In the early days of Personal Money Manager™, I had a wide variety of clients (before I discovered that older adults were my favorites). My roster included an entrepreneur who tapped me for both personal and business financial organizing tasks. One Saturday, working at her kitchen table, she asked me to put together an email to her soon-to-graduate daughter …
A lot of what I do at Personal Money Manager™ is literally showing up (putting eyes on it). I spend my days with my older adult clients and find that working with them side-by-side in their homes makes me a more effective financial organizer / daily money manager. I can see and act on clues that my clients and sometimes …
This headline (above) in the New York Times caught my attention (and maybe my subject line caught your attention, too.) My first thought was it meant, “Don’t stew over things.” “Don’t overthink.” Both, I admit, are occupational hazards in my 17 years at Personal Money Manager™ as a financial organizer / daily money manager. After all, my job is …
As a professional organizer, I practice what I preach. That means that between my work for and with clients of Personal Money Manager™, I am always looking for ways to streamline and declutter my own work and living spaces. I’ve lived in my house for 38 years. And while I keep clutter within bounds, believe me when I say there …
It may seem early to be looking for signs of Spring . . .but Personal Money Manager™ has already made a siting: First at a client’s home, and later in my own mailbox–the first TY2024 tax documents have arrived! Maybe not as lovely as a crocus in bloom, the arrival of the first tax document has a special meaning for …
Way back when (July 2022 to be exact), I wrote a blog / newsletter “Beyond the Will”. I called it “Part 1”, knowing that there was a lot more to say than I could include there. I planned to write a “Part II” including even more estate planning tasks that Personal Money Manager™ does with older adult clients. For …
When it comes to my profession–daily money manager–there are several myths* (or, rather, myth-conceptions) ripe for busting. Unfortunately, these misunderstandings sometimes confuse colleagues, clients, and their families. And might stand in the way of their reaching out for assistance from a daily money manager. Let’s set the record straight on 4 misconceptions I encounter: 1) DMMs are money managers. The …
Early in my career at Personal Money Manager™, I had the pleasure of signing, as a witness, a client’s ballot. She was determined to vote, as she had her whole adult life, but disability prevented her from voting in person–or signing her absentee ballot with anything other than an “X”. Together, we made sure her ballot was correctly completed and …
The AARP Family Caregivers Discussion Group is a helpful resource for me at Personal Money Manager.™ In this on-line group a recently-widowed senior posted his lament: I know I should be getting out more . . it would lift my spirits . . . but there’s no one in my life now who will make me. Working with …
If stuff comes into your house or office, or . . . anywhere, it also needs a way to get out. It’s a rule of nature. When things flow in but don’t flow out, clutter results. It makes sense. But it’s an challenge that I find clients have not considered or solved for themselves. Clutter can happen anywhere. And it …