Article as seen on Bankrate.com, By Marcie Geffner

Highlights

• A financial plan should be an annual exercise.
• Saving is job one after paying off credit card debt.
• Less market risk means more inflation risk.

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As seen on BlackEnterprise.com by  Bridget McCrea

Avery Allen isn’t your typical 12-year-old. Unlike most of his peers, he doesn’t see his parents as a limitless source of financing, nor does he assume that his own financial acumen will develop on its own.
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Article as seen on Money.CNN.com, By Grace Wong

The bond market sell off may not be over just yet. The message for investors: stick to the short end
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Article as seen on finance.yahoo.com, By Ellen Hoffman

Retiring as a single person presents special challenges. Here are some tips for planning ahead

Whether it’s intentional or not, 19% of men and 40% of women over 65 live alone. This includes people who may be divorced, widowed, or just temporarily without a partner.
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As seen on Black Enterprise by Ilana Polyak

Creating a winning bond strategy: with the right approach, bonds can achieve outstanding returns in a volatile market. Here’s how:

While shopping for mortgages to refinance her three-bedroom, loft-style home in a Los Angeles suburb and her vacation condo in Nevada, Karen Ellis couldn’t find anything better than a 5.8% interest rate on a 30-year fixed loan. That’s lower than the 7.25% rate she now carries, but hardly the giveaway she could have gotten in 2003 when mortgage rates fell below 5%. It’s important for Ellis, a 57-year-old pathologist, to trim as much cost as she can now because her expenses are rising in a number of areas. She’s seen gas prices spike in the last year, which had her shelling out $45, which is 50% more than the year prior, each time she filled the tank of her Lexus sedan.
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Article as seen on Articles.Latimes.com, By Kelly Barron

Son’s college costs undermine retirement prospects for a thrifty Santa Monica woman.

As a divorcee and single mother, Sandy Andrews has been resourceful. When her only son was growing up, she bartered for piano lessons, took in foreign exchange students to help pay the mortgage and skimped on dining out.
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Article as seen on Articles.Latimes.com, By Ann Marsh

A financial advisor tells the Pico Rivera residents to postpone their wedding until they can pay for it without going deeper into debt.

To hear Summer Brown and Briana Biddle talk about it, their upcoming wedding and civil commitment will be a fairy tale, complete with happily ever after.
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Article as seen on Articles.Latimes.com, By Ann Marsh

Bronwen Aker is forced to move out because of the threat of flooding and may have to sell the house, which has been in her family for decades.

Fire and the resultant threat of flooding and mudslides forced Bronwen Aker from her family’s longtime home in the Big Tujunga Wash — and devastated her finances.
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Article as seen on Articles.Latimes.com, By Kelly Barron

A financial planner pleads with Carole and Dave Lutness to stop working and do the things they love while they still can.

Carole and Dave Lutness prepared for retirement the old-fashioned way.
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Article as seen on Articles.Latimes.com, By Kelly Barron

In this month’s money makeover, a family with dreams but living beyond its means is confronted with the financial abyss it could be facing.

Michael Abedor and Maria Magallanes are a couple reaching for a bright, secure future.

He recently started a business in a field he described as “almost recession-proof.” Meanwhile, she’s planning to quit work to get a master’s degree. The West Los Angeles couple are thinking about buying a bigger home and aspire to save enough money to eventually send their two children — now 4 and 11/2 — to college.
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