If your family is floundering financially, it may be time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and make up a family financial plan. Consumer Credit Counseling Service suggests keeping the following tips in mind when developing your family budget: 1. Your budget should be tailored to your needs, values and priorities, with special consideration...

My cell phone rang on Monday morning while I was working at a client’s office. “Lori, can you meet me at home? I’ve just been let go from my job.” I packed up and got in the car and started to drive, my heart pounding, my mind racing…then the tears started, and I began to pray. Just the previous Sunday afternoon, Del and I had been talking...

My house has been foreclosed! After years of negotiating and trying to keep up with our repayment plan, we have lost the house we fought so hard to keep.  Our mortgage payment continued to escalate along with other bills throughout the last few years.  My husband of 10 years and I have two precious daughters ages 3 and 5.  It seems like we could...

For some, estate planning is limited to scrambling to update Wills just before a vacation. Even most professionally developed estate plans begin and end with numbers. While numbers are important, by themselves they do not tell the complete story. That is why it is necessary for a fundamental change in how we think about and do estate planning:...

What is your financial nature? Are you painstakingly careful with your money or are you known to live beyond your means and spend it as soon as you get it? Would they call you a cheapskate or overly generous? Maybe you don’t realize it, but the money you control has the power to affect several generations in a positive or negative way. Where...

Teaching your children and grandchildren how to handle their finances is one of the greatest challenges parents and grandparents face. As Indira Patro, founder of Mustard Seed Ministries says, you can go all the way through school, earn your bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees, and yet nowhere along the way will you be required to learn...

When you were growing up you always assumed that your parents had money. You probably weren’t sure how much they were worth or where they kept it but you were pretty certain there was a stache for a rainy day somewhere. They must have been able to save a fair amount because every once in a while your Dad would come home with a new car. He despised...