STOP fighting and START listening!! Okay, okay, okay. Before I move forward, let me back up a minute and confess that the type of man I am talking about is the type of man I used to be and, sometimes, still am. Sometimes in my relationship, I was so defensive that, instead of seeing when my wife was trying to help me, I would always take things as if she was trying to hurt … [Read more...]
Search Results for: finance
These 5 Heartfelt Prayers Will Strengthen You Throughout This Holiday Season
The Holidays have officially arrived. Thanksgiving was the intiation of the fun so it has all only just begun. The holidays can be a very stressful time with family, friends, finances, and just the fear of having to deal with where you really are in life. It can get pretty real, real quick. Its easy during the holidays to allow the spirit of comparison to come on you as you … [Read more...]
Decoding the Female Language: Here’s What She’s Really Saying!
Women are not complicated. In fact, we are quite simple. Despite being fairly easy to please, we wrestle with how to communicate our needs. Often, our desperate pleas to have our wants satisfied can send us into an unstable frenzy. Our need for closeness and intimacy is mistaken for clinginess. Craving compliments is often interpreted as insecurity, and our fears are seen as … [Read more...]
Finally! 3 Drama Free Ways to Holiday Proof Your Relationship
The holiday season officially begins the moment you find yourself tiptoeing down the hall at 1:00 a.m. and doing a stop, drop, and roll drive-by in your child’s room like a ninja to steal some of their Halloween candy. No sooner than you throw away the pumpkin you carved for Halloween do you find yourself baking pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. While you’re dreaming about your … [Read more...]
This Amazing and Free Tool Will Help You Lose Weight and Slash Debt at the Same Time
A few years ago, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine published Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research findings which concluded that keeping a food diary can double an individual’s weight loss effort. Similarly, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine uncovered that those who did not jot down their food intake on a daily basis underestimated their … [Read more...]
Money Monday: 5 Ways to Keep Christmas from Sending You to the Poor House
The season to celebrate the Prince of Peace is anything but peaceful for many of us. Hijacked by our culture of consumerism, we’ll spend far too much of our time shopping for others with money we do not have. According to a recent survey conducted by Experian Consumer Services, shoppers anticipate spending nearly $800 this year for gifts alone, with forty-nine percent of … [Read more...]
Five Ways to Deal With Stress When Shopping and Eating No Longer Work
One of the great things about working as a personal finance coach is that I get to help women enjoy breakthroughs as it relates to their relationship with money. Recently, I was working with Susan, a client who was accustomed to relieving stress through shopping and eating. She recently had a breakdown and resorted to buying herself something or treating herself to something … [Read more...]
If You Married Your “Best Friend” Then Act Like It! 6 Uncomfortable Conversations that Should Not Be Avoided
Here's an all too common scenario: She's fussing because you won't communicate. You shut down and won't communicate with her because she's fussing. You both end up with attitudes and nothing gets solved.....and the cycle continues. I'm amazed at how sometimes in our marriages we claim to have married our "best friend," yet we will ignore issues and let them fester and won't … [Read more...]
Read This Before Black Friday: 8 Easy Ways to Make Better Spending Decisions
“He who buys what he does not need steals from himself.” - Swedish Proverb We all seek financial freedom, but our brains are wired to spend. We feel the “call of the mall” and enjoy the sweet rush of endorphins as we plunk down hard earned cash to take possession of our retail temptations. Unfortunately, once the “shopper’s high” wears off we’re left with the unnerving … [Read more...]
What’s More Important: Being in Love or Being Healthy?
“Did you get your mammogram?” asked my husband. “No. When was the last time you had a physical?” I replied. “I’ll get my physical…when you get your mammogram,” He said. I said, “Bet.” We’re concerned about each other’s health. However, each of us is not exactly doing what we need to do, personally, to ensure that we are the healthiest we can be for each other and … [Read more...]
These 6 Home Buying Rules of Thumb Let You Know If It’s Time to Ditch the Rent
For the last three years, I had been ambivalent about home ownership. But with a recent (disrespectful) rent hike, and a conversation with my husband that determined that we will be planting roots in our current city, I figured it was time to buy a home that we could afford. In speaking with my friend Danielle Douglas, journalist and banking reporter at The Washington Post … [Read more...]
Top 5 Things Men and Women Want in a Relationship, But… Can THEY Deliver Them?
We all have our desires of what we want in a mate. However, if we were honest, most of us don’t live up to those requirements, even in our own lives. So many singles create a detailed list describing attributes of their “perfect mate. However after careful review, they wouldn’t qualify to date themselves. It is okay to desire and require certain attributes in a mate. Just be … [Read more...]
Money Monday: Save Money and Slash Debt with this Budget Friendly Plan
“Money is a great servant, but a bad master” To achieve financial success, you must become intentional about your money. You can’t be a passive bystander. As we discussed last week, the first step to taking control of your money is tracking and understanding exactly where your dollars are going. Once you actually understand where your money is currently flowing, you can … [Read more...]
7 Ways the BMWK Marriage Cruise Can Elevate Your Marriage – For Lovers Only
Whenever the subject of a cruise came along amongst family and friends, my husband and I were not quite sure we were interested in participating. When we heard about the BMWK Marriage cruise, we decided that we would make this our very first cruise experience. It definitely elevated our marriage to the next level. So I wanted to share these 7 ways to elevate your … [Read more...]
The Only Thing that Stops You from Being a Black Millionaire and How You Can Get It
My current reading situation is Dr. Dennis Kimbro's The Wealth Choice. According to his work, there are 35,000 black millionaires in the US today. When I came across this number, I was a little a lot underwhelmed. I started to wonder how many more of us could be millionaires if we could just get our basic finances in order. With our basic finances in order, we could focus … [Read more...]