.Financial Abuse – How Do You Identify It and Who Can Help? [Resources and Hotlines]

By Women Who Money Co-Founders, Vicki Cook and Amy Blacklock

Note: This post may contain triggers for those who have been in abusive relationships or been through sexual assault.

What is Financial Abuse?

Financial abuse is when the person ‘in power’ – the abuser – controls their victim’s access to money, including:

Controlling their spending

Stealing their money, credit, property, or identity

Denying them access to financial accounts and credit cards

Hiding assets from them

Keeping them from getting or keeping a job or pursuing education or training

Essentially, it’s a control tactic 99% of domestic/intimate partner violence abusers use to keep their victims trapped.

.Should I Borrow From Savings To Pay Off $17,500 In Credit Card Debt?

May 30, 2020 By Catey Hill

Have a question about retirement? Email chill@marketwatch.com

I’m 40, will get a pension and have $60,000 saved for retirement. Should I borrow from it to pay off $17,500 in credit card debt?

Dear Catey, I am a 40-year-old law-enforcement officer and hope to retire in 13 or 14 years. At that time, I will have 30-plus years on the job with a pension giving me 70% of my current income with a cost-of-living annual percentage increase around 2% or 3%.

Additionally I have a little over $60,000 in a 457(b) plan. But I also have $17,500 in credit card debt with interest ranging from 9% and 16%. Is it a good idea to borrow from your 457(b) plan to pay off credit card debt? I think doing so would mean I was stress free from debt, plus I’d be paying myself back with interest on a five-year plan. What’s the right move? Thank you, Frank

.Glossary of Personal Finance Terms

When you begin taking control of your money and reading about personal finance, you may come across terminology you aren’t familiar with. This can end up frustrating you or lead to mismanagement of your funds. And we certainly don’t want that!

Below you’ll find a fairly comprehensive list of definitions to help you grasp numerous personal finance terms. Words in color are linked to articles we’ve written on the term. Since we’ll add to this resource as time goes on, bookmark it or pin it for easy reference.

These definitions are for informational and educational purposes only. Please discuss any specific financial questions with an investment professional.

.Are My Financial Fears Common? [How to Overcome 17 Money Worries]

By Women Who Money Co-Founders, Vicki Cook and Amy Blacklock

You probably didn’t stress out about money as a kid. If you got an allowance, earned money, or received cash as a gift, it usually meant you could buy something you wanted.

Even if your parents made you save part of it or set aside money to donate to others, spending money was exciting and made you feel grown-up.

As an adult, your enthusiasm for money and spending may have faded. You may be anxious and concerned about your finances if you are paying for all the stuff – housing, transportation, insurance, student loans, food, utilities, clothing, and more.

Common financial fears include:

.How Do I Teach My Teenager About Money?

One of the most important jobs we have as parents is to teach our children how to navigate the adult world. An important skill they’ll need to master is managing their money.

Starting while they’re young is a good plan but if you’ve missed that boat it’s not too late.

So how can we successfully teach our kids to manage money when they’re teenagers, still living at home, and dependent upon us for most of their monetary needs?

Some school districts, realizing the importance of educating young people about money, have begun offering personal finance classes in high school.

North Carolina recently became the twentieth state to require high schoolers to complete a course in economics and personal finance to graduate. Topics taught to teens include paying for college, using credit cards, and taking out a home mortgage.

.Good Enough Is Pretty Great

January 8, 2020 By Machinist

Have you ever noticed how much contradiction and disagreement there is in the advice being offered about personal finances? Suze Orman claims that buying coffee is like flushing a fortune down the toilet. Others assure us that we can tolerate a vice or two and still be responsible personal financiers.

Some people are convinced that owning a home is a waste of investable capital, while others are convinced that real estate, with its easy leverage is the best, most reliable passive income stream. Still others make the choice to pay off their mortgages early.

Some people wouldn’t stoop to driving someone else’s hand-me-down car, while others will gladly accept years of additional retirement as a trade for doing just that. Which advice is best? More importantly, which is good enough?

The reason for this disagreement is simple. People are unique and so are their finances. We all operate within the same economic system, so there are universal principles that apply to everyone, but beyond these foundational principles, we all get to decide how to make the most of our limited resources.

.Your Advisor-Free Financial Plan

By Machinist

Last week I explained that you are better off without a financial advisor, because advisors cost more than the value they provide. The purpose of this article is to provide a financial plan that you can follow to financial independence and a plentiful retirement. The plan is intended to be simple enough that anyone can understand and follow it without professional support. It is also intended to leave you with a higher net worth than if you hired an advisor.

Our financial plan will focus on your own personal macro-economics, not your day-to-day expenses. Financial advisors may offer support with how you spend and save your money, but let’s face it, the best they can really do is give you a pep talk and hand you a pamphlet on budgeting.

You are the one that will have to decide whether you are willing to pack your own lunch, drive used cars, or send your kids to public schools. Only you can decide what you value most.

In other words, a financial advisor will focus their advice on where and how to invest, not how to save the money in the first place. We’ll skip over the details of your saving too and get right into the financial plan.

.7 Smartest Financial Decisions I Made

October 7, 2019 MonkWealth Personal Finance

The road to financial independence is conceptually pretty simple. There are proven vehicles to facilitate our road to success, we just need to put in the time. Now, there are people who got lucky and there are people who worked hard. What I’ll cover in this post is parallel to that spectrum.

These are a few things that helped me budget better, save more, and put me years ahead compared to where I could have been without them. More importantly, they are a strong base for both creating opportunities to get lucky, and also to support working hard towards our goals.

Sometimes it even feels like a real-life cheat code.

And lastly, I said that these things helped me, but they can also help anyone who adopts them. No matter how you earn your money, certain decisions and habits can put you way ahead in life.

Don’t Stress About Things You Have No Control Over

Posted by TEBI on February 28, 2020

By Jonathan Clements

Here’s the least surprising thing you’ll read this week: you can’t control the financial markets. They’re driven by news — and we simply don’t know what news we’ll get in the weeks and months ahead, whether it’s about the spread of the coronavirus, its impact on the global economy or something else entirely.

But don’t despair. There’s also much that we can control, including how much we save and spend, the amount of investment risk we take, how much we pay in investment costs, our portfolio’s tax efficiency and — most critically at a time like this — our own emotional reaction to market ups and downs.

Indeed, if you were going to design a laboratory experiment to test investors’ mettle, this past week would provide a nearly perfect template. Think about it. We have a virus without a vaccine that’s spreading rapidly — but nobody knows how rapidly — which is damaging the global economy — but nobody knows how badly — at a time when many U.S. stock investors were already anxious after an extraordinarily long bull market that has pushed valuations to worrisome levels.

Stop Overspending With This Simple Budgeting Trick

December 2, 2019

Do you find yourself falling short of your savings goals or taking on debt because you can’t stop overspending? Have you tried budgeting but still struggle to control your spending?

Changing our spending habits is extremely difficult. When you are used to a certain level of spending, it’s hard to teach yourself to spend less. This was me a few years ago when I found myself on the overspending struggle bus. I had established new savings goals but was struggling to adjust my spending accordingly. This resulted in me not being able to both meet my savings goals and pay my bills. And it was frustrating as heck.

Budgeting did help me get to know my spending a bit better, but I still needed something more to really reel in my spending. I needed a way to learn what it feels like to live within my means and meet my savings goals. I needed to tighten the reins. So I hacked my budget and created a trick to rein in my spending which allowed me to align my money with my all of my priorities.