.7 ‘Taboo’ Money Topics We Should Be Openly Discussing

Gabrielle Olya Sat, June 19, 2021, 2:00 PM

Talking openly about money has been seen as taboo for years. But it seems that millennials are now trying to buck the trend. A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that young adults are more open to talking about their finances than older generations -- and this might be a good thing

How Your Parents Plan To Support Themselves in Retirement

It can be uncomfortable to discuss financial plans with your parents, but not having these conversations now can make things more difficult for you and your siblings down the line if it turns out that your parents don't have a retirement plan in place.

.Overcoming The Downer Of No Longer Making Maximum Money

06/18/2021 by Financial Samurai

Do you know what is really hard? Deciding to walk away from a whole lot of money in your prime. If you decide to retire early, you must accept the death of your maximum money potential.

At age 34, I was making a base salary of $250,000. Come year-end, my bonus would range between $0 to $500,000. Instead of suffering from the one more year syndrome for one more year, I decided to quit the money by negotiating a severance instead.

If I hadn’t left my job and averaged a realistic $500,000 a year in total compensation since 2012, I would have made $4.5 million by now. And if I had gotten regular raises and promotions, maybe I would have made more than $7 million after nine years. ** Perhaps I should have stayed in finance after all!

.Why Money Is Important And The Role It Plays in Our Lives

At some point, you may wonder why money is important and start to analyze the role it plays in your own life. And our society has plenty of different viewpoints when it comes to money and happiness, how much money is truly enough, and how to better with money.

I’m sure you have heard many of the different sayings about money too, whether funny or to hit a particular point to make you think. You know the ones, like:

“Money doesn’t buy happiness.” – Proverb “Money is the root of all evil.” – 1 Timothy 6:10

“Having money isn’t everything, not having it is.” – Kanye West

But you’ve probably heard many proverbs, famous quotes, or other sayings from people around you. And while there may be some truth to not let money dictate your entire life and choices, money IS important.

Why Is Money So Important?

.A Basic Financial Planning Checklist

A realization that has only very slowly occurred to me, over 15 years in the world of financial planning, is that the most common financial planning mistake that I see people make is not so much a particular bad decision, but rather completely ignoring certain parts of financial planning.

In many cases, that shows up in the form of focusing too much on the investing part of the picture, while having some other critical financial planning need that is going unaddressed.

And that’s not terribly surprising. Investing involves thinking about upside — how your assets will grow (and how they could grow, if you make a high-risk bet and get lucky). That can be fun.

.The 5 Most Important Money Lessons I Give My Residents

By Peter Kim, MD Passive Income MD

A large part of my job is teaching. In fact, every day I teach both residents and fellows. The subject matter is mostly anesthesia-related, but I can’t help throwing in some financial lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Physician Contract Reviews

We just don’t get any financial education in our normal training, and I feel it’s a great disservice, not only to our future careers but our lives as well. For this reason, unfortunately, it’s up to us to self-educate.

.Brain Meets Money

Richard Quinn

HOW OFTEN DO you think about money? Hey, you just did. Seriously, we think about money every day and sometimes every hour. Some studies say we ponder financial matters even more often than the old standby: sex. We’ve been thinking about the stuff for a long time. Money goes back about 3,000 years. Paper currency can be traced to China in 700 BC. They didn’t fool around: Their currency stated that all counterfeiters would be decapitated. I’m guessing counterfeiting was rare.

Today, it costs two cents to manufacture a penny and almost eight cents to make a nickel. Result? Each year, we taxpayers lose about $85.4 million on the production of pennies and $33.5 million on nickels.

Gee, at that rate, those of us on Social Security could receive a $2-a-year raise if they made cheaper money. Who needs pennies anyway? Money is no more than a piece of metal or paper—basically worthless, except you can get stuff for it because the people who sell you stuff can get other stuff with the money you give them.

.Five Reasons to Rent

Humble Dollar

HOMEOWNERSHIP offers many advantages, as we detailed in the previous section. But there’s no guarantee you’ll make money, especially if you own a house for just a few years. Thinking of purchasing a home? Here are five caveats—which may prompt you to continue renting.

First, given the risk of declining property prices, you shouldn’t buy unless you can see staying put for at least five years and preferably seven years or longer. While it’s hard to imagine we’ll suffer another decline like that of 2006-12 any time soon, a smaller drop is entirely possible.

.Five Reasons to Buy

Humble Dollar

DESPITE THE PROPERTY market’s 2006–12 downturn, many Americans remain firmly convinced of the virtues of homeownership. What underpins that faith? Here are five reasons most folks should aim to own a home.

First, with a fixed-rate mortgage, you lock in your housing costs and thereby protect yourself against a booming real estate market that drives up rents and property prices. An adjustable-rate mortgage doesn’t offer the same degree of certainty, though typically there are caps on how much your monthly payment can increase.