With Your Family in Mind

Happy New Year!   If you’ve made financial resolutions to keep better track of your finances in 2009, then this is the year to “Just Do It.”  The payoff is the start of financial independence.  Here are four important steps to get you thriving:

Are you a business owner?  If so, you probably consulted with an attorney when you decided to open your business.  You were given options for the structure of your particular business and likely opted to set up a corporation or a limited liability company (“LLC”) to protect your personal assets from being used to satisfy your business debts.  Your attorney prepared the required papers and filed the necessary documents with the state.  You feel comfortable that your personal assets are safe.  Unfortunately, merely forming a corporation or LLC is not necessarily sufficient to protect your personal assets from being used to satisfy a judgment or pay a claim made against your business.

Matching an adoptive child with a potential family isn’t easy.  There are factors to consider including the child’s age, gender, health history and special needs as well as how the child might fit in with a family’s interests, activities and beliefs.  Children’s Bureau developed a “matching team” approach for placing adoptive children with families and has noticed a higher success rate of children staying with families.

Imagine having these economic conditions while having major life changes in your own life such as a divorce, loss of a family member, retirement, or job change.  These changes are difficult enough, let alone during such unique and trying financial times.
If you are going through one of these changes, you know how difficult it is to deal with both life and finances.  As a financial planner who also holds a Ph.D. that combines business and psychology, I have come to understand that there are three basic phases that you must understand to help yourself, your friends or your clients when dealing with a significant change.  These stages are Reacting, Recovering, and Rebuilding.

All children need stable, caring families with nurturing parents who can provide a safe home and good role models.
Foster and adoptive children need parents who can:

If you are considering getting divorced, you may want to consider going to couple’s therapy first.  Often, a good therapist will help you address the core issues that have led to your feelings.  Also, a good therapist will provide you with the right tools for communication.  These tools will be important whether you remain together or ultimately decide to separate or divorce.  If you have children, and end up getting divorced, you will need these tools to communicate with your spouse during and after the divorce.

“All experiences of life seems to prove that the impediments thrown in the way of the human advancement may for the most part be overcome by steady good conduct, honest zeal, activity, perseverance and above all, by a determined resolution to surmount.” – Samuel Smiles (1812 – 1904)

Everyone knows that being involved in any legal process, even Small Claims Court, involves emotions to some degree.  Divorce is likely the most emotional of all legal proceedings.  After all, you are dealing with your children — where they are going to live, what is the visitation plan, how much support is going to be paid or received.  Is the support going to be enough for them?  What about spousal support and debts that have to be divided?  And what happens to the family home?  What if there has been domestic violence perpetrated against one spouse?

Magazine of Santa Clarita readers send me questions every day about the voiceover business.  Here are a couple of those letters:
Q:  I’d like to get into voiceovers.  My family and friends tell me I have a unique voice and I can do a bunch of characters.  How do I get started?  -- Jerry B., Newhall

It’s New Year’s resolutions time, an ideal opportunity to get our legal and financial houses in order.  Here are some resolutions we can all accomplish.

As this is the beginning of the New Year, one of your tasks should be to make sure your plan beneficiary choices are up to date.  While many people periodically update their wills or other estate plans, they don’t remember to update the designation of who will receive distributions from their retirement plans, such as an IRA or 401(k) fund.  You should also review any and all life insurance beneficiary designations.

Was it the homemade crème puff, the peaceful pristine environment, or the warmth of Emma’s personality that convinced me that day?  Finally, I had found an assisted living facility that my 80-year-old mother would soon call her home. With tears filling my eyes, I discussed with Emma what kind of care my mother with Parkinson’s disease would need.  And with relief, each one of my concerns faded as Emma shared her heart, skills, and detailed attention in preparing and running a home that cares for the elderly.

As this is the beginning of the New Year, one of your tasks should be to make sure your plan beneficiary choices are up to date.  While many people periodically update their wills or other estate plans, they don’t remember to update the designation of who will receive distributions from their retirement plans, such as an IRA or 401(k) fund.  You should also review any and all life insurance beneficiary designations.

It’s already 2009 – the start of the tenth year of the 21st century.  If you’re like most of us, you’re looking forward to a year of challenge, change, opportunity, and hope; you’re flirting with the idea of making a New Year’s resolution that has something to do with health, wealth, or relationships; this won’t be the first time you’ve made that promise to yourself; and, in your heart of hearts, you expect your resolution to be broken before the end of January.  If 2009 is your year to realize success, consider this:

Perhaps that white-haired man with the cane, the one who holds up traffic because he can’t get across the street before the light changes, is the senior citizen I know who walks a block every morning to watch the grocery store employee raise the American flag up the flagpole.  He likes to start each day saluting the flag of the country that gave him refuge when he fled persecution in Eastern Europe 90 years ago and immigrated to the United States.  Do you hear the patriotism I hear?

Fostering is an amazing way to help change a child’s life.   Fostering means caring for children in a safe and secure environment.  It is about families who open up their homes and their hearts to a child in need. It is the job of the Los Angeles County, Department of...

In a divorce proceeding, a “move away” proceeding is when one parent wishes to move away with the kids.  Moving away can entail leaving the county, state or country.  It is a very difficult decision for a judge to have to make.  These types of custody disputes take their toll on everyone.  They are expensive, take a long time, and usually result in one party being very disappointed.

When borrowers have fallen behind on their home loan payments, there are five basic options:

1. Loan Workout:  This is when you work out with a lender a reinstatement of the loan. This could mean paying back the arrears (overdue payments) over a period of time or adding the arrears to the loan balance.  This does not alter the terms of the original loan.