In a world where financial concerns often dominate our thoughts and decisions, the intersection of money and mental health has become an increasingly important topic. Financial wellness isn’t just about having a large bank account balance, it’s about fostering a harmonious relationship between your financial goals and your mental well-being. We are going to further discuss the connection between financial wellness and mental health, offering insights and strategies to achieve a more confident and balanced life.
Inflation, which can be described as the steady increase in the prices of goods and services, is a topic that has gained significant attention in recent times. As the cost of living rises, individuals and families must adapt their financial strategies to mitigate the impact of inflation. In this article, we will explore the current state of inflation, understand its implications and provide valuable strategies for safeguarding your hard-earned money.
When it comes to retirement planning, one investment vehicle has risen to prominence and become the popular choice for many individuals: the 401(k) plan. With its widespread adoption and numerous benefits, the 401(k) has revolutionized retirement savings and empowered millions of workers to take control of their financial futures. In this article, we explore why the 401(k) has become so popular and why it is the preferred choice for retirement savings.
We have been hearing a lot about crypto lately – it has become such a polarizing investment, as people believe it is going to save our financial system while others believe it will destroy it. Cryptocurrency is a digital asset that uses cryptography to secure and verify transactions, as well as to control the creation of new units. The most well-known cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, which was created in 2009 by an anonymous person or group of people using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Since then, thousands of other cryptocurrencies have been created, each having their own unique features and characteristics.
While we all hope for the best, it’s important to be prepared for the worst. Unexpected events such as job loss, a medical emergency or car repairs can throw our finances off balance, leaving us scrambling for ways to cover the expenses. This is when an emergency fund comes in handy. In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of having an emergency fund and how to build one.
Over the past few years, interest rates have been slowly rising, with the Federal Reserve raising the federal funds rate several times. This has had a significant impact on interest-paying investments, as well as on the broader economy. One of the main reasons interest rates have been rising is due to the strong performance of the U.S. economy in recent years. As the economy has grown, inflation has started to tick up, which has put pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in order to keep inflation in check.
As we are firmly in the New Year, there is no better time to reassess our current savings plan and how a clear understanding of goals will help guide us to financial comfort. It isn’t “news” that we are living in a different time right now – everyone who has a voice in the financial world is banging the recession drum and telling everyone to stop making large purchases. With unemployment levels still historically low, we aren’t exactly sure what the next year will hold for us; but we know that we can create a savings plan that will help ease our minds and make us feel as though we are achieving some financial goals.
Most of us can remember 2008 when we went through a crisis – a perfect storm of multiple aspects of the financial system collapsing at the same time which caused the Dow Jones Index to drop by 50% and the economy to endure an 18-month recession. The consensus is that the housing market was to blame for the recession, specifically bad loans handed out to finance homes that should not have been purchased. People who didn’t have the income to support high mortgage payments were given low interest rates in order to qualify for lending and when these loans started to go bad, it had a ripple effect across the financial markets. Many investment firms had investments that were filled with these bad loans and took major losses. Other firms that were selling insurance on these investments defaulted as well, which magnified things even further. We all know what happened after that: the government decided that bailing out the companies to stabilize an incredibly fragile financial system was worth the risk.
Depending on your personality type, a plan can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It isn’t that the plan itself is evil; it is the idea of facing reality that sometimes really terrifies people. This can be something as simple as making plans for the weekend or as complex as figuring out whether you can afford to send a child to college in five years. The task becomes even more daunting when we are planning for something we don’t necessarily have a strong comfort level with, whether it is the complexity of the variables or just the unknown. Oftentimes, the hope is that if we ignore it long enough, it will either go away or just figure itself out. This is especially true when it comes to finances, as statistics show that only 44% of Americans actually follow a budget.
Given our current economy, most news that involves the Fed has been negative, which raises the question: who’s side is the Fed on? We are currently in an economic condition that we haven’t experienced in quite a long time, so it is natural to question some things that we always assumed as true. High inflation, low GDP and low unemployment all lead us down a very complex and unknown path that most of us haven’t seen in our adult lifetimes, so it is completely normal to feel uncomfortable.
For the past few decades, few things have been as dependable as the annual increase in tuition fees for post-secondary education; but for the first time in a very long period, the growth rate for tuition has decreased. According to College Board, we are seeing a drop-off in average tuition for the first time in 30 years.
