By: Laura Walton AFC® About 2% of our spending goes to vacations – but that’s an average of all kinds of vacations – from driving and staying with relatives to flying and staying in a hotel. I’ll share a low-cost, high-value vacation a friend took recently but, before that, let’s look at our average spending…
By: Laura Walton AFC® I was lucky. My brother and I, along with our cousins, spent much of our summers out of the Phoenix heat in a small community of 50 cabins seven miles outside of and a 1000 feet above Prescott. It was here I got my first lesson in personal finance. My grandmother…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Those were my client’s opening words at our last meeting. We’d met a year earlier and agreed on an aggressive savings goal to meet his retirement needs so I was, of course, interested in his epiphany. “I realized I needed to save $100 a day!” The good news? He’s doing it!…
By: Laura Walton AFC® Even when we identify something we’d like to change, it’s not often easy. After all, we’re likely replacing one habit with another. But, as with most challenges, there are tricks to succeeding. First, of course, you have to commit to something – your goal. The commitment is your rational choice –…