personal finance

5 money lessons from ‘Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle.’

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They say the badness of a movie is proportional to the number of helicopters in it. Happy to report that “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” has just one whirlybird, and is as much fun as the previews indicated.

The film owes a huge debt to “The Breakfast Club,” with its “detention for disparate high-schoolers” theme. This time around the teens are a nerdy hypochondriac, a gorgeous and shallow blonde, a football jock who scorns academics and a loner who’s hyper-focused on getting into Princeton.

“Detention” involves cleanup duty in a cluttered basement room. Guess what they find? An old-school video game setup. Before you can say “exposition,” they’ve been sucked into a potentially deadly game in a world that looks a lot like Oahu.

And of course I found personal finance lessons there. You would have, too.

 

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A life-changing holiday gift: Personal finance books.

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th(Note: This is an update of an article that ran in 2016, with some new books to go along with ones I feel confident re-recommending.)

Some people are into experiences rather than gifts. Physical presents take up space and need to be dusted, whereas a massage or a theater ticket is a one-and-done event.

I suggest that a personal finance book is both a gift and an experience. Sure, it takes up a little space – but it can lead to life-altering changes and literal enrichment. And if you get the Kindle or PDF version, it doesn’t take up any room in your domicile.

When you give the gift of personal finance, you’re giving people tools that can get them out of current money troubles and/or help them build the lives they want. Doesn’t that beat the heck out of a scented candle or a cheese log?

 

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Talk nerdy to me.

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Last night I participated in Nerd Nite, Anchorage-style. Which is probably like Nerd Nite across the nation and in some other countries: Three speakers get 20 minutes each to talk about whatever subject geeks them out the most.

Also, there’s beer.

You can probably guess what I talked about.

Yep: personal finance. Specifically, why we lose our damn minds at Christmas and how to go about breaking the cycle. I was the second speaker, following a retired judge who spoke about Alaska judicial selection, which was a lot more interesting than it sounds. Then again, I’m nerdy.

 

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Sign up now for a free summit on women and money.

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Kelly Gushue’s mother wasn’t taught anything about money. A divorce left her penniless, with children to raise. One of the things she preached to her daughter was financial independence.

Gushue is now a money coach with her own company, Personal Finance Warrior. “I believe that every woman has the ability to invest, actively manage her personal finances and increase her wealth,” she says.

“Increasing your wealth means increasing your power.”

That’s the topic of her upcoming money summit. “Claim your financial power: How to shift your mindset, take action and increase your wealth,” starts Monday, Oct. 2. It’s free, and it’s online; you don’t have to travel, or even to sign in at a specific time.

Instead, you’ll get a video every day for 21 days, featuring interviews on the topic of women and money. The money experts, business owners and media thought leaders interviewed are all women themselves.

Among those experts:

 

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“Your Money, Live!”: An event for YOU at FinCon17.

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The night before the 2016 Financial Blogger Conference began, members of the public were invited to a free program called “The Money Meetup.” This evening of short inspirational speeches plus a meet-and-greet with personal finance folks was very well received. I hoped that this would become an annual event.

Conference founder Phil Taylor has expanded the public reception into an eight-hour event called “Your Money, Live!” It will take place beginning at 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27 at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel – during FinCon17, rather than the night before.

In other words, you’ll probably run into a lot of people whose work you read and/or listen to regularly. (Including me, I hope.)

“Your Money, Live!” attendees can attend their choice of four workshops (more on that in a minute), listen to money experts (including keynote speaker David Bach), and attend the Ignite FinCon event, which is TEDx style speaking followed by a networking party where you can meet personal finance writers, bloggers and podcasters.

 

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Credit or debit? Here’s what consumers say.

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Recently the NerdWallet blog did a survey of more than 2,000 adults in the United States with regard to their use of plastic. Turns out that younger people prefer debit to credit.

The findings didn’t surprise me. But they did concern me.

Without credit use, you can’t build a good credit history. Without a good credit history, you will likely pay more interest than those without decent credit scores – that is, if you can get a loan at all.

This probably isn’t something people want to hear right after the Equifax data breach. But it’s something they need to know.

 

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The painful truth about your emergency fund.

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Last year I fully intended to promote my book and also my daughter’s book at the Financial Blogger Conference. What happened instead is that Abby became seriously ill and we both missed most of the programs.

No networking for us!

Not only did we not have the chance to promote our work, the experience wound up costing us. She had to take extra time off work, and as a contractor, she doesn’t get sick days as such. She just doesn’t get paid.

I wound up spending about an extra $1,000 on extended hotel and rental car costs plus the change fee for my plane ticket. Wheeee!

Did any of that matter? No. And yes.

That’s the subject of my post today on The Simple Dollar, a piece called “The Painful Truth About Your Emergency Fund.” Obviously I would have done anything to help my daughter recover. Yet I learned something from the experience: that using your EF is really irritating.

 

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What financial health means to me: An evolution.

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(FinCon and the Center for Financial Services Innovation are sponsoring a writing contest: “In 500 words, explain what financial health means to you.” Here are my thoughts.)

My journey to financial health was entirely roundabout, and I didn’t get there until middle age. Financial survival, not financial health, was the focus of my childhood and young adulthood.

Our one-bath, two-bedrooms-plus-attic place housed six. “Lunch” meant peanut-butter-on-bakery-outlet-white-bread sandwiches.

Clothing came down from cousins. We got a few toys at Christmas and a little meat for most suppers. I watched Dad at the kitchen table, printing the household budget. $30 groceries. $10 shoes. $15 Sears.

When my mother moved out it was natural (if not healthy) that I took over, pinching pennies and fretting a hole into my 16-year-old stomach lining. We always broke even – the only kind of money health I knew.

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‘Your Playbook For Tough Times, Vol. 2’ is here!

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Self-publishing is something like childbirth: Toward the end of the process you’re swearing you will never, EVER do this again. You’re also looking for someone to punch in the mouth for not being supportive enough* (anyone who’s ever been in the transition phase of labor will likely back me up on that).

I felt that way toward the finishing-up portion of “Your Playbook For Tough Times: Living Large On Small Change, For The Short Term Or The Long Haul.” When I wasn’t gnashing my teeth and rending my garments I was thinking Lord please get me through it…I swear I’ll be a good girl and stay away from JPEGs after this.

Just as with childbirth, I forgot the pain almost immediately and decided to do it again. This time around the damn thing was practically breech, a self-publishing project that came out feet-first and sideways. For the past 10 days or so I’ve been whirling and howling with regard to final edits, formatting and cover design. On Tuesday night I was absolutely unhinged with cumulative rage and frustration as another formatting snafu erupted.

But you know what? I’m sort of forgetting how that felt, now that “Your Playbook For Tough Times, Vol. 2: Needs And Wants Edition” has made it into the world.

 

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Living the ‘pre-solvent’ life.

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(Happy Throwback Thursday, everyone! This article originally ran on July 3, 2015. Its sentiments are as valid to me today as they were back then.)

Here’s today’s neologism, and it’s a great one: “pre-solvent.” It comes from a comment on a Money Talks News article called “The real reason Americans struggle to save.”

The article cited a couple of surveys that put the fault not in our stars, but in our cards: “Lifestyle spending” and “lack of financial discipline” kept anywhere from 44 to 71 percent of respondents living paycheck to paycheck and/or prevented them from achieving financial goals.

I’d like to point out that underemployment, lack of education and impossible-to-pay medical bills can also hinder the ability to save. But I agree that the “buy now, figure out how to pay for it later” attitude is definitely nudging some folks toward insolvency.

Which brings us to pre-solvency. A commenter named “Y2K Jillian” writes that she and her husband lived paycheck to paycheck for years and loathed the lifestyle. But change happened.

How? “Gradually, gradually.” Which is how I’d bet it happens for a lot of people.

 

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