Every week I run into a few articles that I feel are especially valuable, so each Monday I plan to share some of the best with you, my readers. I hope you find them helpful.
This week’s favorites include a review of The Doctors Guide to Eliminating Debt (survival prep), six recommended moves for your investments now, how to talk to your kids about Covid-19, and 27 things to do now.
Happy reading!
Brent Lacey from The Scope of Practice published a nice review of my book The Doctor’s Guide to Eliminating Debt. You can read it here. Those who heeded the advice in this book before the current crisis, and recently lost their job or had it cut back, are sitting in a much more comfortable position than they would have been if they were still carrying all their debt. A common question people are currently asking is “How are you weathering the crisis?” Well, if you planned ahead and have an emergency fund of at least six months of living expenses and no debt, this financial crisis is no big deal. Read the book, and become better prepared for the next time a crisis hits your life.
“The sky is falling,” is what the stock market feels like right now. What should you do about it? Allan S. Roth wrote an article for Financial Planning with a nice list of the Six Moves Advisors Should be Recommending for their Clients Right Now. Selling all your stocks and putting the money under your mattress is not one of them. Now is the time to be calm and remember, we all knew a drop was coming, we just didn’t know when it would happen. So stop worrying and consider doing something on this list. Missing from the list is what I’m doing, which is nothing. The same thing that got me through the dot com bubble and the housing crash. Everything recovered.
Your kids are home from school so they know something big is happening. How do you tell them about it without putting too much fear into their minds? Rachel Ehmke wrote a nice article for the Child Mind Institute including a video by Dr. Jamie Howard to help with Talking to Kids About the Coronavirus. Kids are most afraid about things they don’t know. So give them the answers to their questions and they will be more at ease. Her third point is especially important. Let’s not let our kids be collateral damage in this. Make it a great family time for them. They will always remember when they got to skip school, mom and dad stayed home from work, and the whole family did some really cool stuff.
Jonathan Clements of Humble Dollar gives us some great things to do with all the spare time some of us have now with 27 Things to Do Now. I love number 13 as I do that all the time. You can find another list of things to do here. Don’t blow this once in a lifetime chance to make changes in your life. Even though you have a lot of time on your hands, don’t keep your hands idle.
I hope you enjoy these articles as much as I did. I look forward to updating you again next week with a few more articles I find especially interesting. If you read an especially good article, send me the link so I can share it with others.
