The Good-Enough Budget

"You have excellent math skills andyou deserve good things!"I have a half-developed pet concept I keep turning over called the "good-enough budget." The term is a take-off on that classic Winnicott term, the good-enough mother. Without getting into a whole history of Object Relations, the basic idea...

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Women and Money: The Sky Is Falling

Hey, girl. I know that money and investing topics are "intimidating" and "boring" to you, so you "tune out" when your advisor tries in vain to show you a PowerPoint on market returns. But you need to get it together, because according to USA Today, "Women's financial responsibility grows...

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"The Talk" About Money

I will admit that when I first saw a Billfold.com post about this PSA campaign from The National Financial Educators Council, I just about blew a gasket. But since this campaign is supposed to "elicit an emotional response that encourages parents to talk with their kids about money," I...

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It's Hard Out Here for the Rich

I settled down this morning with U.S. Trust's 2012 Insights on Wealth and Worth as a little light beach reading (sigh... if only. I'm still at the office). Some of the findings knocked me out of my chair. Among them: Six in 10 HNW parents are not fully confident their children will be...

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Thank You to My Parents, for Letting Me Be Stupidly Naive with Money (Seriously)

 For two years, I lived in a Brooklyn building built illegally on a commercially zoned block, wedged between two factories. Four of us lived in an apartment designed for two, with railroad-style bedrooms. We often barged in on each other while sleeping, reading, having sex. The post office refused...

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How to Spend Your Savings

It's time for Katie to liquidate her Moving Fund and head to her new place. The only problem? She fell in love:This is not Katie.Over the past few months, my aggressive savings has become a source of pride. I've watched the balance grow and I feel accomplished. Responsible. Safe.But soon,...

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Yes to the Dress! (No to the Entrees, Flowers, and Fireworks.)

Weddings are wonderful, but not if they create a financial burden and start your married life out on the wrong track. Even the most financially sane people can sway to the pressure of outside expectations and the desire to make everything perfect. Add to that the challenges inherent to the tasks...

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Fixing Education Debt: Too Much of a "Good" Thing

I work with a lot of artists and freelancers, which makes me particularly sensitive to people's issues with educational debt. Unless you can afford to attend college without borrowing, it is increasingly difficult to pursue any field that doesn't offer immediate and sustained financial success. A...

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Anxiety calling! Do you pick up?

I was giving a presentation with my colleague, Annette Lieberman, yesterday when she said the most amazing thing:"The way people manage their anxiety usually reflects how they manage their money, and vice versa."Can this be true? We often think about how money gets managed, but we don't often think...

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Are your finances a mess? That's curious.

When it comes to money, most of us have a problem-solution mentality. Got debt? You need a plan to get out of it. No savings? Here's a way to budget your way to a fatter balance. Hate to review your accounts? Try the butt-in-chair method.The limitation with this approach is that most financial goals...

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Treating is Fundamental

This morning I gave a talk to the graduating seniors of a prestigious arts college. One of the questions I got asked was how to deal with wanting to treat yourself. "I work so hard," the young man said, "and I feel like I deserve to spend money on something nice for myself once in awhile,...

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National Teacher Appreciation Day

I was always a geeky kid who loved school, so it's no surprise that I can name ten teachers off the top of my head to whom I feel grateful and who I think about with great affection. But hands down, the teacher who had the most significant impact on my life was never my teacher in any particular class,...

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Princess, Post-Doc, Publisher, Mom?

As the mother of two daughters, I want my girls to have dreams as big as the world. Fighter pilot? Astrophysicist? Go get 'em, girls. And yet one of the things that I love most about my own career is that I can organize my schedule to include a lot of mommy time. Half of the week I get home after the...

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Huh? (Seth Godin edition)

I've now read this very short post four times and still find myself scratching my head. When people have their basic needs met, it's not uncommon for wants to magically become needs. It's our hardwired instinct to seek to fill unmet needs. That pays off for any marketer that has persuaded his market...

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I Ain't Sayin' She's a Golddigger

Hey, fellas, have you been feeling left out of my recent glossy mag advice-a-thon? Read this article from the May issue of Men's Health where I suggest ways to handle such sticky conversations as your parents' inheritance plan, who pays for dates, and different levels of ambition between spouse...

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Couples Counseling: You and Your Money

Sometimes in my financial counseling practice I feel like a couple's counselor, rehabilitating the relationship between people and their money. (This is, of course, notwithstanding the many actual couples that I treat around money issues. That's a whole other can of worms.)Sessions can go something...

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Amanda's Metaphors of the Week

Metaphors are a great way to help people gain new understanding by drawing a parallel with something already familiar. I love metaphors and use them all the time in my coaching work. I'm usually coming up with them in the moment, so sometimes I go a little off the beaten path. Here are some metaphors...

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The Savings Burden

I'm a behavioral economics junkie. I can lose a day reading Kahneman, Ariely, or Benartzi. Helping people overcome cognitive biases and behavioral defaults in order to take care of themselves financially is my life's work.But sometimes I feel like we forget about the external forces that also support...

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The Automated Life

I was reading a post by new Twitter friends oXYGen Financial (@oXYGenFinancial) about the pros and cons of putting bills on autopay, and I thought I'd contribute my two cents. Our money takes us on a journey. Some parts of that journey are interesting and worthy of exploration, other parts are simply...

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Katie, You're Doing it Right

I was thrilled to read Katie Karlson's DailyWorth piece today about jump-starting her savings account using her tax refund. For those of you who struggle to put money aside out of your paycheck, a tax refund, birthday gift, or other such windfall can be just the ticket to help turn you into a super...

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