We all know money can’t buy happiness…but most of us would love to give it a shot! 

No, we all know money can’t buy happiness. But few of us really believe that poverty is exactly the road to bliss either. So I perked up recently when I ran across an interesting idea: a formula for being happy.

Click to listen and hear more...

I’m no marriage counselor, but I’ve seen my fair share of family feuds over finances.

My friend Bob Livesay turned me on to this helpful explanation of the widely divergent ways we deal with conflict (about money or anything).

Considering a home remodel? Steven Covey reminds us that all things are created twice – once in the mind, and then in reality. And the better job we do of creating the thing we want in our mind, the better chance we have of actually getting it.

Click to listen how I would approach a major remodeling project...

If you’re one of those souls who get out of bed each day and can’t wait to get to work – good for you!

But even if you feel like you enjoy your work so much you can never imagine stopping – don’t for one second think that gives you a pass on responsibly planning your financial future.

Because there is a world of difference between “get to” and “got to.”

John Mauldin once wrote, “…the choices we make today are constrained by the choices we made in the past, and the choices we make in the future will be limited by the choices we make today.” 

That reality can paralyze you, which is the wrong response.

So how do we know what is the right thing to do?

As Abraham Maslow helpfully pointed out, when you are a hammer, you tend to treat everyone else like a nail.

The world of financial services has become highly specialized also, but the issue is not the superiority of one specialty over another. It is about balance.

So where do you go to find such balance?

Healthcare costs are rising at 7% to 8% annually, much higher than inflation. And fewer and fewer companies are offering any kind of retiree health coverage.

Here are some positive steps you can take to prevent wealth loss due to health costs in retirement.

When a client asks me about insurance of any kind, I usually start with a question like, “If the event you are insuring against occurs, will you be the happiest you could possibly be with the decision you make today?”

That usually elicits a bit of head scratching and a kind of “huh?” look…