Resilience isn't a single skill. It's a variety of skills and coping mechanisms. To bounce back from bumps in the road as well as failures, you should focus on emphasizing the positive.
Jean Chatzky
While you're going through this process of trying to find the satisfaction in your work, pretend you feel satisfied. Tell yourself you had a good day. Walk through the corridors with a smile rather than a scowl. Your positive energy will radiate. If you act like you're having fun, you'll find you are having fun.
Debt certainly isn't always a bad thing. A mortgage can help you afford a home. Student loans can be a necessity in getting a good job. Both are investments worth making, and both come with fairly low interest rates.
One of my rules is: If it's good for the planet, it's usually good for your wallet.
Every minute you spend looking through clutter, wondering where you put this or that, being unable to focus because you're not organized costs you: time you could have spent with family or friends, time you could have been productive around the house, time you could have been making money.
Our culture highlights the desire to always have more, even when we should be grateful for what we have.
Once you're retired and are no longer counting on earned income to live on and supplement your nest egg, you're done with disability insurance. At that point, though, the need for long-term care insurance - which protects you from spending that nest egg too fast - takes over.
July is high burglary season because so many people leave town. To help avoid making that obvious, suspend your newspaper subscription and have your mail held. Another clear indication is if all your lights are off for an extended period. To fix that, you can buy a timer for about $30.
When you're setting up a budget, a general rule is to start with your fixed expenses - your housing and insurance payments, and car payment, if you own one.
Nontraditional students often have the misconception that aid is intended only for high school students entering college. Luckily, that's not the case.
Many people focus on the 4 percent rule, which essentially says that as long as you withdraw no more than 4 percent from your retirement accounts each year, the money should last you 30 years.
Weak passwords are a crook's best friend. Make yours long and complex, and change them often - not just on your bank account but on your email and social media, too.
There are two things that you need to save for. First, you need an emergency cushion of no fewer than six months of living expenses. This needs to be cash in a liquid account where you can get at it in - yes - an emergency if you need it. In other words, money markets, not CDs. You also need to save for your future: that means retirement.
I know it's exciting to get an item on sale. But if you're buying for the discounts and not because it's something you need or want - either for yourself or for a gift - you're going about things the wrong way. Think of it this way: Saving 30% is great, but if you didn't buy at all, you'd be saving 100%, which is even better.
Show your kids that needs and wants are two different things. The best way to teach our kids to be smart consumers - and savvy savers - is to model good behavior for them.
You may be basing a portion of your self-worth on your bank account without even realizing it. Try to pinpoint the activities and qualities that, free of charge, fulfill you.
By working toward a financial objective, you'll start to see the money add up for retirement or the credit card balance go down. But it doesn't have an immediate impact on your day-to-day life, and when it does - like when you're pinching pennies to save more - the immediate impact could feel negative.
Do you have an emergency fund? If not, build one - aim for three months of expenses to start, then boost it to six. It will ease your anxiety and get you out of a potential jam.
If your appraisal comes back too low - you don't have at least 10% equity for a conforming loan or 20% for a jumbo loan - you might not be able to refinance at all, at least with a loan that's packaged and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That means you may have to pay a much higher rate.
Your retirement comes before your children's tuition. That's because there's no financial aid for retirement, and there's still a good deal available for college.
You can refi your car loan just like you can refi your mortgage. It's even easier and less expensive. There's no appraisal process, and fees are minimal for a new car title. A couple of caveats: Most lenders require that the car be less than five years old and have a minimum loan balance of $7,500.
I'm big on setting goals, but I also think that if you have too many lofty ambitions and set goals for everything, you can sabotage your efforts by overextending your brain.
Whether it's fly-fishing, taking your camper to the Everglades, or just traveling, everyone has got a little retirement dream.
If salary is your most important consideration, make sure you don't take too much time off beyond the allotted 12-14 weeks of maternity leave - and certainly don't leave altogether.
If you live in a yard sale kind of neighborhood - in good weather, most neighborhoods are crawling with them on weekends - do a sweep to see what the competition is charging. No one is going to buy your $7 book if they can get it down the block for $1.
In money, and in life, you are very often your own worst enemy. You promise yourself you're going to diet, then eat not one or two French fries but a whole plate. You decide to really commit to saving for retirement, only to wind up with a new pair of shoes in your closet.
Garnishments tend to happen when people hide from their debts and stop making even minimum payments. Eventually, creditors sell the debt to a collection agency.
I give out similar advice all the time: Take a month to write down where your money is going. By the end, you'll have a road map that tells you where you can cut back.
It's not exactly a big surprise that women mature earlier than men do. As a result, they tend to display better judgment, particularly when it comes to money.
If you want to give a tangible present, but you know the recipient wants cash, give a little bit of both. This strategy is helpful for occasions that involve a public opening of presents, like a bridal or baby shower. You can give something that can be wrapped and opened, along with a card containing a check.
You have no control over the market. You can't predict where it will go, and you can't bring it back from the depths. What you can do is save more. Make sure you have cash on hand - an emergency fund of at least six months of expenses.
You could lose hundreds or thousands one day on paper and gain it all back the next, and it has literally no effect on your immediate future, provided the money you have in the market is money you're investing for the long haul (meaning at least three to five years).
If you work in a home office, you can likely write off that space, as long as you use it only for work.
One way to make sure you don't lose assets in the future is to streamline your accounts. Consider using one bank for all your banking needs and one brokerage firm for all your investments.
To bring down your credit card balances, write down the benefits of reducing your debt. No more gnawing feeling that you're throwing money away, perhaps. More money flowing to other financial objectives. Then consult the list when you have doubts.
For most, the largest asset is their home. This becomes a sentimental issue, I know, but if you're holding on to a home that you can no longer afford - or you need the liquidity - you need to think about solutions. One might be to bring in a tenant or roommate; a more drastic measure is to sell the home and downsize.
Anything past 90 days constitutes 'severe,' but all late payments stay on your report for seven years if reported.
Anticipating a boomerang child seems the odds-on thing to do. Think about furnishing - hello, sleeper sofa - with this in mind.
Where wealth is concerned, individuals aren't stuck in little boxes. You don't start out wealthy, stay wealthy, and end wealthy.
By definition, saving - for anything - requires us to not get things now so that we can get bigger ones later. That's hard. Our brains are hard wired to prefer the here and now.
No one anticipates divorce when they're exchanging vows, and it can be devastating emotionally and financially. To ease the financial side of the blow, you need to maintain your financial identity in your relationship. That means having your own credit history - you need your own credit card - and your own savings and retirement accounts.
Knowing where you stand in your quest to accumulate enough money for retirement is an incredibly important part of the planning process.
You'll get the biggest bang for each buck by paying off the highest interest rate debt in your portfolio first, while making minimum payments on the remainder. It's called the avalanche method, and it gets you out of debt cheapest and fastest.
If you have had the same dishwasher for 10 years or more, don't bother repairing it. The average dishwasher is expected to last nine years, and you've most likely squeezed as much life out of it as you can.
Too often, we make budget cuts - then blow the savings. Instead, think about your financial picture. Do you have high-interest rate debt? Paying it off faster will save you a bundle.
No purchase is so urgent, no bargain so rare, that you don't have time to research it thoroughly, despite what they might have you believe. This applies, in particular, to infomercials that urge you to 'Call now, while supplies last,' or 'Call in the next 10 minutes for a free gift.'
Eliminating or substantially lowering just one major monthly expense can give you enough cushion to move into a more comfortable place financially.
Many of us, if pressed, would admit that we'd prefer a cash gift to another pair of pajamas or bestselling novel. But giving the green can make even the best of us uncomfortable - the etiquette is confusing, and those who relish picking out the perfect something can miss some of the fun.
When something you use again and again is on sale, take advantage. This strategy doesn't apply to perishable items, and you don't want to buy so much more than you need just to get a deal, but if you know you're going to use a product eventually, it pays to take advantage of the cheaper price.
In a relationship where finances are shared, it's important that both people know what's going on. If one spouse likes being the family accountant, it's fine for that person to take the lead, but the other spouse shouldn't be in the dark.
