by Marie Burns | Sep 26, 2023 | Empty Nesters
“Don’t let the door hit you in the #@!& (rear end)!” This was the comment one father made to me when sharing that his son was graduating from high school and moving out. My first reaction hearing that was “How sad!” Of course, I didn’t know his whole story. And...
by Marie Burns | Sep 7, 2023 | Empty Nesters
Oh, if we had only known then what we know now! We can say that about many things in life. August is Wellness Month so I want to share some thoughts on exercising your money muscles and a challenge for you about financial wellness. It’s a topic we have yet to embrace...
by Marie Burns | Aug 14, 2023 | Financial Planning, vacation planning
Summer is the season for travel and vacations, or I understand it’s referred to as the time for “going on holiday” in some parts of Europe. It’s a time full of fun, seeing new things, slowing down and relaxing as well as connecting with friends/family or making new...
by Marie Burns | Jul 27, 2023 | Financial Advocate, Financial Planning, Mindset
I am curious what caught your eye on this article, the picture or the title? We’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think that applies here. When I first saw this sign, my brain did one of those fill-in-the-blank tricks. You know when your brain...
by Marie Burns | Jul 12, 2023 | Suddenly Single, Widow
Life is Short I don’t feel like there is a magic age but eventually, we realise how short life really is. Maybe it’s just more of an awareness as we keep journeying through these milestone “new decade” birthdays, like turning 60. Recent Widows We are halfway through...
by Marie Burns | Jun 15, 2023 | Financial Planning, Wedding Planning
Wedding Season In my mind, Spring marks the beginning of wedding season. Although realistically I know weddings can be any month of the year. I remember in 2020, I was talking to a wedding venue owner here in Arizona and asking how he could possibly reschedule 67...
by Marie Burns | Jun 1, 2023 | Estate Planning, Financial Planning, Financial Wellness
I read a recent headline: Marriages don’t fall apart, they drift apart. I am not a marriage counselor but I serve as a money counselor so my brain immediately went to the fact that the same can be said of our money life. Our finances rarely fall apart overnight, it is...
by Marie Burns | May 19, 2023 | Mindset
I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like I see women wearing hats much anymore. As a child, we once lived with my grandmother for about six months while our house was being built and my favorite thing to do was play in her hat closet. Grandma’s Hats After she...
by Marie Burns | Apr 20, 2023 | Financial Advocate, Financial Planning, Financial Wellness, Financially Organized
An Overdue Requirement Good news! We are getting close to half of our states here in the US that will begin to require a personal finance course in order to graduate from high school. Yeah! At the same time, I’m also wondering why we haven’t done this long ago? Making...
by Marie Burns | Apr 6, 2023 | Financial Wellness, Financially Organized
I don’t know about you, but lately I find myself frustrated with technology to the point of finally laughing out loud and throwing up my hands saying “What’s next!?!” It’s been a slew of things lately: my phone has been saying for weeks that it will be doing an update...
by Marie Burns | Mar 7, 2023 | Mindset
One of the most fascinating analogies I read in the past few years that truly helped me to understand the importance of something is that sleep is like a dishwasher cycle in our brain. The Dishwasher Cycle If we interrupt it or cut it short or stop and start it, we...
by Marie Burns | Jan 28, 2023 | Uncategorized
A definite way of deciding something. Chemistry class is where I first heard the term “litmus test” used where it is literally a test (usually a paper strip) that determines if a solution is acidic. In politics, a litmus test is a question asked of candidates to...
