Financial Wellness as a Tool to Facilitate Bankruptcy's Fresh Start


Book Description

Doctors diagnose conditions using results from tests, questionnaires patients fill out, and the information they learn from conversations with patients. All of this information is used to prescribe the best course of action to make the patient well. This qualitative research study uses a similar approach to address the primary research question: How can the financial wellness conceptual model be used to provide insight about the financial condition of married couples filing Chapter 13? The financial wellness conceptual framework is used to determine each couple's financial status as well as assess financial satisfaction, perception, and behavior. Case studies were prepared for three married couples filing Chapter 13 who completed surveys and consented to be interviewed as they waited for their creditor meetings at bankruptcy court in Memphis, Tennessee. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Data were coded and classified based on the focal points of the study, which include objective status, financial behavior, satisfaction/dissatisfaction, and perception constructs. Categories were used to inductively evaluate the financial condition of the couple, based on guidelines for each construct. Data from surveys, bankruptcy records, and interviews, conducted separately with husband and wife, were used to prepare case studies that examine financial condition from the perspective of consumers, using the financial wellness conceptual model. Within the scope of the financial wellness framework, findings indicated that couples in bankruptcy have insolvent households, suffer from low satisfaction, exhibit a perceived internal or external locus of control, and engage in behavior that reflects strong cultural influences. These findings are particularly relevant in the current recessionary economy as many Americans face imminent financial failure. The financial wellness conceptual model has great potential as a tool to facilitate bankruptcy's fresh start because of its comprehensive nature since it includes both subjective and objective constructs. The purpose of bankruptcy is to give consumers a financial fresh start. However, financial relief without a tool to facilitate the fresh start in a way that makes it sustainable over time is insufficient. The financial wellness conceptual framework has great potential as a tool that can be used to help consumers achieve long-term financial wellness.




Fresh Start Bankruptcy


Book Description

Don't get down, get started instead-with Fresh StartBankruptcy Well over a million Americans suffer the trauma of bankruptcy everyyear. But many don't know that bankruptcy may be the idealopportunity to rein in their out-of-control finances, get back ontheir feet, and start over anew. Fresh Start Bankruptcy is a friendly and non-intimidating guidethat walks you step by step through the filing process and providesthe sympathetic, expert advice you need to survive the ordeal.Attorneys Deborah Herman and Robin Bodiford provide the informedperspective that makes tough decisions simple. They'll help youdecide whether you should retain legal counsel or move forward onyour own. And if you do decide to go it alone, you'll find all theprofessional advice you need to make the process as quick andpainless as possible. You'll learn which chapter to file and how todo it, how to protect your assets and deal with creditors, how torepair your credit, and how to navigate bankruptcy court. Personal anecdotes included in the book prove that people of allwalks of life have gone through the process and come out strongerthan before-- and you can too! So, no matter how your financialtroubles came about, stop worrying and start over with the positiveoutlook and thoughtful guidance you'll find only in Fresh StartBankruptcy.




Financial Recovery


Book Description

After healing her own unhealthy relationship with money, and transforming her financial disaster into prosperity and security, Karen McCall created a recovery program she has now used for more than twenty years to help individuals, couples, and businesses large and small. In the midst of her money troubles, she saw a need for something other than financial planners, accountants, and credit counselors. These experts could tell her what she should be doing differently, but she needed someone to help her understand the underlying causes of chronic, self-defeating overspending and credit card debt, underearning, and low or no savings. To save herself, she created practical, holistic tools that address these sources of pain and shame. McCall’s program supports people as they uncover their deep-seated attitudes about money; provides simple, step-by-step tools for healing areas of physical, emotional, and spiritual deprivation; and teaches skills and strategies for experiencing lasting personal and financial fulfillment even in the midst of economic challenges and reversals.




Improving Financial Literacy Analysis of Issues and Policies


Book Description

This book describes the different types of financial education programmes currently available in OECD countries, evaluates their effectiveness, and makes suggestions to improve them.




The Miracle Morning (Updated and Expanded Edition)


Book Description

Start waking up to your full potential every single day with the updated and expanded edition of the groundbreaking book that has sold more than two million copies. “So much more than a book. It is a proven methodology that will help you fulfil your potential and create the life you’ve always wanted.” —Mel Robbins, New York Times bestselling author of The High 5 Habit and The 5 Second Rule Getting everything you want out of life isn’t about doing more. It’s about becoming more. Hal Elrod and The Miracle Morning have helped millions of people become the person they need to be to create the life they’ve always wanted. Now, it’s your turn. Hal’s revolutionary SAVERS method is a simple, effective step-by-step process to transform your life in as little as six minutes per day: - Silence: Reduce stress and improve mental clarity by beginning each day with peaceful, purposeful quiet - Affirmations: Reprogram your mind to overcome any fears or beliefs that are limiting your potential or causing you to suffer - Visualization: Experience the power of mentally rehearsing yourself showing up at your best each day - Exercise: Boost your mental and physical energy in as little as sixty seconds - Reading: Acquire knowledge and expand your abilities by learning from experts - Scribing: Keep a journal to deepen gratitude, gain insights, track progress, and increase your productivity by getting clear on your top priorities This updated and expanded edition has more than forty pages of new content, including: - The Miracle Evening: Optimize your bedtime and sleep to wake up every day feeling refreshed and energized for your Miracle Morning - The Miracle Life: Begin your path to inner freedom so you can truly be happy and learn to love the life you have while you create the life you want




Your Money, Your Goals


Book Description

Welcome to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Your Money, Your Goals: A financial empowerment toolkit for social services programs! If you're reading this, you are probably a case manager, or you work with case managers. Finances affect nearly every aspect of life in the United States. But many people feel overwhelmed by their financial situations, and they don't know where to go for help. As a case manager, you're in a unique position to provide that help. Clients already know you and trust you, and in many cases, they're already sharing financial and other personal information with you. The financial stresses your clients face may interfere with their progress toward other goals, and providing financial empowerment information and tools is a natural extension of what you are already doing. What is "financial empowerment" and how is it different from financial education or financial literacy? Financial education is a strategy that provides people with financial knowledge, skills, and resources so they can get, manage, and use their money to achieve their goals. Financial education is about building an individual's knowledge, skills, and capacity to use resources and tools, including financial products and services. Financial education leads to financial literacy. Financial empowerment includes financial education and financial literacy, but it is focused both on building the ability of individuals to manage money and use financial services and on providing access to products that work for them. Financially empowered individuals are informed and skilled; they know where to get help with their financial challenges. This sense of empowerment can build confidence that they can effectively use their financial knowledge, skills, and resources to reach their goals. We designed this toolkit to help you help your clients become financially empowered consumers. This financial empowerment toolkit is different from a financial education curriculum. With a curriculum, you are generally expected to work through most or all of the material in the order presented to achieve a specific set of objectives. This toolkit is a collection of important financial empowerment information and tools you can access as needed based on the client's goals. In other words, the aim is not to cover all of the information and tools in the toolkit - it is to identify and use the information and tools that are best suited to help your clients reach their goals.




Financial Well-Being


Book Description

A growing consensus is emerging that the ultimate measure of success for financial literacy efforts should be improvement in individual financial well-being. But financial well-being has never been explicitly defined, nor is there a standard way to measure it. This report provides a conceptual framework for defining and measuring success in financial education by delivering a proposed definition of financial well-being, and insight into the factors that contribute to it. This framework is grounded in the existing literature, expert opinion, and the experiences and voice of the consumer garnered through in-depth, one-on-one interviews with working-age and older consumers.




Medical Debt


Book Description




Handbook of Consumer Finance Research


Book Description

This second edition of the authoritative resource summarizes the state of consumer finance research across disciplines for expert findings on—and strategies for enhancing—consumers’ economic health. New and revised chapters offer current research insights into familiar concepts (retirement saving, bankruptcy, marriage and finance) as well as the latest findings in emerging areas, including healthcare costs, online shopping, financial therapy, and the neuroscience behind buyer behavior. The expanded coverage also reviews economic challenges of diverse populations such as ethnic groups, youth, older adults, and entrepreneurs, reflecting the ubiquity of monetary issues and concerns. Underlying all chapters is the increasing importance of financial literacy training and other large-scale interventions in an era of economic transition. Among the topics covered: Consumer financial capability and well-being. Advancing financial literacy education using a framework for evaluation. Financial coaching: defining an emerging field. Consumer finance of low-income families. Financial parenting: promoting financial self-reliance of young consumers. Financial sustainability and personal finance education. Accessibly written for researchers and practitioners, this Second Edition of the Handbook of Consumer Finance Research will interest professionals involved in improving consumers’ fiscal competence. It also makes a worthwhile text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in economics, family and consumer studies, and related fields.




The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report


Book Description

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.