As you and your spouse celebrate Valentine’s Day over a candle-lit dinner, you may want to avoid romance-killing topics like, “Honey, let’s talk about our financial future.” But you really should have that conversation sooner rather than later to keep your relationship on a healthy footing.

Major life changes may require you to reassess how you manage the family finances. Unfortunately, many couples don’t make time to plan ahead and are later caught off…

Don’t let a moment of Holiday buying bring you a New Year filled with buyer’s remorse. The brief “feel good” benefit of spending more than you plan to will be totally wiped out by the additional stress and problems you’ll have to deal with when the bill comes.

Tired of ringing in the new year with last year’s Christmas bills? Make this the year that you switch to a debt-free Christmas.When you’re working with a tight deadline it’s easy to overspend. Start your Christmas shopping before the holiday decorations even go up, and you’ll have plenty of time to shop around for the best deals

Black Friday has come and gone. But, if you’re like most people, you probably still have a little holiday shopping left to do. Whether you’re looking for small items like toys and clothing, big-ticket items like electronics or maybe a car, or even a plane ticket home to see the family, the following tips can help you save on your last-minute holiday purchases.

A recent Princeton University study on the link between money and life satisfaction showed that those people who were fiscally responsible and didn’t worry about making ends meet (and who were also on course with saving for retirement and college tuition) reported being the happiest. Conversely, those who concentrated much of their thinking on financial matters were much less likely to be happy. Interestingly enough, this applied across all income levels.

Some banks have recently announced that they will charge up to $60 a year to use your debit card while others are increasing their fees for every-day services such as checking and savings accounts. I’ll be perfectly honest; these fees the banks are charging their customers really turn me off. Why should you have to pay to use your own money? Especially when there are plenty of opportunities to get these same services for free?

The days when you could send your kids off to the first day of school with a lunchbox and a hug are long gone. Today’s back-to-school preparations likely include filing out piles of pre-enrollment paperwork, lining up carpools and, of course, the dreaded shopping excursions for clothes and school supplies.

So many of us have the goal of getting out of debt. Nobody really wants to live with hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even hundreds of dollars, in debt hanging over their heads. The trouble is, how do you eliminate that debt? Do you think to yourself “If only I made more money, I’d be rich?” Do you look at your financial picture and see no way out? Do you give up on your goal because it’s too hard to work on it today?

It’s been just a few days since the income tax filing deadline, and several clients & friends who filed early are already receiving income tax refunds. That brought up many questions regarding the best ways to use income tax refunds to make smart moves to get out of debt & improve your financial situation. The Internal Revenue Service indicates that 78 percent of U.S. individual taxpayers receive an income tax refund.

For many people, there is a big moment in their life when they think “I need to evaluate my finances and get out of debt.” This is a life-changing moment. What happens when you have that moment? You spend hours, days or weeks researching the best way to get out of debt. You sit down and take a real, hard look at your personal finances. You account for every penny brought in and spent.