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Family Finance Favorites
When Will The Economy Recover
While the recession has not even officially been proclaimed, top of everyone’s mind is already when will the economy recover. While our state governors and President Trump put together committees to work on how to re-open the economy safely and get the recovery underway, I’ll just be over here tracking the data that tells us…
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Why the National Debt Matters: Understand Your Family’s Risk
Learn why the national debt matters and how it directly impacts your family now, and going forward We all have our biased lens through which we look at the world. As a former financial analyst, my lens is biased towards the numbers: dollars, cents and statistics. While today there are many points of highly publicized political debate,…
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What Happens In a Recession: A History of 5 Major Economic Recessions of the Last Century
At the start of 2020, I was getting an increasing number of inquiries about whether we were approaching a recession. I put together a series of posts on major macroeconomic indicators that both predict (leading) and confirm (lagging) when the business cycle turns. Very soon thereafter, came widespread Covid-19 quarantines and their rapid impact on…
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Your Top 10 Income Tax Questions and Answers
This time of year, most families’ biggest financial concern is filing income taxes. In 2018, a brand new tax bill took effect and brought in sweeping changes to many family’s personal income taxes and lots of questions with it. A year later, I’m still getting lots of inquiries about it, so this week, I’ve put…
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Your Average Family Budget Breakdown FAQs
When I first published the example of a family budget based on the Consumer Expenditure Survey data, I knew there would be questions, requests to dig into various parts of the data more, and the need for clarifications. Here are the questions I’ve been asked most often about the average family budget breakdown, and the…
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What Does the Average Family Budget Look Like?
When it comes to an example of a family budget, there is no one size fits all answer. I frequently get asked “What are the average monthly expenses for a family of 4?” or “What does the average family spend on groceries every month?” And that is the data I went searching to find and…
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10 Best Things to Buy At Costco
When it comes to saving money on groceries, I swear by two things: meal planning and Costco! For families, you can save tremendously on your grocery budget by buying right and buying in bulk… and there’s no better place to do it than Costco. Just before the holidays, I asked my Instagram followers what the…
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Where Should You Keep An Emergency Fund?
The first major step on the Family Finance Road Map to free yourself from credit cards and adding to your debt is to build an Emergency Fund. But where to keep that emergency fund is this week’s follower Ask Me Anything topic. Every day, I get lots of great questions from followers across social media,…
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How to Save Money At the Grocery Store
When it comes to budgeting, many families struggle with sticking to their food budget every month. There are lots of ways to lower your monthly grocery spend: you can save money on groceries by meal planning, eating in instead of eating out, but you can also learn how to save money at the grocery store…
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What is a Lagging Economic Indicator?
With all the talk in the last year of will there or won’t there be a recession, last week I covered the 4 leading major economic indicators to watch that help predict a recession before it comes. And as I anticipated, lots of you wanted to know whether they were predicting a recession or not.…
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4 Major Economic Indicators Families Should Follow
When it comes to financial markets and the economy, there is no shortage of news and information… so much so, that it can be overwhelming to sort through all the noise to focus on what really matters. I’ve started sharing a weekly Monday Market Update on Instagram, but many of you have asked about what…
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Women & Money: 10 Facts We All Should Know
Over the last 100 years, women and money have come a long way. Learn about the history of women’s financial rights, the modern statistics associated with women and money, and why improving women’s financial literacy is Family Finance Mom’s #1 mission. While there’s endless discussion today of the gender wage gap, the reality is women’s…
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My 10 Favorite Money Books for Kids
After sharing my 20+ Favorite Finance Books for YOU… I got lots of requests to share a similar list of money books for kids. So I teamed up with my friend Lauren at Happily Ever Elephants to share just that! As the child of a kindergarten teacher, I grew up in a house full of…
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4 Simple Money Lessons All Kids Should Know
This is a sponsored post on behalf of BusyKid.com. As always, opinions remain 100% my own. Read on to learn how these basic money lessons are the perfect introduction to finance for kids at any age, and how the BusyKid app can help you successfully implement them all! Birthdays. Christmas. Back to School. Weekly errands.…
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How to Teach Your Preschooler About Money
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Make Your Kid a Money Genius (Even If You’re Not). As always, opinions remain 100% my own. While I may have ended up as a hedge fund analyst, I did not grow up in a financially savvy household. We didn’t talk about money as a family,…
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Budgeting Your Time to Maximize Your Mom Schedule
If you’re a busy mom who feels like your days are passing in a blur, while your to-do list grows faster than you can ever seem to keep up with, this one’s for you. While it may seem as a stay at home mom in particular, you should have all the time in the world,…
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How to Protect Your Children: 10 Things to Know About Will vs Estate Planning
No one likes to think about their own mortality. However, once you have children who depend on you, it becomes essential. If something happens to you, what will happen to them? How do you make sure they are protected and financially provided for? I was recently asked about wills during a weekly Ask Me Anything…
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The Ultimate Guide to Finance for Baby’s First Year
Congratulations, your precious baby is finally here. Now the real fun begins! While you may have purchased everything on your baby registry list, there are many family legal and financial tasks you cannot actually begin until your baby arrives, and some come with significant time sensitivity. So even if you’ve been preparing for a baby financially…
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