Financial Advisor I’m Not
August 20, 2006
But I had the chance to help out a friend today in reviewing her finances and to set up a credit card debt repayment plan.
I did reiterate many times that she should tell me when we approach her comfort level in personal finance juggling and that she has many other options in doing this, not just to take my personal experiences and preferences as ironclad. She’s a good friend so I don’t want her to feel obligated to just follow my advice blindly or to do things my way for fear of offending me.
No dollar details here without her permission, but she’s on a limited income and has about 90% utilization on her credit cards. We talked about her monthly/quarterly expenses and broke down the expenses by paycheck. We also started her off easy with an INGDirect referral to be opened tomorrow. We’ll research some 0% BT cards for her during the week, with an eye towards opening up that Citibank $100/$100 bonus checking and e-savings accounts so that she can start taking some steps toward debt reduction while using that bonus money as seed money for her emergency fund.
I’d say we’re off to a nice start!
I got a friend to go out look for personal finance books this weekend. I said he should read “Personal Finance for Dummies” first…
Thanks, I may refer her to that as well. She wanted to discuss things, from what I’d understood but it may be best for her to do some reading.