It’s undeniable: President Biden has created a true financial mess in America. After trillions of dollars’ worth of wasteful spending and policies that attacked the energy, timber, and manufacturing industries, Mississippians are living with higher gas prices, rising utility bills, expensive groceries, and an unaffordable housing market. It’s easy to get frustrated and angry under such circumstances, but my message … Read More
Teaching your Kids about the Value of Money
When do you think the average person’s money habits are set? By age 18 when they leave home for the first time? Age 16 when they get their first job? Age 10 when they start mowing a neighbor’s lawn? In reality, it might be much earlier than that. Consider the first time your child built a lemonade stand, played cashier … Read More
Financial Potholes to Avoid
It’s often been said that you can learn more from another person’s failures than from their successes – and oh, how true that is! Today, I’d like to dig through three common financial missteps that we can all learn a little from. SAVING TOO LATE IN LIFE: Ask almost any retiree if they would have done one financial thing differently … Read More
Understanding the Financial Life Stages
It’s hard to believe, but my wife, Katie, and I have been together for more than 20 years (16 as a married couple). We’ve done a lot of life in those two decades. We’ve gone through our share of ups and downs; we’ve purchased a home; sold a home; bought a new car; changed careers; had three children. If we … Read More
MPACT Enrollment Now Open!
As teachers begin to welcome kids back to school, College Savings Mississippi is ready to welcome families back to MPACT! As of September 1, MPACT enrollment is open for the 2023-24 school year! What is MPACT? To put it simply: MPACT allows families to lock in today’s tuition rates and prepay their child’s college years! Yes, you read that correctly. You can sign … Read More
Avoid Student Loans
$1.8 trillion – that’s how much student loan debt is held by Americans today. It’s an amount that has tripled in the last decade and a half alone – and to be frank, I don’t think we’ve seen the peak of this growth. This incredible amount of debt has become a major point of political tension in recent years, especially … Read More
McRae: Points on the Board Against ESG
By Treasurer David McRae For the last few years, I’ve been raising a warning flag about the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement, it’s politically motivated selection of financial winners and losers, and the threat this poses to Mississippians’ savings and retirement goals. I am pleased to report that this summer we marked one of our biggest wins yet. In … Read More
Breaking Down Your Budget
There is hardly a financial tip list out there that doesn’t start and end with: “Build a budget.” But getting started can be intimidating! So, let’s see if in the next few paragraphs, we can break the stigma of complexity and simplify this budgeting process a bit. I might argue that one of the biggest mistakes first-time budgeters make is … Read More
Stay Safe from Scammers
We often talk about financial security in these columns in terms of savings and investments, but today I wanted to talk about an equally important kind of safety: avoiding financial scams. When so much business and commerce is done remotely, identifying scams can be difficult. After all, you can’t exactly look your online merchant in the eyes and know they’re … Read More
Back to School and Back to Saving!
The countdown to a new school year has officially begun! In no time at all, days at the pool will be replaced by days in the classroom. And with that change of scenery will come new routines and new responsibilities. Naturally, many of these new obligations will revolve around academic success. New study schedules. New sleep schedules. New meal schedules. … Read More