Facilitating Financial Health (NUC, 2008) is the title of the latest book I’ve co-authored with Drs. Ted and Brad Klontz. The release date is July 9th, this Wednesday. The book originally shipped around June 1, but a flaw in the printing resulted in a reprint, pushing the release date back about 40 days. 

Before you rush to Amazon.com to order your copy, Facilitating Financial Health isn’t for everyone. The book is specifically written for financial professionals, coaches, and therapists. The tools provided in Facilitating Financial Health allow these professionals to more effectively help clients build healthy relationships with money. This book incorporates the latest research to help professionals understand the roots of clients’ destructive financial behavior, and it provides specific techniques to help clients change.

These techniques are valuable for both professionals trained in “exterior finance”—the nuts and bolts of managing money—and those who focus on “interior finance”—the beliefs and emotions about money. Facilitating Financial Health integrates the fields of psychotherapy, coaching, and financial planning, equipping financial professionals with techniques to enhance their effectiveness by working with both the exterior and interior aspects of a client’s financial health. Continue Reading »

You know gas prices are soaring. What you may not know is why.

As with most problems, there are no easy answers or quick solutions. Yet in our society, we don’t want to hear that. We want easy answers and quick solutions.

Pandering politicians and the sensationalists in the media are quick to give us what we want—someone to blame and a quick fix for the oil problem. The blame? Greedy speculators. The fix? More regulation.

Recent headlines read: “Obama Vows Crackdown on Oil Speculators” and “McCain Calls for Federal Probe on Oil Speculation.” Even Fox’s Bill O’Reilly has called for the regulation of the evil oil speculators who are hurting “the folks.”

In recent months, I’ve wondered exactly who are these greedy and evil oil speculators who are single-handedly driving up oil prices. It finally dawned on me who Obama, McCain, and O’Reilly are referring to. These evil speculators are my clients! Continue Reading »

On Wednesday, July 2nd, the US Stock market officially became a roaring bear market, falling below the defining 20% decline mark from it’s peak in October, 2007. 

According to Bear Markets, Harry D. Shultz (Prentice Hall 1964), the average length of the past 26 Bear Markets is 16 months, with a range of 2 months to 56 months; the range of the declines is 14% to 90%, with a mean of 32%; the 508 point decline (22.6%) on 10/19/87 was the largest single-day decline. 

The Dow last peaked at 14,198 on 10/11/07.  If this bear market follows the averages, the Dow will bottom around the first quarter of 2009 at 9,655.  Anyway you figure it, the ‘blue light special’ is flashing as stocks are on sale.  And, if past trend hold true, very few investors will take advantage of the opportunity.

At KFG, we will continue to buy asset classes that are on sale by doing what we’ve always done, rebalancing our portfolios on a monthly basis.  Currently, that means taking profits on commodities and purchasing stocks. 

While most people start their day with a hot cup of java and the morning paper, I prefer to read my email first. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to read that noted financial editor, Bob Veres, (www.bobveres.com) featured my recent speech to the FPA Retreat on “Who’s Planning For The Planner.”

Bob started his e-column, titled “Trading Places,” by saying, ”I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a presentation at the recent Retreat in Ft. Lauderdale, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Rick Kahler, of Kahler Financial Group in Rapid City, SD, is right. He argued that financial planners ought to be hiring outside professionals to do the planning work for themselves and their own families.”

Bob must have been listening very closely, as he darn near quoted the presentation word for word! He concluded his column by saying, “I think this may have been one of the best pure practice management sessions I’ve ever attended in the profession, even though it contained barely a word of traditional practice management advice.”

Wow!  Coming from Bob, someone whose opinion is highly respected in our profession, that warmed my heart even more than my morning cup of coffee!

Make no mistake about it, June was an ugly month for investors. Unfortunately, my recent predictions that come September we will be gazing back on our 2.5% YTD gains in May with wistful eyes is well on the way to happening. I’ve been telling clients for months to expect things to get worse before they get better. At the end of May it wasn’t uncommon for a portfolio to be up about 2.5%. As of the end of June, that same portfolio was down 2.5%, losing 5% in just one month. 

Leading the plunge downward in June were REITs, which along with commodities were buoying up our portfolios during the first five months. Not far behind were world equities. The Dow lost 6.3% (its worst June performance since 1930!) and is down 19.9% from its October high.  At the moment, the only positive asset class is commodities, which are up a staggering 35% on the year. That asset class is the only one keeping a diversified portfolio treading water.  Continue Reading »

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 »

To Listen to Rick’s Column: Click Here. To Watch to Rick’s Column: Click Here.

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.

To Listen to Rick’s Column: Click Here. To Watch to Rick’s Column: Click Here.

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.