.Every Financial Document You Need To Gather Before You Evacuate

Lindsay Mott | September 23, 2020

Planning ahead by gathering everything you’ll need can help reduce your stress in the aftermath of an evacuation.

When the worst is happening around you, you might not have the time or the wherewithal to run down an itemized list of the important things you’ll need to get you through. Preparing for an emergency situation – such as having to evacuate due to a natural disaster – will take some time on the front end, but it will absolutely save you stress in the long run.

While many of us work hard to plan ahead for big life events, statistics show that most of us are not prepared for an unexpected evacuation. According to a June 2020 study by Allstate, 85% of Americans have not mapped out an evacuation plan.

.How Your ACE Score Affects Your Money Habits

What is Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES)?

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are the traumatic events that occur during childhood between the ages of 0-17 years.

Money Triggers

Imagine grocery shopping one sunny afternoon. You have all the right ingredients in your grocery cart, and you’re ready to purchase. But you have a taste for Honeycrisp apples. You look at the price tag and see that the apples are $3.49 a pound. That’s, like, a dollar more than any of the other apples! You have money to purchase the product, but you experience a weird uneasy feeling in your gut. Your brain is running several ideas:

Girl, don’t waste your money on that! You can get cheaper apples at Kroger.

But on the other hand, apples are healthy, and you know what they say about apples and doctors.

You don’t have any money at all.

If I had a man (or woman) who supported me, I could buy apples.

I bet White people don’t have this problem.

We can’t afford that because papa is looking for a new job.

Now in the 35,000 thoughts that we run through our brain, which thought was the weirdest?

It was probably, “We can’t afford that because papa is looking for a new job.”

Why was that thought in your brain, you might ask? It’s because even though we are deciding on an action in the present, our minds can be triggered by Financial PTSD.

.5 Emergency Funds That Will Prepare You For The Unexpected

Jaycee Tenn Mon, October 19, 2020,

If there is anything that 2020 has made glaringly apparent, it’s that the future is a series of unforeseeable events. This unpredictability has reinforced the importance of financial security, putting an immense amount of emphasis on savings.

In mid-2020 the amount of money held on credit cards in the U.S. hit $413.7 billion, according to an annual report from NerdWallet. Within each American household, the analysis estimated the average credit card debt to be $6,124.

Planning for the unexpected ahead of time is essential in keeping you away from credit card debt. And one way to help keep you out of the debt cycle is through emergency funds.

An emergency fund is a way to save for a specific expense by adding a certain dollar amount to that fund every month. The goal of an emergency fund is to gradually build your way to a certain expense so that by the time it comes to put the money down, the burden or worry of spending a large amount all at once dissipates.

.Managing Money Is Ridiculously Simple—And Unbelievably Hard

Jonathan Clements | September 26, 2020

Seems So Easy

Figuring out what we should do with our dollars is typically straightforward: We should save regularly, diversify broadly, rebalance occasionally and so on. Instead, the tough part is getting ourselves to do what we intellectually know is right.

Take the notion of buying low and selling high. Every investor knows that’s the goal—and yet, when the S&P 500 slumped 34% earlier this year, many folks just couldn’t bring themselves to buy stocks. For these investors, the knowledge was there, but that knowledge proved no match for the instinctual fear triggered by plunging share prices and the accompanying narratives of doom.

Other examples? Here are nine basic financial strategies that many people struggle with:

1. Save diligently. What could be simpler than spending less than we earn? It’s the fundamental step on which almost all other financial success is built—and yet so many of us find it so very hard to do.

.Dave Ramsey Says Don't Ever Do These 10 Things With Your Money

MoneyWise Sarah Cunnane October 16, 2020

Dave Ramsey says you can solve your money troubles just as soon as you stop causing them.

The money-management guru has doled out his signature blend of tough-love financial advice and Biblical wisdom since 1992. He learned it all the hard way: In his 20s, Ramsey built a million-dollar fortune flipping houses but lost it all when banks started calling in his debts. He had to buckle down to build back up from bankruptcy.

Now his radio show is syndicated on more than 600 stations, and he’s authored several books. He teaches Americans how to avoid wallowing in debt — even during the current financial crisis.

Here are 10 of Dave Ramsey's biggest money "don'ts."

.If You Have More Than $1,000 in Your Checking Account, Make These 5 Moves

by The Penny Hoarder Staff Updated October 7, 2020

You’ve done it. You’ve built up a little cushion in your bank account — $1,000! It feels good, right? Those days of checking your account balance in a panic are behind you.

Congrats! You’re on the right path. Now it’s time to think about some longer-term goals. What do you want to accomplish next with your money? Do you need to save more? Do you want to buy a home someday? Invest?

What’s the next step you should take? What are some specific things you can do to take your finances to the next level?

We’ve got some ideas for you:

.How To Handle A Windfall

By J.D. Roth| Updated: 11 September 2019

When my father died in 1995, he left behind a small life insurance policy that awarded each family member $5,000. It wasn't much, but it was the best he could do based on the fact that he had cancer. He hadn't been much of a planner, and hadn't been good with money, so that $5,000 per person was actually a significant amount.

At the time, I was deep in debt. I had over $20,000 in credit card balances, and was gradually adding more all of the time. If I'd been smart, I would have taken the proceeds from my father's life insurance and used them to immediately repay $5,000 in debt. But I wasn't smart. I used $1,000 to pay off debt (and patted myself on the back for it), but spent the rest on a new computer, software, and accessories. It didn't take long to realize that this was a dumb decision.