Financial Literacy Month 2013: Obstacles

May 22, 2013 — Leave a comment

Once you state your intention of creating different financial habits in your life, an obstacle will pop up like an evil speed bump. How you approach the obstacle may indicate how you ultimately conquer the obstacle, or are defeated by it.

Life is too short to live defeated.
If you trip over something, or run into a brick wall, enlist some friends’ help.
Revisit your plan.
Persevere.

Do Not Give Up.

 

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Financial Literacy Month: Good Decision Making

May 21, 2013 — 1 Comment

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Wise First Time Home Buying: Choosing Your Real Estate Professional

April 27, 2013 — 541 Comments

Below is an English Transcript of the Google+ Hangout between Taras Collum, Real Estate Agent and Financial Coach in Phoenix, AZ, and Julia Gray-Lion, Personal Finance Coach and Career Coach in south Dallas-Fort Worth, TX. Enjoy the video conversation or click the button to read through quickly. Continue Reading…

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Wise First Time Home Buying – Pre-Qualifying

April 24, 2013 — 2 Comments

Below is an English Transcript of our conversation of getting pre-qualified for a home purchase. Contact us or leave a comment below regarding how we may best serve you.

Julia: Good Evening it’s Julia and Taras back for another round of first time home buying and being wise about the whole process. I am Julia at Promises Financial Coaching in Mansfield, Texas and this is my friend Taras who is a real estate agent licensed in the state of Arizona as well as a fellow financial coach. So, we get jammin about all the details and stuff – how are you doin tonight?

 

Taras: Hey Julia. I’m doin’ good out here in Phoenix, Arizona. How about yourself?
Julia: I’m doing well! It’s been a long day, but you know, it’s good! We were talking about how much fun it is to think about getting into the home buying process. It’s the American Dream. It’s so exciting to be nested into your own place. But it’s a big financial decision. We want people to be wise about how they approach this.  Continue Reading…
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Financial Literacy Month: Sharing Information

April 22, 2013 — Leave a comment

 

Good Evening and welcome back to the third part of Financial Literacy Month 2013. I am Julia at Promises Financial Coaching and I want to continue the conversation with you.

Here’s where we’ve been:
We have gone from “My gut is churning. Something’s wrong. I have got to figure this out and identify the problem.”
We have taken the second step of choosing [to recognize] what I can control, what I can influence, and what is out of my hands.
So we spent some time doing some internal and introspective ideas. Now it is time to Continue Reading…
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Financial Literacy Month: Choosing Your Response or Finding Solutions

April 20, 2013 — 1 Comment

The text below is an English Transcript of the video.

Yeah! You came back for the second week of Financial Literacy Month 2013. I’m Julia at Promises Financial Coaching. I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for dropping by.

Last week we were talking about [how] everybody has that gut feeling of “something’s just not right – I’ve got to address something – sometimes it’s that nebulous … I-can’t-get-my-hands-around-it-I-don’t-know-what-to-do.”
So we spent some time maybe journaling, maybe talking with a friend, maybe taking a long walk and talking to ourselves, maybe sitting by some water and looking out [across the water] processing that [internal] information so we can get a better handle of what’s bothering me; what’s going on that can’t continue. We identify and define the problem, then we start thinking ahead to what do we want.
If we always state [the problem] in terms of “I don’t like this” or “I don’t like that” or “this is wrong” or “I hate this” – that’s complaining and some people may not be as likely to join in [helping you solve the problem].
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Wise First Time Home Buying – Part 1

April 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

We’re starting a conversation for wise people considering their first time home buying experience. Buying your home is most Americans’ largest cash purchase. Let’s be wise.

 

For an English transcript of this conversation, click the “MORE” button. Otherwise, enjoy listening in to our conversation. Continue Reading…

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Teaching Our Kids: Elementary Age

April 12, 2013 — Leave a comment

kidsmoneyhandsTeaching our kids about money looks different when we’re talking with different young minds and hearts, and when they are at different stages of their lives. The younger the child, the more concrete the conversation is going to be with “what and how” questions and just a few “whys”. The more your child grows into the teen years, the questions start becoming a lot of “why” and “when you have a place of your own” and fewer “what and how” questions. If you would like more on the brain science and child development reasons behind those statements, contact us! This is part 2 of a 3 part blog series this spring.

Your elementary child is growing up, by the day! Continue Reading…
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Financial Literacy Month: Identify and Define the Problem

April 9, 2013 — 2 Comments

Welcome to Financial Literacy Month 2013! This is Part 1: Identify and Define the Problem

Usually, I am willing to complain about a problem a lot faster than I am willing to start solving a problem. Maybe we’re all a little like that? (That may be beside the point) (click the “More” tag to see a transcription of this video) Continue Reading…

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Teaching Our Kids: Infants to Kinder

April 9, 2013 — Leave a comment

Teaching our kids about money looks different when we’re talking with our very different young minds and hearts, and depending upon the different stages of their lives. The younger the child, the more concrete the money conversation is going to be with “what and how” questions, and just a few “whys”. The more your child grows into the teen years, the questions start becoming a lot of “why” and “when you have a place of your own” and fewer “what and how” questions. If you would like more on the brain science and child development reasons behind those statements, contact us! This is part one of a three part blog series this spring.

When your child is young, let’s say Pre-K4 age, everything needs to be tactile and immediate. Translation: your child needs to be able to hear your voice speaking to them about what they did to earn the money at the same time that they feel the money going into their sweet little hand; this needs to happen within a three minute window of the “earning event.”
For instance, if your child gets $3 for keeping his/her room clean this week and doing a quick pick up each evening, then it might look like this:
  • You take him/her by the hand, go look at the important “clean up goal points” (clothing is hung up or put away in the dresser, bed covers are pulled up, toys are back in their bin and books are on the shelf, 3 – 4 points that may be written on a chart in their room and/or that you reinforce verbally on a daily basis)
  • As you’re pointing out what a good job he/she did, or gently correcting what needs to improve, you remind him/her of how nice it is to live in an organized home and how much you, mommy or daddy, appreciate them doing this hard work as a loved and valuable member of the family. You may extend the positive words to include how good it makes everyone feel to be working towards the same goals as a family.
  • A gentle correction might be that the books have all made it onto the book shelf, but they are in an unstable pile just waiting to tump off the shelf. You, being the wise and loving parent that you are, bring your child to the shelf and start rearranging the books together so they won’t fall. You may be asking your child which books they enjoyed reading this week to reinforce that learning is lifelong and books are a quick way to learn through others’ lives. Always remembering, we humans need WAY more reminders than we need instruction. Some children need a bit more “why” behind the what, so invite your children to care for their books by reading them and taking care of those spines and pages in the correct storage place.
  • When the room meets your (age-appropriate) standards, you take them by the hand back to where their Save-Give-Enjoy money containers. This cannot be a virtual set of money containers such as on mint.com or Mvelopes.com – that’s too abstract for kids at this age.  Your child needs to feel the money and then see where the money goes, visually, and it’s even better if your child is the one placing the money in the container at your direction.
  • He/she will feel you give them the $3 earned. One proposed split would be to put $1 in Save, $1 in Give, and $1 in Enjoy. Our goal is to teach them about saving at least 10%, giving 10% and enjoying the rest. This example uses $1 bills. Another way to accomplish this would be to use dimes. PreK are still learning to count, so you can practice counting 30 dimes as the earnings, then put three dimes in the save container, three dimes in the give container and then the other 24 dimes in the enjoy container. Your child will remember the time and attention that you have him/her.
This whole process would probably take 5-10 minutes with maybe another 5 minutes of prep work on your part to have the cash and containers ready.
The important points of teaching your child about money would be 1 – we work together as a family; 2 – we want your child to tie hard work together with money so they don’t see you as a human ATM or Cash Advance machine; 3 – we want this experience of giving, saving and enjoying money to go deep into their developing brain and we’re using sensory experience along with repetition to make sure that the memory is encoded and etched deeply for your child to use out into the future. 0 to 18 years of age covers 936 weeks. How will you use this time to set your child up to be wildly successful?
We all know that teaching good manners like “please”, “thank you” and “yes ma’am/yes sir” are easier to impart at a younger age.
Why would we not teach our precious babies about money that will become such a strong tool in their lives later on to either benefit, or hurt?
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