Mari Fries, CFP® EA August 14, 2026 As my spouse and I drive to drop our daughter Zoe off at college, I can’t help but reminisce about my own college drop-off: the trips back and forth to the car as we unloaded my belongings and transformed a small, unfamiliar room into a home. Some things have stayed the same. But after nearly two decades working in the financial industry, I’m also keenly aware of just […]
{I recently had the opportunity to meet with some people in their late teens to answer their questions. This is the letter I wrote them afterward.} The thing with being an adult is that you generally have to hear the same information from a couple of different directions before it starts to gel. So the stuff I talked with you about last night is once, and this email can be a second, and then when […]
Someone contact me recently about how to set up a Roth IRA. It’s a common enough question that it feels like a good time to revisit this topic. In this article I’m going to tell you exactly why, where and how to set up a Roth IRA and even make three investment suggestions for three generic situations. Your specific situation could differ, of course. But first, what? A Roth IRA is a little bit like […]
A client asked me if I had any financial literacy suggestions for teenagers. It kicked off a reading festival! Here are my notes. Years ago I read Suze Orman’s Young Fabulous and Broke and I was underwhelmed. She seems to think that everyone is as clueless as she was and needs to have a come-to-Jesus moment and she’ll tell you how. Most people I know just want to know some facts and they’ll integrate them into their […]
Last April, I watched as my eldest son drove out of my driveway in his loaded-down Subaru with a brand-new Thule box on it, headed for Utah with all his possessions loaded in his modern-day Conestoga wagon. As many of you know, a month later he fell off a cliff and received a terrible spinal cord injury. (Happy update: it was a terrible adventure, but thanks to a whole host of blessings, he is nearly […]
I’m not in love with 529 plans. I think they are really fabulous in a few settings, but most of the time they’d be my third or fourth choice for ways to save for college. (Update on 12-22-2017: they can also be used for private school now. It doesn’t change any of this advice.) First: when SHOULD you use a 529 plan? When you’re trying to create a trust fund on the cheap. If a […]
