Rick Kahler's Financial Awakenings

Drs. Ted and Brad Klontz and I are finishing up on a new book, Wired For Wealth, which takes an in-depth view at our money scripts and how to rewire our brains to think differently about money. We need your help in completing a survey on your money scripts.

The survey is an opportunity to participate in research that should help financial planners, financial coaches, and financial therapists work more effectively with their clients. It’s also a chance for you to learn more about your own money beliefs and how those beliefs affect the way you handle your money.

If you’d like to be part of this research, you can access the survey by just clicking here.

Completing the survey will take about 20 minutes. Some of the questions relate to demographic information such as age, level of education, family income, and the like. Obviously, this information is an important part of the survey. But it will be analyzed only as group data. No responses will be identified individually, and no identifying information will be collected or kept. Continue Reading »

A client once told me a story about sitting in the waiting room of an oil-change shop for an hour and a half. During that time, perhaps 12 or 15 vehicles came through for oil changes. For everyone, an employee came in to tell the driver the windshield wipers needed replaced.

Legitimate? Possibly. Suspicious? Probably.

We’ve all been in such situations. The mechanic says the car needs a new transmission. The dentist says an old filling is cracked and needs replaced before the tooth breaks. The repairman says that funny noise the furnace is making means it’s time for a new one. The insurance agent says you desperately need to roll your old annuity into a new, improved product. How do you know the difference between someone offering services to take care of your genuine needs and someone trying to sell you services or products you don’t need? Continue Reading »

As I re-read my earlier post on my stolen Blackberry, I thought of an important issue I didn’t address. I did not lose any information, as all of the data in my Blackberry is wirelessly synced with my office computers.

Also, and more importantly, no sensitive client information was divulged. I only carry contact information in my Blackberry, and we disabled the Blackberry and told it to wipe itself clean within two hours of it being stolen.

I am addicted to my Blackberry. It adds ease, connectivity, mobility, and convenience to my life. I could not accomplish the things I do, travel as much as I do, and be as efficient as I am without it.

So when an employee of the Hyatt Regency Bonaventure in Weston, Florida decided he or she needed my Blackberry worse than I did, it pretty much ruined the better part of my week.

How can I be so sure who stole my Blackberry? When I attend an educational session, I put the Blackberry on the table in front of me. I use it to take notes, give myself to-dos, and communicate by email with my staff. At this session, Ted Klontz and I were the last people to leave the room. As we left, employees were hurrying in to get the room ready for the next session. As we walked down the hallway, I discovered I had left my Blackberry on the table. I returned to find about 20 crew people running all over the room, no tables or chairs remaining, and no one who would admit to seeing my Blackberry, even though less than five minutes had gone by. Continue Reading »

It wasn’t exactly my finest moment. I ran into John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Mutual Funds, at the bookstore booth area of the FPA’s national retreat in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. While I knew he was going to address the group later that day, there was no mistaking him from the many books and public appearances of his I had seen over the years.

Spotting a stack of Scrooge books, in one smooth move, I grabbed a book and signed it for him. He opened the book, smiled, and graciously thanked me. It wasn’t until later that day when I was reading his bio that I realized I had misspelled his name when I had autographed the Scrooge book. How embarrassing!

At least I spelled his name right this time around.

Can money give meaning to your life?

I was one of a group of financial planners who explored that question during a session at the recent FPA Retreat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Our speaker was Jacob Needleman, professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University and author of several books, including Money and the Meaning of Life (Doubleday Business, 1994).

To answer the question, we need to understand that money is inherently a social agreement. Money is whatever a particular society decides it is. In the United States, we have agreed that money is the dollar, represented by various denominations of coins and pieces of paper with certain designs and colors. In Europe, those various coins and pieces of paper represent the Euro. In past societies, money has been represented by many things, including salt, beads, gold, silver, tobacco, and shells. Continue Reading »

I thought it was spam email, so I deleted it.

The email message congratulated KFG for winning third place in the Kahuna Content study of American financial planner blogs. A week or so later I discovered it was the real deal when I received a letter in the mail with a copy of their 33-page study.

The study called the look of our blog “professional,” ranked it in the middle regarding quantity and quality of information, and rated it moderately high in popularity. To quote the report: “With articles about personal cash flow, vacationing on a budget, rational shipping, smart dining, asset and income protection, life aspiration planning, and other topics, Rick clearly has the interests of individual people at heart.” Continue Reading »

I “grew up” professionally at the FPA Retreat, an annual meeting of the best financial planners in the nation. This year was the 27th annual Retreat and was my 22nd. At the Retreat I’ve learned the skills of financial planning from the best: Eileen Sharkey, Kemp Fain, Bill Carter, Tim McDermott, Avery Newmark, and a host of other brilliant professionals.

So I was honored when I was asked to speak to this year’s attendees. My topic was “Who’s Planning for the Planner?”

I will be presenting on this topic again at the Money Quotient conference in September.

I’ll guess KFG clients may get weary at times with our continual reminders that we need a copy of your most recent tax return. Some of you may even wonder why we need it. Here is what we are doing when we receive your return:

1. We verify and/or collect information such as social security numbers, your children’s names and social security numbers, addresses, your accountant’s information, etc.
2. We want to make sure you are deducting our fees, if you can.
3. We determine your taxable situation so we know if you can use gains or losses.
4. In providing you with an annual retirement/cashflow plan, we collect or verify income sources and amounts, verify or discover assets that we may not have known about, etc.
5. We have at times found errors on the returns, just because we know a lot about our clients’ financial situations.

If you haven’t sent us your 2007 tax return, please do so. You can mail us a copy, scan a copy and email it to us, or drop the original by the office and we will scan it and return it to you within minutes.

I have a simple question for you. What is money?

Not long ago I was asked that question by financial futurist Dick Wagner, CFP®. My response was, “energy.” Wrong. Dick responded, “Rick, you just described a function of money. What I am asking you is, ‘What IS money?’”

In the April issue of Financial Advisor Magazine, Dick brilliantly answered the “What is money?” question in a manner even I could understand. He listed some of the responses he had received from financial planners: money facilitates the exchange of goods and services; it is a storehouse of value; it is an accounting tool. Continue Reading »