If you learned that your financial planner had their own financial planner, would you be concerned? Would you see it as a confession of incompetence or a sign of confidence and wisdom? Years ago, when I told my clients that I had a financial planner, their reactions...
In last week’s column about grief, I suggested that all of our personal losses, such as the death of a loved one, have financial aspects. These may range from a severe reduction in family income because of a divorce or the death of a wage earner, to the complexities...
One of the emotions—or more accurately, the constellation of many emotions—that financial planners often must help clients deal with is grief. It’s common for people to engage a planner during times of transition and loss such as the death of a parent or spouse....
Whenever I surf television cable news channels, I can’t help but notice the plethora of ads for financial planning. Some of them sound compelling, even to me. I often find myself thinking, “Dang, that’s exactly what we do.” Then I notice the...
In researching financial dependence for last week’s column, I realized this money disorder shares similar characteristics with Dependent Personality Disorder as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). If you think you may be...
The last thing in the world I would ever want to be is a couples therapist. This is despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that for 40 years most of my work as a financial planner has been with couples. Helping individuals negotiate their relationship with money...
