Remember that kid in your high-school geometry class who raised his hand and asked the question everyone knew the answer to? Remember how the class laughed and thought he was so dumb? It turns out that kid wasn’t dumb. That kid was humble. More humble than most of us. And being humble, when it comes to money,…
Articles by Carl Richards
Carl Richards is a Certified Financial Planner and a columnist for the New York Times, Morningstar magazine and Yahoo Finance. He is author of 2 books, The Behavior Gap & The One-Page Financial Plan. Carl lives with his family in Park City, Utah. You can find his work and sign up for his newsletter (which has an international audience) at www.behaviorgap.com/
I worry about money. I bet you worry about money, too. But here’s the interesting thing: I’ve never worked with anyone who identified “worry” as something they valued. So why do we let worry about money drive so much of our thinking and decision-making? My experience suggests our worry comes from trying to control things…
“I don’t know what to do.” I’ve heard those words a lot over the years. Smart, successful people with good educations would sit across from me and tell me they’d done little to no financial planning. They just didn’t know what to do, so they did nothing. I’m not surprised. Uncertainty has a way of…
I’m a huge advocate of the “no shame, no blame” rule when it comes to money. But I think there’s some confusion about how the rule works. It’s not that you won’t feel guilt. It’s also not about avoiding responsibility. Instead, it’s about recognizing the zero-sum game of relying on shame and blame to make better money…
Many of life’s choices fall into two categories: ■ Option A: Exciting and complex and quick, but the action rarely works. ■ Option B: Boring and simple and slow, but it works nearly all the time. I have been thinking a lot lately about why we are so intrigued by Option A. The list is…
When it comes to money, what we don’t know can hurt us. I’ve seen this truth play out time and again when people tell me they want to get serious about their finances. They want to invest. They want to make plans for the future. “Great,” I’ll say, “so what can you tell me about…
I was in the airport when I found out that the mother of one of my best friends had just died quite suddenly. She was at dinner with a friend, felt sick and was dead within a few hours. I learned this through a message from my mom, who heard about it on the local…
On your deathbed, it’s too late to make wish lists. That’s the thought that went through my head high over the ocean, willing the plane to go faster as I rushed thousands of miles back to New Zealand to meet up with my gravely injured wife in the hospital near Christchurch. Let me back up….
On paper, your investments in stocks, real estate or even cash may look like your greatest assets. While all those things are super important, you have something else that’s even more valuable. It’s the investment called you. Finding ways to increase your value while doing the things you love may be the most important…
I recently got together with two of my best friends from high school, Jamie and Jason. We’ve been friends for over 30 years. We don’t see each other as often as we’d like to because life is busy. But when we do it’s always amazing. Sipping tea in the Sugarhouse neighbourhood of Salt Lake City,…