"The most important thing is getting clarity about the big picture so you can cope with the unexpected. Maybe you’ll lose the job you thought was secure; you’ll take a financial risk that doesn’t pan out; you’ll have twins when you were only budgeting for one. In other words: Life will happen." Carl Richards

Today we were joined by the author of the new book The One Page Financial Plan, Carl Richards.

Carl Richards is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and the director of investor education for the BAM ALLIANCE, a community of over 130 independent wealth management firms throughout the United States. He is the creator of the weekly Sketch Guy column in the The New York Times, and is a columnist for Morningstar Advisor. Carl has also been featured on Marketplace Money, The Leonard Lopate Show, Oprah.com and Forbes.com. In addition, Carl has become a frequent keynote speaker at financial planning conferences and visual learning events around the world.

Through his simple sketches, Carl makes complex financial concepts easy to understand. His sketches also serve as the foundation for his first book, The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money (Portfolio/Penguin). Carl's art appeared in a solo show at the Kimball Art Center, in Park City, Utah. Other showings include The Parson's Gallery in New York, The Shultz Museum, and an exhibit at the Mansion House in London. His commissioned work is on display in businesses and educational institutions across the country. He lives with his family in Park City, Utah.

We were also joined by Suzanne Edwards from the Houston Business Journal for our monthly check in on the local Houston business news. Suzanne discussed the oil market, mergers and acquisitions and roboinvesting.

The One-Page Financial Plan

You can find out more about Carl Richards  by visiting the website at:

#behaviorgap

@hbjsuzanne

April is here and many of us are done with taxes. Now what? April is also Financial Literacy month and celebrated locally as Houston Money Week. Houston Money Week is a financial education initiative for people of all ages. FREE workshops are scheduled from April 11 - April 18, 2015.

We were joined today by Houston Money Week Partner Ogadi Fields

#

We are at about 75,000 Energy and Oil job losses nationwide since the drop in oil prices began. Here in Houston we all have friends or family members who might have been in this initial round of layoffs. The bad news in that it is not over yet. According to our guest the 2nd round of cuts will be coming shortly down the road. The good news is that there is hope. If you know someone who has been let go or is worried that they might be let go soon then please share this episode with them.

On today's show we were joined by Brian Newkirk of Search Group International and Todd Brinegar of Fikser.us. We discussed:

- When are the next round of cuts coming

- Mergers and Acquisistions

- The partnership of SGI and FIKSER working to get Houstonians back to work in similar fields or new jobs

- What to do if you have been laid off

-The biggest mistakes made by those looking for work

and much more....

Learn the secrets to maximizing your Social Security benefits and earn up to thousands of dollars more each year with expert advice that you can’t get anywhere else.

Want to know how to navigate the forbidding maze of Social Security and emerge with the highest possible benefits? You could try reading all 2,728 rules of the Social Security system (and the thousands of explanations of these rules), but Kotlikoff, Moeller, and Solman explain Social Security benefits in an easy to understand and user-friendly style. What you don’t know can seriously hurt you: wrong decisions about which Social Security benefits to apply for cost some individual retirees tens of thousands of dollars in lost income every year.  

On today's show we were once again joined by Suzanne Edwards, Money and Legal reporter for Houston Business Journal. Suzanne updated us on the local banking trends in Houston in relation to the oil market.

We were joined at the halfway mark by author Laurence Kotlikoff and discussed his newest book Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security.

Laurence J. Kotlikoff is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and a professor of economics at Boston University.  He is also president of Economic Security Planning, Inc., a company specializing in financial planning software.  His company websites are ESPlanner.com and MaximizeMySocialSecurity.com.  He is author or co-author of sixteen books, including Spend ‘Til the End and The Coming Generational Storm (both with Scott Burns).  His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Economist, Huffington Post, and other major publications.  He has served as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, governments around the world, and major U.S. corporations including Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments, and AON.  In addition, he has provided expert testimony on numerous occasions to committees of Congress.  He lives in Boston.

When your child has picked a school and decided they want to go to college the next step is paying for it. After we get over the sticker shock that is the current cost of college tuition we most figure out where the funds to pay for school actually come from. Today we answer the question how do we pay for college.

Jackie Aguilera has over 20 years experience in adult education and curriculum development. She has taught literacy, college success courses, and workforce readiness skills development at UH Downtown, University of Houston, Houston Community College, and the Houston Center for Literacy. Currently, Jackie is the Literacy Coordinator at East Side University, a community based learning center in Third Ward, and serves on the Houston Center for Literacy Advisory Board and on the adult education committees of Houston Money Week and the Alliance for Economic Inclusion.

You can find out more about Jackie Aguilera and East Side University by visiting the website at:

www.esuvclc.org

You can listen live by going to www.kpft.org and clicking on the HD3 tab. You can also listen to this episode and others by podcast at:

http://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/moneymatters

or

www.moneymatterspodcast.com

‪@kpft @houstonmoneywk

For me a car has always been a tool to get you from point A to B. I have said in the past that a car is a depreciating asset as soon as you drive it off the lot. The only exception to this rule is classic and/or collectible cars. I recently toured a classic and collectible car facility here in Houston that made me change my thinking. After learning about how much some of these cars have recently gone for at the auction I wanted to learn more about collecting cars. Even more interesting than the cars are the people behind them.  

Today we popped the hood and looked at the collectible and classic car market with Michael Foertsch, Owner of M. Brandon Cars.

Michael Foertsch is the owner of M. Brandon Motorcars, a small automobile dealership located in Houston. He specializes in Ferrari models from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, as well as other "interesting" sports cars. He is currently an apprentice concours judge for the International Association for the Conservation and Preservation of Ferrari Automobiles (IAC/PFA), and his personal cars have won Platinum awards at the prestigious Cavallino Classic. Before opening his dealership, he spent almost 20 years as a software engineer, and was a high performance driving instructor on the weekends.

Things to consider when buying a car - Chris Hensley

http://youtu.be/_P2LjWPnKsM

Tune in Tomorrow Morning at 10 AM to hear me on Business Newsmakers Radio W/ Lou Garino 1110 KTEK AM Wall Street Journal Radio. We will be talking about Houston Money Week and much more.

http://www.businessnewsmakersradio.com/

In Jane Austen's "Persuasion," Captain Wentworth writes to his love interest, "I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach." When it comes to actual persuasion, however, not all learning leaders know exactly what that reach is, let alone what's within it.

We were joined today by Author Juliet Huck.

I wrote The Equation of Persuasion™ to empower you to reach your highest potential as a communicator, both personally and professionally. Based on my decades of experience as a coach, a strategist and a designer of my clients’ messages to their decision-making audiences, I observed a missing link in the field of communications. I developed a methodology identifying those elements that must be kept in balance for them to land a decision they are seeking. Once I saw the wildly successful results of this unique approach, I knew I had to share these proven techniques with you. 

For many of us who speak for a living our business and careers depend on making powerful presentations. For others you might have to occasionally make a presentation in front of a group of co-workers or clients. How do you go from a good speaker to a great speaker?

We kicked off the show today with Houston Business Journal's Money and Law reporter Suzanne Edwards for our 2nd installment of a local Houston economy update. We discussed the recent changes in the oil market and what that means for West Houston and the Energy Corridor. We talked about major energy companies cutting jobs and what resources our available to help transition into related industries or find work. We also discussed how the changes in the oil market have changed the local credit market.

We were then joined by executive speech coach, Patricia Fripp. Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, business presentation expert, sales presentation skills trainer, and in-demand speech coach to executives and celebrity speakers. Meetings & Conventions magazine named her "One of the 10 most electrifying speakers in North America." She delivers high-energy, high-content, and dramatically memorable presentations. Kiplinger's Personal Finance identified Patricia Fripp Speaking School as one of the best ways you can invest in your career 

In addition to being an award-winning professional keynote speaker, executive speech coach, sales presentation trainer, and author... Patricia Fripp is also the adoring sister of guitarist Robert Fripp of King Crimson.