FINANCIaL
FIELd NOTES
Three Fascinating Books I Read This Year
As the year ends, I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your continued support! If you have a friend or family member that you think might benefit from these posts, they can subscribe here or on the home page of my blog's website, Financial Field Notes.
Here are three books that I enjoyed this past year…
The Most Searched Financial Terms of 2023
2023 was a year that brought us no shortage of interesting news, from bank failures to spiking mortgage rates to yet another debt ceiling showdown. As we approach the end of the year, let's review five of the most searched financial topics of the year…
Planning for Irregular Expenses in Retirement
Most pre-retirees I meet with for the first time have a fairly good estimate of the regular monthly expenses. However, the area that is hard to predict and plan for is the unexpected costs. One exercise that I like to do that brings clarity to this is to review actual expenses for the past few years. We often find that irregular expenses are the culprits – helping a daughter with her car, an HVAC replacement, or a dental procedure.
It can be tempting to assume that these expenses will mostly vanish in retirement, but they don’t. These one-off financial obligations can put a significant dent in your retirement savings if you're not well-prepared. While there can be a lot of surprise expenses, I found that they typically fall into four key areas…
Steps to Protect Your Late Spouse From Identity Theft
Losing a spouse is a deeply emotional and challenging experience, and dealing with the aftermath can be overwhelming. Amid the grieving process and the myriad administrative tasks that follow, it's crucial not to overlook the potential risk of identity theft.
Sadly, scammers target deceased individuals because there is often no one tracking their finances. In doing so, they target their surviving spouses, who are left cleaning up the mess…
Why Your Credit Score Probably Doesn’t Matter That Much
Many people’s first financial education is on the value of your credit score. As teenagers go off to college, parents talk to their kids about the importance of “building credit” and get them started on their first credit card.
While there is a little truth to this, your FICO score is not the foundation of your financial health that many people think it is…
What I'm Teaching My 6-Year-Old About Money
Zeke, my oldest child, just turned 6! This has been a special year as I watch him take an interest in some of my earliest childhood activities – climbing trees and making forts, building slingshots from broken branches, and turning any simple activity like taking the trash out into a race.
One of the things we have been working on in the past few years is that it’s okay to wait. Delaying gratification makes whatever you are enjoying all the better because of the wait…