Holly P. Thomas

Planning for your financial future can seem like a drab numbers game. How Does Your Money Flow? takes readers on a journey to discover how much is really enough. Rather than dictate a "Number" everyone needs to live on, you will define for yourself what your life's next chapter would look like. With self-assessment exercises, the book uncovers the true meaning of, for example, home, health, travel, toys, charity, and how money impacts our relationships. With needs, wants, and wishes uniquely defined, you will feel far more prepared to make money decisions. As an excerpt from the book, The Mindful Money Mentality: How to Find Balance in Your Financial Future, How Does Your Money Flow? prepares you to embark on the next step of meeting with a financial professional, or to draft your own financial plan.

The book first looks at savings decisions, and especially the tension created between saving for children's college and saving for retirement. Next, spending decisions in major areas of life are examined with the angle of understanding where our true sources of happiness lie, and how often we overestimate the money required to get us there. Finally, sharing decisions - whether to give money or lend to family and friends; how much to give to charity; and how to plan for what we leave behind - are discussed.

Each section comes with self-assessment questions, so that you come away with answers unique to you. Knowing your own level of needs, wants, and wishes, you can then use this knowledge to plan for what you truly need to save, spend, and share; rather than relying on what society, friends, family, or even professionals might tell you. Learn to let your money flow - in and out of your life - in ways for which you have prepared.