Budget
20 Second Advisor: 6% vs 2.5% Mortgage – The impact of rising rates on home affordability
If you’re looking for a prediction on when interest rates will rise or fall, alas, I cannot give you that info as I left my crystal ball at home this morning. But, I want to point out how much the recent rise in interest rates affect the monthly payments homeowners must pay when refinancing or…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Fed Rate Hike- What it means for you
Inflation is at a 40-year high. Just last week, the Fed raised its benchmark rate .25%. In theory, the rate hike increases a number of borrowing costs, which slows demand for goods and taps the brakes on inflation. The Fed has indicated that further rate hikes are in store. If we continue to see further…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Keeping Up With The Steinbergs
Last week, our family took a trip for our kids’ winter break from school. On the long drive, I had the chance to listen to a podcast, The Just Enough Family. It details the rise and fall of Saul Steinberg, an American businessman that rose to great wealth by the age of 30 only to…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Savings Subaccounts Trick
In working with clients, we have found this trick to be super helpful and provide additional peace of mind. We all have non recurring expenses that happen randomly or every now and then. Some examples include, travel, home repair, car repair, medical, gifts, insurance premiums, etc. These can cause stress because they don’t happen on…
Read More20 Second Advisor: How a $12 hamburger costs you $20.34
It’s not totally uncommon to talk to prospects or clients that make several hundred thousand dollars a year, and they don’t know where all their money goes. Ex: We make $300,000 per year, but don’t really have much savings to show for it. Here’s why I think this happens: The more someone makes, the more…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Where inflation is and isn’t
You have probably been reading about inflation concerns lately. I recently read a great article outlining where inflation is and isn’t according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here is the article In summary, here are the top 4 categories that have seen the highest and lowest price increases Highest Rental cars Gas Used cars…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Positive savings goals
Food for thought. Make sure that your savings goals are framed in a positive way, not negative. “I will save to buy a home” is positive “I will not spend money” is negative Focusing on the positive takes pain away from spending less money. In this case, you set your sights on the joys of…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Can Holiday Spending Be An Investment?
With Thanksgiving and Black Friday next week, I thought I’d touch on the gift giving season. It’s hard not to be swept up in the ever-increasing commercialization of the holidays. Personally, it feels like the holidays often boil down to scheduling chaos, overspending on gifts, and not enough time spent reflecting on what truly matters…
Read More20 Second Advisor: What are the “We gottas” in your life?
I was running with Taylor and Thad last week on the beltline. We started talking about the various things/expenses in life that always seem to pop up. We like to call them the “We Gottas” in life. Here were a few of the ones we came up with: We gotta live in this neighborhood. It…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Hey Parents! Cash for Chores May Create Entitled Kids.
We have three little kids in our family. We are constantly trying to get them to clean their room, pickup their toys…the list goes on. In the past we had a chore system that worked pretty well. If kids did their chores for the day, they got up to 2 “checks” per day (one for…
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