Author: IM-PCP

This Spring, I was very excited about the possibility of my brother selling his first house, now a rental. In April, I offered my own opinions of what he should do with his expected windfall.

With the drop in the real estate market, it took longer than expected for the sale to finalize, but the day has finally arrived.

I figured my brother would be on easy street: no more carrying costs or paying for repairs for his old house. Not to mention, he has better cash flow with his youngest finally out of day care.

When he told me he was meeting with a financial advisor, a class mate of his wife’s, to help decide how much of their profits they could use to improve their current home, I didn’t think too much of it.

After years of reading blogs in the personal finance space, I forgot that not everyone swims in this stuff. Then we spoke last weekend, and I shocked at some of the things he told me.

I think there are some personal finance lessons to glean from his situation.

Continue reading “Still My Brother’s (Money) Keeper”

When I was first married, I did not yet have a smart phone, but my husband did. I was fascinated by the map function on road trips, watching the glowing blue button indicating our position as it moved along our path.

It was even more fun being able to update the map with our position and have the app recalculate how much closer we were.

On the road to retirement (a common metaphor), we do need to assess our position periodically, and ensure we are either on the path we planned, or to recalculate the directions to get us to our destination.

Continue reading “You Are Here”