The Dudes To Dads Podcast welcomed special guest Scott Kilian, Certified Financial Planner.  Scott is a regular contributor to our dads meetup group in Encinitas, CA.  In this podcast, Scott shares 5 Essential Financial Tips for Parents.  Scott indicates he is a dad first and a financial planner second.  The financial tips Scott offers are very important to consider when planning for you and your family’s future.  Everyone get’s excited and interested in investment options for their children, but to even our surprise, there are things you need to do before you start investing.  Scott lays out 5 tips including:

1) There must be a commitment from both of you to do Fiancial Planning.  One of the suggestions is to switch off the family CFO role every 3 months.  He discusses why that is important.

2) Get the cash flow in check – Make a budget.  You should understand your net worth, including personal financial statements.  We discuss some ways to get these done.

3) Get out of debt – Debt is the worst killer of any financial plan.  Do everything you can to eliminate the debt first.

4) Pay yourself first – Parents get excited about setting up a 529 plan for their kids yet they have debt or no 401K.  Scott explains why this may be a bad choice.

5) You must do Contingency planning – Long term disability insurance is more important than life insurance and Scott discusses why he believes this is the case.

Join us on another informative podcast learning some financial tips along the way.