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*Financial Awakenings

Your Biggest Holiday Expense Could Be a Hidden Cost

Consider your Christmas shopping list. What was the most expensive single item on it? That special gift for your partner? The latest electronic gizmo for your teenager? Your family’s holiday travel? Certainly, with inflation hitting a 40-year high, all these items...

It’s a Good Year to Celebrate Like Scrooge

With all the supply chain chaos, inflation, and uncertainty in the economy, this year is a perfect time to celebrate Christmas in the manner of Ebenezer Scrooge. If you’re superficially familiar with Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the first thought that may come to mind...

How To Enjoy More Conscious Giving

This time of year, we are surrounded by opportunities to give. Both our email inboxes and our snail mailboxes are jammed with solicitations for donations to charities, food banks, religious organizations, arts organizations, and more. We can give locally, nationally,...

Guard Against Scams When You Give

Financial scams and con artists have probably been around at least as long as people have been using money. In the past when I read stories about scams, I often wondered how people could be so gullible. I assumed that the victims of fraud were the vulnerable elderly...

Do You Need To Know Your Financial Planner’s Net Worth?

Encouraging a 20-something friend at my gym to attend a workshop I was giving on investing and financial planning, I quipped, “I’ll teach you how to be a millionaire.” “Really?” she responded. I quickly explained that, if someone her age invested $6,000 a year in...

Lost Your Job? How Can Your Financial Planner Help?

If you lose your job, what emotional and professional support should you expect from your financial planner? Ideally, the planner’s first response would be, “Tell me more about what you’re experiencing. How can I best support you in this moment?” Since every client’s...