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Rick Kahler's Weekly Column

Advanced Wellbeing offers financial therapy insights each week to inform more details about financial therapy.

  • Financial Therapy Financial therapy merges finance with emotional support to help people cope with financial stress.
  • Financial Disorders Financial disorders are the maladaptive patterns of financial beliefsand behaviors that lead to clinically significant distress
  • Financial Fear Financial fear, especially among the new, inexperienced or financially illiterate investors.

Managing the Disconnect Between High Markets and Consumer Worry

How is it possible that consumer sentiment is at an all-time low while stock prices hit all-time highs? This disconnect is not what usually happens. Stock prices and consumer confidence tend to move together because they draw on the same conditions: a growing economy where people are working, earning, and expecting more of both. In forty years as a financial advisor, I have never seen a market this confusing to investors.

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June 8, 2026

Clear Communication Helps Your Financial Team Help You

As you advance in your career and begin to build financial security and invest for the future, you will build a financial team. Most likely, you’ll find a CPA to do your taxes, a financial advisor for investments, and an attorney for legal matters such as estate documents. Ideally, each professional will be capable and will act in your best interest. It’s natural to assume that their work will come together coherently. Yet it often doesn’t.

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June 1, 2026

The Emotional and Financial Costs of Sacrificial Giving

“But we can’t cut back our giving; they depend on us.” A retired couple wanted to continue giving generously to their church, even though it would have jeopardized their own financial health. Their money scripts included a belief that giving until it hurt was a virtue.
Religious trauma is one of the childhood experiences that can shape money scripts with damaging lifelong consequences.

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May 25, 2026

Is Education As Unaffordable As It Seems?

It’s common for parents of high school seniors to joke, “At least when he goes off to college we won’t have to feed him! Think of how much we’ll save on grocery bills.”
If you look carefully at actual college costs, this may not be such a joke. Is education as unaffordable as it seems?

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May 18, 2026

Keeping Your Retirement Savings Clear Of The Government’s Thumb

For decades, a divide has limited the options for American workers who are saving for retirement. Assets held outside of retirement plans have access to hedge funds, private equity, real estate partnerships, and other alternatives that move differently from the stock market and can offer different kinds of returns. Meanwhile, 401(k) plans have long offered a limited menu — stock funds, bond funds, a target-date fund, perhaps a money market option, and little else. A new Trump administration policy may close this gap.

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May 4, 2026

Trusted Help From a Daily Money Manager

If your elderly mom needs assistance with daily money matters, but you live three states away, where do you find the help she needs? For years the best I could offer in this situation was a referral to a bookkeeper. Now I know of a better option—a daily money manager.

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April 27, 2026

Facing the Financial and Emotional Pain of a Terminal Illness

Dying and money collide in ways most of us never think about until we have to. When someone receives a terminal diagnosis, they and their loved ones are forced to deal with emotional and financial complexities around death at the same time. A financial planner who is also a trained death doula helps clients navigate both.

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April 20, 2026

Are Shadow Advisors Shaping Your Financial Decisions?

You’re thinking about rolling over your 401(k). Or maybe you just inherited some money and you’re not sure what to do with it. Where do you go for advice?
Even if you have a financial advisor, you may get a variety of opinions from friends and family, none of whom know your full financial picture. I’ve seen this happen with clients for decades but only recently learned a term for it.

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April 13, 2026

The Value Of Financial Therapy For Men In Power

Do billionaires need financial therapy? The very idea probably seems ludicrous. Yet financial therapy can be especially important for wealthy and powerful men because their financial decisions have a broad impact. The consequences can ripple through organizations, industries, and markets.

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April 6, 2026
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