One imagines the classic rites of passage where young people are sent out into the wild, facing fears and self-doubt, navigating the uncertainty of their surroundings, and then returning as adults.
Last week we got the inspiration to stay the course in our budgets, to adapt them to our changing circumstances. My grandmother, a representative of children of the 1930s Depression, as measured by a litany of reader comments, would simply adapt. In this case, adapt means buy less, downsize, downgrade, etc.
It's time for budgeting. Inflation is getting us. I feel it, and chances are you feel it. Inflation is making us all feel like we make less money, and that's because we can't buy the same amount of stuff with the same amount of money.
So the stock market has taken a small tumble. What now? Could it take a bigger tumble? Could it rocket to the moon? The real question you might be asking yourself is, "What should I do with my investments?"
It's Valentine's Day week and time for cheesy romcoms or, really, any movie with Tom Cruise in it. Also happening in my life is that I just returned home after speaking at the White Coat Investor conference in Phoenix, Ariz. The conference opened and continued with a surprising theme debt. It seems like the world of personal finance has been co-opted recently by crypto and real estate syndicates, but this "back to basics" debt topic was a welcome reminder of the financial and psychological implications that we must constantly evaluate when it comes to debt.