Articles
Personal finance Q&A #2: dealing with income ups and downs
Q&A #2: Q: I’m struggling with managing my money. I’m self-employed and my income varies every month. When I work regularly, I make plenty of money to pay my expenses and pay down my debts, but the months I don’t work as much as I’d like to, I struggle to make my...
Personal finance Q&A #1: paying bills late
First ever Q&A! E-mail me with your questions! Q: I heard that companies like it if you pay your bills late. Is that true? A: Of course they like it! They can charge you crazy exorbitant interest and late fees if you carry a balance with them. What’s good for...
Freezing kids’ credit
When I started my business two years ago, one of the first things I was going to do and report back on was freezing my kids’ credit files. It had been on my mind for a while, ever since someone I knew personally had had an experience with her child being a victim of...
Adventures in credit freezes
Protecting your credit: Worst. Thing. Ever. Who wants to spend even 30 seconds thinking about how vulnerable we are to identity theft? Especially when no one knows what to do and it sounds like a hideously painful process to actually go through. It’s been in the...
Being Mindful With Your Money
Here's a link to an article I wrote about financial mindfulness - paying attention to your money and how it's working for you. Enjoy! http://essentiallivingmaine.com/being-mindful-with-your-money/
Financial advice for parents
As a parent of four young children myself, I'm very sensitive to the variety of needs pulling at our families' limited resources. To try to help parents navigate through, I wrote an article on that topic which is published in the new issue of Essential Living Maine...
Balancing Priorities for Parents
As originally published in Essential Living Maine, September/October 2016 Being a parent is tough on so many levels – there never seems to be enough time, money or sleep. With kids at home come so many important priorities pulling at ourselves and our resources. If...
Financial Mindfulness
As originally published in Essential Living Maine, July/August 2016 Talk about mindfulness is everywhere now. Exercise, food, even parenting – we can be mindful in nearly every aspect of our lives. We can also be mindful of our money. If you’re not making active...
Starting an Emergency Fund
Remember how in my first post I told you that living within your means refers to not only easily paying your regular expenses, but also putting some money aside every month? This is where we’re going to talk about setting yourself up with a financial cushion to...
Pay Attention to your Money
Be mindful of how you’re spending your money. I don’t care what you spend your money on. Maybe your passion is rebuilding old cars and you spend lots of money on parts. Maybe you love microbrews, and you travel around doing tastings at different breweries. Maybe...
The Absolute Basics
If you’re young and just starting out in the “real world,” you have a lot going on. On the financial side, all of a sudden you have a regular salary and real responsibilities. It’s easy to let your money disappear without thinking too hard about where it’s going. ...