Personal Finance Archives – Decision Fish: Decide For Yourself

How To Ask Your Parents For Money For College

Brett F. Whysel — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 16:40:14 +0000

Dear Kids, We are very proud of you for getting into college! You’ve done a great job applying for financial aid and saving your earnings from your summer job. Now, it’s the time to have The Talk. Don’t worry, not that talk! It’s about something much more terrifying: Money. We know that your savings and ... Read more

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How a Back-of-the-Envelope Plan Can Reduce Financial Anxiety

Brett F. Whysel — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 15:45:51 +0000

How can a few numbers, calculated on the back of the envelope, help a retired couple overcome their fear of running out of money? Like many retired people, money has been an ongoing source of anxiety for Sam (age 80) and Diane (age 70) (not their real names). Living on a limited nest egg, social ... Read more

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11 Ways To Fatten Your Wallet With A Little Psychology

Brett F. Whysel — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 15:40:05 +0000

I never could have imagined how important managing emotion, cognitive biases and behavioral hurdles is to saving enough, spending wisely and managing financial risks. For about a year, I informally coached a woman (we’ll call her “Leigh”) in her late twenties who wanted to eliminate the $5,000 of expensive credit card debt she was rolling over each month, ... Read more

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Why 100 Million Americans Are Financially Stressed

Brett F. Whysel — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 13:39:46 +0000

…and Will Likely Stay That Way In January 2016 I founded a tech start-up help Americans make better financial decisions. I’ve since learned that most people are stressed out because they save little, have enormous debt, don’t know where their money goes and feel they’re not on track to meeting their long-term goals. I also found that ... Read more

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8 Ways To Make More Powerful Excel Models

Brett F. Whysel — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 18:41:21 +0000

“So, Brett, what does GALOP say?” During my days as a quantitative investment banker, my colleagues would often ask me to convey the results of my financial models so they would know what product or strategy to offer a particular client. Programmed in Excel, my GALOP models (which stood for “Global Asset-Liability Optimization Program”), would analyze a client’s balance ... Read more

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3 Vicious Cycles: Links Among Financial, Physical and Mental Health

Brett F. Whysel — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 19:21:08 +0000

Feedback loops are powerful forces of nature. Melting polar ice caps reduce the earth’s reflectivity, causing it to absorb more heat from the sun, which accelerates the melting. The cumulative, accelerating aspects of such loops make it imperative to break the cycle before it gets out of control. Below, I identify three feedback loops among financial ... Read more

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