toward financial independence?”
An approach I have recommended for years is to interview planners, ask questions, and persist until you get clear answers. Under a relatively new SEC rule, getting those answers is becoming more difficult.
Money is one of the most emotionally charged topics there is. It can evoke deep emotions like fear, shame, and anger. The good news is that couples can learn to talk about money without starting a fight. Here are some strategies that can help.
War with Iran is adding a new level of chaos to already uncertain times. What about your retirement savings? Is your investment portfolio safe? Is it time to think about pulling out of the stock market?
A tax system should raise revenue efficiently, transparently, and fairly. When it requires billions of hours simply to comply, it may be time to ask whether we have built something too complicated for its own good.
Both financial and emotional growth are about healing and integrating the past instead of erasing it. When our money decisions become Self-led rather than fear-led, we gain both greater financial flexibility and a deeper sense of internal safety.
Early last year, the drama around tariffs dominated news headlines, market predictions, and interactions between the U.S. and our allies. Yet for most Americans, daily life went on with little obvious impact on prices for goods. At least not right away.
Money decisions are rooted in the emotional learning we carry out of childhood. Unhealed childhood trauma quietly drives the way people save, spend, and relate to money.
Precious metals, cryptocurrency, and currency speculation appeal to fear-driven parts of us that want certainty, protection, or a shortcut to wealth. Unfortunately, for most investors, that promise is never fulfilled.
Investing in line with our beliefs, whether about social issues, environmental concerns, or politics, can feel principled and emotionally satisfying. But markets don’t care about our convictions.
Interest rates do not exist to punish borrowers. They exist to price risk. When lenders are told they can’t charge more than 10 percent, even when the market risk calls for a higher rate, they don’t suddenly become more generous.
Instead of repeating standard advice about budgets, credit cards, and planning ahead for next year, my holiday wish is that you give yourself the gift of curiosity and awareness.
The goal with perpetual, unsolvable problems is to move from gridlock to dialogue. You don’t have to agree. You do have to understand.
In most cases, construction loan pricing isn’t a sign of greediness. It reflects the fact that a construction loan is both riskier and far more labor-intensive than a conventional mortgage.
Financial wellbeing is not simply about income or net worth. Nor is it about happiness. It’s about a person’s ability to function financially with security, agency, and sustainability. Emotional enjoyment doesn’t override that, and wealth doesn’t guarantee it.
From a purely economic standpoint, imposing taxes on credit unions or ending taxes on banks would have the same outcome. If Congress were serious about fairness, either option would be a logical choice.
Most of us think of paying for something as a simple transaction. You hand over the money, take the receipt, and move on. But what if the act of paying itself — how, when, and even whether we pay — carries hidden meaning about our relationships with money and the people we pay?
Inviting two new partners, Paul and Ben, into the firm felt less like completing a transaction and more like entering a marriage that created a blended family. For me, it marked the end of forty years of independence and the beginning of a shared future.
Rick Kahler highlights a tool for helping investors achieve balance between two opposing financial concepts.
At times like this, our Internal Financial System™ comes alive. Inside us, different parts react to the same market in opposite ways. A risk-taking part may feel emboldened by the gains and want to buy more.
The Fed may be chasing economic balance with its tiny nudges. Our wisest course is to find our own personal financial balance within the context of the larger economy. We can build it one grounded financial decision at a time.
Inflation is a quiet seeping in the background that you may not notice today. Yet over years it can drain value from your retirement reservoir. The fix doesn’t require a full remodel, just regular maintenance. What kind of maintenance does it take to prevent inflation leakage? Here are a few suggestions.
Given the economic uncertainties around trade policies and their impact on the markets, might this be a good time to add more real estate to your investment portfolio?
The U.S. has long criticized other countries for coerced state capitalism where firms stay in business only by giving up profits to political leaders. When Washington employs such revenue-skimming practices, it places the U.S. in uncomfortable company.
Money flowing to the U.S. Treasury from a source other than taxpayers may seem like a benefit. Yet any company required to give away 15% of its gross revenue, which could equal its entire profit, has to compensate in some way.
What is one of your “hard truths” about money? An assumption like “money is power” that you have never questioned? “Truths” like these are financial beliefs, or money scripts, that often sound completely reasonable on the surface. But in my work as a financial therapist, I’ve learned that these money scripts aren’t facts.
If you have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, you are likely to see dramatic increases in your costs next year.
The new “Trump Account” provision in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is being promoted as a game-changing way to help American families.
How can you be sure the information and recommendations your advisor offers you are not biased by their political views?
Margin loan recommendations are often presented by brokers as tax-savvy strategies that allow clients to access “tax-free” cash while keeping their portfolios intact. In many cases, however, the math benefits the advisor more than the investor.
One serious risk to financial wellbeing in retirement that is difficult to talk about is financial exploitation. Someone whose cognitive abilities are declining is vulnerable to harm from both financial predators and their own financial misjudgments.
In 2025, the United States has shifted from an open-trade economy to one burdened by some of the highest tariff rates in modern history.
A college degree may be a milestone that represents one possible career path. But it’s not your only route toward a future that is both financially sound and deeply fulfilling.
Lasting change happens through something called “memory reconsolidation.” It is the brain’s way of updating emotional patterns we have carried for years — often since childhood.
How do you make sure your nest egg lasts as long as you do? Figuring out a safe withdrawal rate is tricky, because life is unpredictable. Markets and inflation rise and fall, tax laws change, and political philosophies come and go.
While the U.S. and U.K. have different economic and regulatory landscapes, there are clear opportunities for the U.S. to improve retirement readiness by adopting some best practices from across the pond.
We all respond differently to financial uncertainty. Some lean into hyper-vigilance—tightening budgets, tracking every headline. Others shut down, turning toward distraction. Still others press on as if nothing has changed.
Social Security does face challenges. The trust fund reserves, built up during years when payroll taxes exceeded payouts, are projected to run dry around 2033. If Congress does nothing, benefits will need to be cut by about 20%. That’s serious, but it’s a solvency issue, not a scam.
Back in 1980, fear persuaded me that gold was a sure thing. I forgot an essential caveat—there are no sure things in investing.
Bitcoin and its peers are speculative assets. They have value because enough people believe they do, not because they’re backed by a central authority or tied to any intrinsic utility.
Even the best financial plans sometimes hit an unexpected sour note: an investment seemingly doesn’t work out, an emergency expense appears to throw off a budget, or an impulsive splurge leaves us with a case of buyer’s remorse. When this happens, we need to improvise as we respond to the financial twists and turns.
