Category Archives: Financial Independence

Kim Krushell got acrash course in money management as a little girl. It had nothing to do with her own piggy bank. She learned by witnessingthe struggles of her own mother and grandmother.

My mother went through a divorce. My stepdad got a lawyer and she got emotional, and financially it was really hard on her, Krushell recalled. It took her a lot of years to come back from that.

Krushell also saw her grandmother experience a divorce after 36 years of marriage.

I got to see what happens when her credit card was cut right in front of me as a kid.

As a result, Krushell is an equal partner in her household finances and has becomea passionate advocate for womens financial literacy.

Women unfortunately do live in more poverty. Women are more challenged with finances so we really do need that extra leg up, and need to have those conversations about what we need to do with our finances.

READ MORE: Why women need to plan their finances differently than men

Krushelland a group of dedicated volunteers have launched Women and Money, an initiative to educateCanadian women about finances; everything from buying a house to estate planning. In early February, Women and Money hosted a workshop to connect Edmonton women withfinancial experts. In the future, the group hopes to launch webinars and other events across the country.

Men take advantage of what the banks offer. They take advantage of a lot of free seminars and this is why my girlfriends who are in banking were saying, You know, we need to do something different. We need to reach out to women in a different way,' Krushell said. That is what Women and Money is really about.

2017Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Advocates say more women need financial independence: 'We really do need that extra leg up' - Globalnews.ca

Charles Kehoe Published 12:51 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2017 | Updated 13 hours ago

Tom Keller(Photo: Provided)

Losing a spouse is one of lifes most emotionally-devastating events, and many financial advisors recommend not making major financial decisions during that first year of grieving. But after a period of time, financial decisions will need to be made.

Seventy percent of widows retain a new financial advisor within the first year of their spouses death, according to a Fidelity Investments survey. Why? For some women, the answer may be that the death of a spouse is a financial Independence Day a chance to finally make financial decisions on her own instead of agreeing to a husbands wishes.

Regardless of how widows feel about their familys past financial decisions, its predicted that women over the next few decades will inherit close to $30 trillion in intergenerational wealth transfers. Whether women act as partners in family financial decision-making or just go along for the ride, they need to educate themselves about money because women tend to outlive their husbands.

Here are five areas to address when a widow needs to begin effectively stewarding her financial portfolio:

Take an inventory of bills and create a plan to cover expenses for the first six to 12 months, limiting big decisions during this time. This allows for time to analyze the decisions that may eventually need to be made to develop new financial goals and objectives.

Review whether to stay in a current residence or move to a home requiring less maintenance and upkeep after one year has passed. This can be a difficult decision, since most widows choose to stay in the homes where their children grew up and their best memories will always be. Consider that just because a move may make economic sense, it may not be the best decision for the widow emotionally or for the long term.

Update ownership of all investments and the beneficiary list on retirement accounts. If assets outside of retirement accounts are owned, consider titling those assets in a living trust or transfer on death designation so beneficiaries will receive assets without going through probate court upon your own death someday. This step is often overlooked, yet it can save heirs time and money.

Re-evaluate your investment portfolio to match needs and risk tolerance. Widows may have a different level of risk compared to their spouses investment philosophy.

Work with a CPA or trusted family member during tax time the year after a spouse has passed. This is a good way to ensure that investments and insurance have been changed to the surviving spouse. Tax documents help confirm whether the assets have been moved and more important if an account was missed during the inventory phase. Sometimes widows are surprised by the number of open accounts. These can include investments, bank accounts and credit cards.

Whether a loved one has battled disease for a long period of time or was taken quickly doesnt matter when a widow is grieving. The length and depth of grief can vary significantly from one person to another, and its important not to begin making important financial decisions until a widow is emotionally strong and clear-minded enough to make decisions that she will not regret later.

Time helps heal our emotional losses as we adjust to a new life without a loved one, and the security of knowing you are making good financial decisions in the wake of a death will only make the transition smoother.

Tom Keller is a certified financial planner with Kehoe Financial Advisors of Cincinnati, a 35-year-old financial advising and services practice. Kehoe assists clients in developing and implementing financial strategies to help meet retirement, estate and business planning objectives, business continuation and succession planning. For more information, go to http://www.kehoe-financial.com or call (513) 481-8555.

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Surviving widowhood: Five tips to avoid financial hardship - Cincinnati.com

Sheroesfounded in 2014 has now gone on to become a career platform for women and has been built as a community for women to find diverse resources, opportunities and support related to their careers and aspirations. Sheroes Founder Sairee Chahal, a Woman Entrepreneur herself, is leading the way for many women as they plunge into the world of entrepreneurship.

The gap between the availability of smart, qualified individuals and organisations on the lookout for such candidates is not exclusive to females. However, couple that with research that says there are only 24% of women in Indias workforce of which a mere 5% are at senior levels and 48% drop out of workplaces and you have an almost alarming need to cater to the needs of women specifically.

Sheroes has done just that and also serves womens startup and operational requirements, We have moved the needle from women being pink content category to a real, professional network for women, says Sairee Chahal the founder of CEO. Sairee started her career at college and is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded SAITA Consulting in 2006. Her drive to create opportunities for women professionals, Workflex and Social Entrepreneurship led her to launch Sheroes.

Sairee quips, Lets face it, were still a patriarchal country so this is still early days even for a platform like ours.

Using the platform is simple, women log on to Sheroes and get a profile and dashboard and can use any of the services for free. Companies use the platform to build programs, hire or put their brands out which is also their monetisation model. With a user-base expanding of about 20000 locations, Sairee believes that organisations will have to design themselves to cater to the large pool of talent that is mostly a young workforce. Family-friendly policies, safer workplaces, progressive outlooks, breaking down of patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes will all have to be a part of the story that plays out.

Running as a consumer-tech platform, the biggest challenge that Sheroes faced was establishing itself as a category. If you went out four years ago and said women and careers everyone thought you were an NGO, Sairee says, adding that people often synonymised it with telling women to make papads or teaching them how to weave. There was nothing for the urban educated woman, she remarks, even now one of the most commonly asked questions she gets is if she runs this as CSR.

Having managed to bring a shift in the face of continuing invisible barriers, Sheroes has managed to raise a series A round of funding from Lumis Partners, HR Fund and Quint Media. Sairees suggestion to aspiring entrepreneurs is to stay persistent and not get into it for the sake of money but rather for being passionate about something. She adds, If you want to make money, go get a corporate job.

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Sheroes Founder Sairee Chahal ventures for Women's Financial Independence in India's sometimes Suffocating ... - Plunge Daily

Catherine Rampell, Washington Post Writers Group

Consumers in cross-hairs with Dodd-Frank repeal

The White House may be in chaos. But at least Congress is addressing the issue Americans care about most: making it easier for the finance industry to rip them off.

Last week, Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, circulated an outline of his latest plan to repeal Dodd-Frank. This law, you may recall, was put in place after the financial crisis to reduce our chances of having another one.

The law isnt perfect, but it did have at least one crucial, mostly popular component: It created an agency dedicated solely to helping consumers fight back when financial institutions cheat or mislead them.

This agency is called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It oversees large banks, thrifts and credit unions, along with lots of companies in the nonbank universe, such as mortgage brokers and servicers, payday lenders, debt collectors, private student lenders and credit bureaus.

Remember when Wells Fargo got caught creating millions of fake customer accounts? The bureau helped lead that investigation, which resulted in a $185 million settlement.

The bureau has also, among other things, sued pension-advance companies that fleece veterans, and it ordered the firms that left low-income users of prepaid RushCards unable to access their own money to pay $13 million in restitution and fines.

In its five years of existence, the bureau says, it has recovered $11.7 billion for more than 27 million consumers.

The financial industry, understandably, is not keen on this independent federal agency. And neither is Hensarling, who just coincidentally? has received generous campaign contributions from the finance industry.

Hensarlings leaked memo lays out updates to legislation he introduced last year (which, among other things, required that CFPB employees be paid less than their counterparts at other federal financial regulatory agencies).

Under the Orwellian section heading Empowering Americans to Achieve Financial Independence, the memo explains how Hensarling intends to further disempower this agency and by extension, American consumers.

For instance, the CFPB director would become an at-will political appointee. This means that unlike the officials who run the Federal Reserve, Federal Trade Commission or Securities and Exchange Commission the CFPB director could be fired without cause. The bureau would cease to be an independent agency and could be pressured at any time to drop investigations of, say, friends of the president.

According to the memo, Hensarling also plans to repeal the CFPBs supervisory powers that is, its authority to regularly examine whats going on inside the institutions it regulates to make sure theyre following the law.

And the bureau would no longer be allowed to punish firms that cheat customers.

Yes, no more fines and no more penalties. Its not even clear from Hensarlings memo that the bureau could force firms to return any money theyve already pinched from consumers.

We dont know exactly how the bullet points in this memo will get translated into legislation. But it seems likely that consumer protections would wind up even weaker than they were before the crisis.

Thats because Dodd-Frank took the authority to enforce some consumer protection laws away from other regulators and gave them to the newly formed CFPB. Assuming those authorities arent being redelegated to these other agencies and the memo does not indicate that will happen theyll remain with a bureau thats essentially powerless to enforce them.

Which brings me to the weirdest and least defensible parts of Hensarlings plan: an effort to make consumers dumber.

Hensarlings memo also eliminates the CFPBs research functions, its public database of consumer complaints and even its consumer education functions. Right now, the bureau publishes educational materials on its website and partners with libraries, veterans groups and other community organizations.

Its hard to imagine what legitimate public interest lies in killing efforts to promote financial literacy. But in the con-man economy, maybe public interest is no longer a consideration.

crampell@washpost.com

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Consumers in cross-hairs with Dodd-Frank repeal - mySanAntonio.com

SMCU is the first credit union in Seattle and the second credit union in the state of Washington to be accepted into the program that recognizes its efforts to serve the Latino community.

The credit union officially accepted the designation yesterday with a flag raising ceremony at the grand opening of its new Beacon Hill branch. It is located in the new Roberto Maestas Plaza at El Centro de la Raza (1604 S. Roberto Maestas Festival Street, Seattle, WA 98144). Guests included Seattle Deputy Mayor, Hyeok Kim; El Centro de la Razas Executive Director, Estela Ortega; CDCUs SVP of Membership and Network Engagement, Pablo DeFilippi; and Northwest Credit Union Association (NWCUA) President and CEO, Troy Stang.

We congratulate Seattle Metro for becoming a Juntos Avanzamos (Together we Advance) credit union, joining a fast growing network committed to financial inclusion and to providing asset building opportunities for Latinos and immigrants. We salute Richard Romero and his team for their leadership on brining responsible and sustainable financial services to the Hispanic community in Seattle, said Pablo DeFilippi, Federation SVP Membership and Network Engagement.

On behalf of the entire Northwest Credit Union Movement: thank you to SMCU for your tireless efforts to help so many advance, together, added NWCUA President and CEO Troy Stang. Your work exemplifies the member-driven, not-for-profit cooperative structure, as well as the Juntos Avanzamos mission.

As SMCU has grown with the City of Seattle, we have focused on serving the communities that need more affordable financial services, plus options like bilingual services and more, said Richard Romero, CEO of Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union. This designation is an important recognition of our initiatives and commitment to provide outstanding service to Latinos.

According to the Federation, immigrants are a large and vibrant part of the US economy, yet they remain largely unbanked and vulnerable to predatory financial service providers.

The Juntos Avanzamos program was developed by Cornerstone Credit Union League in Texas and is expanding nationally by the Federation to meet this demand. Member credit unions who receive this designation are recognized for serving and education the Latino community on their journey to financial independence.

As a member of the Together We Advance family of credit unions, SMCU has demonstrated that, at a minimum, it:

Has a formal strategic plan for improving service to Latinos

Offers bilingual services and information

Collaborates with organizations that support the Latino community

Offers affordable products and services that meet the needs of Latinos, and

Offers financial information tailored to the Latino community

Some examples of SMCUs initiatives in the Latino community include:

In 2005, SMCU opened its Rainier Avenue branch in the heart of one of the nations most diverse communities. In January, SMCU will open another branch in Beacon Hill in the new Plaza Roberto Maestas at El Centro de la Raza.

SMCU now offers Online Banking, the SMCU.com website, and printed resources in Spanish. Employees at SMCU represent many cultures and languages that mirror the communities it serves. SMCU is staffed with fluent Spanish speakers and accepts Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) for opening loans and accounts.

SMCU has partnered with the City of Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to create a new Citizenship Loan to help new immigrants finance their path to U.S. citizenship. SMCU was onsite for the first three workshops and will continue to have a supporting presence in the citys ongoing program.

SMCU participated with the Mexican Consulate and the Latino Educational Training Institute to present an 8-week financial education series from March through May of 2016.

SMCU CEO Richard Romero has served on the YearUp Leadership Council, the Federation of Community Development Credit Unions Board of Directors and Leadership Eastside Board of Directors.

Romero also won the 2016 Crosscut Courage in Business Award for reaching out to immigrants and other underserved populations.

SMCU is a sponsor of the Latina Style Business Series conference, the Latino Community Fund Gala and the El Centro de la Raza Building the Beloved Community Gala.

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Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union serves and empowers Latino consumers with Juntos Avanzamos program - CUinsight.com (press release)

The path to financial independence has come relatively quickly for the Elahmad family, but their road to success was built on hard work and perseverance, as well as a community willing to give them opportunities.

Khaled Elahmad, his wife and their four daughters moved to the community last February, after they were sponsored by the Syrian refugee committee from St. Johns United Church.

While the family continues to overcome language and cultural barriers, Elahmad and Nisrin are determined to provide a better life for their children.

In September, he landed a job at Peter Thompson & Sons, an Alliston company that manufacturers hardwood flooring. The position was a perfect fit for Elahmad, who used to work at a window-manufacturing factory in Lebanon.

His first task was to grade lumber, but his skills didn't go unnoticed for long. He was soon promoted to the dimension department, where a keen eye is needed to sort materials for different types of flooring.

The company has since hired two more Syrian refugees Joseph Talia, who lives in Alliston with wife Nadi and their four girls; and Mohammed Aldiri, who lives in Shelburne with his wife and their seven children.

They are all such hard workers, said human resources manager Amanda Labatte-Dawe. It also made perfect sense to hire Khaled because he had the experience.

The downside of working full time is that Elahmad and Talia can no longer attend English classes, which are only available during the day. However, Aldiri, who speaks a little English, is helping them learn on the job by teaching them some words and phrases.

The Canadian dream is well within grasp for the Elahmads, but the same can't be said for many of the Syrian refugees who came to this country.

According to the federal government, only half of privately sponsored refugees, and just 12 per cent of government-sponsored refugees, find employment during their first year in Canada.

With the Elahmads youngest daughter now old enough to attend school, Nisrin has been able to start planning for her own career. Recently she was invited to put on an interactive cooking demonstration at the churchs Ladies Laugh, Lunch and Learn, a monthly event that brings people of all cultures together to talk and enjoy a meal.

During the hour-long demonstration, Nisrin showed lunch-goers how to make two staples of Syrian cuisine: tabbouleh, a fresh salad of parsley, tomatoes, bulgar, lettuce and cucumber; and falafels, which are small deep-fried patties made with chickpeas, fava beans and spices.

In the year that I have known Nisrin, I have learned that she really loves to cook and that her food is very good, said Sharron Smith, chair of the churchs refugee sponsorship committee.

Nisrin, who used to cook at a hotel in Lebanon after fleeing Syria in 2012, wants to start her own catering business and is planning to start selling food later this year at the summer farmers market in downtown Alliston.

Smith said the church committee plans to sponsor another family once the federal government agrees to allow more refugees into the country, and to also do some family reunification.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the refugee families living in Alliston, the church is holding a Come and Go tea Feb. 26 from 2-4 p.m.

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Syrian refugee families achieve financial independence in Alliston - Simcoe.com

By David A. Singer By David A. Singer February 13 at 8:00 AM

On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen will testify before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.On Jan. 31, Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, wrote a scathing letter to Yellen. Citing the clear message by President Donald Trump to put America first, he called on her to cease all international negotiations on regulations covering bank capital, systemic risk and other areas, and suggested that the Fed had no authority to engage in such activities.

[Is Trump an authoritarian at heart? It matters less than you think.]

McHenry went on to call the Feds activities secretive, and suggested that its participation in international forums was killing American jobs. Hisletter echoes the heated rhetoric by President Trump during the campaign in which he said that Yellen should be ashamed of herself for keeping interest rates low for political reasons.

Such intervention by elected leaders is alarming for two reasons. First, research suggests that it is an America first strategy for the Fed to coordinate international financial regulation. Second, the Fed is an independent agency, and congressional leaders have generally refrained from directly threatening a sitting chair. I will explain below.

The Feds ability to negotiate international regulations helps ensure U.S. financial stability and competitiveness

One of the Feds key responsibilities is ensuring the stability of the financial system. It sets regulations for bank holding companies, which include most of the largest financial institutions in the United States, as well as many state-chartered banks and foreign banks with U.S. affiliates. Its independence enables the Fed to commit to a prudent set of policies without having to renege when politically expedient, thereby keeping inflation low and financial institutions resilient which, in a global economy, requires international cooperation.

[3 lessons from Republicans failed attempt to silence Elizabeth Warren]

In my book, Regulating Capital: Setting Standards for the International Financial System, I chronicle 40 years of the Feds efforts to work with its foreign counterparts to set international standards for the worlds largest financial institutions.

Why create international standards? The financial system has become increasingly globalized, which means that the collapse of a major bank in London, Paris or Tokyo could cause U.S. banks to falter. International standards help level the playing field. Applying stringent regulations to U.S. banks would do little good if foreign banks were permitted to engage in risky behaviors. Without international standards, tightening U.S. regulations could give foreign banks a competitive advantage, thereby shifting capital and jobs overseas.

My research shows that the Fed has had tremendous influence over international standards on bank capital since the 1980s, ensuring that domestic efforts to prevent another financial crisis are not undercut by lax regulations in other parts of the world.

[Democratic and Republican appointees to the Fed arent that different after all]

The original cooperative agreement was the 1988 Basel Accord, an international agreement on bank capital and was the Feds solution to a thorny problem. The 1980s were a time of rampant bank failures. The Fed needed a way to shore up the banking system without jeopardizing the United States competitive advantage internationally. The Basel Accord allowed the Fed to enforce more stability-enhancing regulations domestically with the confidence that other countries would do the same.

My research builds on previous work by Thomas Oatley and Ethan Kapstein, who each emphasize U.S. regulators power to use international standards to force other countries to adjust their regulations.

The Feds international negotiations are not rogue or opaque. Although Congress did not have the perfect foresight in 1913 to explicitly mention international regulatory coordination in the Federal Reserve Act, it did specify in Section 13 of the Act that forging relationships with foreign central banks was critical for U.S. financial stability. Today, the Fed cooperates with nearly 30 countries on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and more than 30 countries on the Financial Stability Board.

Decisions by these bodies are not legally binding. Each countrys regulators must implement and enforce any regulatory standards that might emerge from international negotiations.

Contrary to McHenrys assertion in his letter, the Fed is transparent about its international activities. Its website contains extraordinarily detailed information about proposed rules. Moreover, it actively invites comments from affected banks and other institutions at each stage in an international negotiation.

The Feds independence enables it to focus on long-term U.S. financial health rather than short-term political positioning

The second area of concern is the integrity of the Feds monetary policymaking. Like most central banks in developed countries, the Fed is an independent government agency whose funding is not appropriated by Congress. The Feds members are nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate and receive 14-year terms that cannot be cut short by anyone except the member. The chair is appointed to a four-year term with the possibility of reappointment. Yellens term as chair expires in January 2018.

All this insulates the Fed politically which helps ensure that interest-rate policy is designed for the countrys long-term health rather than short-term political gains by one side or another. Otherwise, elected leaders might pressure the Fed to lower interest rates in the months before an election, triggering a temporary boost to the economy and an uptick in the stock market. That would come at a cost. The Fed would lose its credibility, inflation would become increasingly difficult to manage and the value of the dollar could gyrate wildly.

Zimbabwes 90 sextillion percent inflation in 2008 is an extreme example of the effect of political interference on monetary policy.But research shows that central bank independence has beenhighly correlated with inflation in developed and developing countries since the 1950s.

All political threats to the Fed are serious. Its independence is a congressional creation, which means that Congress could take it away. But keeping the Fed independent and actively engaged in international coordination is the best way to maintain a stable and internationally competitive financial system in the 21st century.

David A. Singer is associate professor of political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of Regulating Capital: Setting Standards for the International Financial System (Cornell University Press, 2010).

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Congress could limit the Fed's independence and hurt the US economy - Washington Post

Court Rejects Order Forcing Parents to Pay Tuition Inside Higher Ed One of the attorneys said that if Ricci wants financial support from her parents, she should also be open to her parents' guidance and counseling. By accepting legal independence from her parents, she was accepting financial independence as well, the ... and more »

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Court Rejects Order Forcing Parents to Pay Tuition - Inside Higher Ed

New York Times

How Much Financial Help Do You Expect From Your Parents in the Future? New York Times Do you generally know which of your peers gets financial help from relatives? Why or why not? How do you feel about receiving financial help? Is financial independence a goal for you? If your parents can help, will they? If they offered, would you ... and more »

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How Much Financial Help Do You Expect From Your Parents in the Future? - New York Times

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