Many homeowners have taken advantage of historically low interest rates over the past few years to refinance their mortgages. If you aren’t among them, the talk of rising interest rates might be prompting you to consider whether you should refinance now. Refinancing your mortgage can have major benefits such as lowering your monthly payment and reducing the amount of interest you pay in the long run. However, refinancing to a lower rate isn’t always the best financial decision.

This month, we’re bringing you bite-sized servings of financial literacy. Each week, we’ll introduce you to a core concept and map out a fun and easy daily action item. This is our second week in the series.

Our topic for this week is saving! Saving might sound boring, but it is actually a secret superpower. Almost all financial goals involve saving, so mastering this skill will get you far. Saving is the act of setting aside any money that you earned and didn’t spend in a given month — ideally in a separate high yield savings account.

Inflation is here and we are feeling it — at the grocery store, the car dealership, the gas pump, and in our housing costs. It is frustrating to shell out more cash for the same products, but there are a few actions you can take to ensure that you are keeping your finances on track when it feels like prices are out of control.

Inflation is a broad increase in the prices of goods and services across the economy that results in reduced purchasing power. In other words, you pay more money for the same groceries, cars, and haircuts.

There are many reasons home buyers opt to work with a mortgage broker. A broker acts as an intermediary between you and the lender, helping you navigate loan documents, get the best mortgage, and quickly close on your new home. Some homeowners, however, will choose to do their own loan research and work directly with the lender's loan officer. Either option requires some thoughtful research. Your mortgage broker or lender will be in charge of one of the biggest purchases of your adult life.

Happy Financial Literacy Month! At the Financial Gym, one of our core values is “gymsplaining.” We take seemingly complicated financial topics and break them down in a way that people without a finance degree can understand. Because most people don’t get a financial education at school or from their families, many clients come to us with the goal of increasing their financial literacy. But what is financial literacy and why is it important? At its core, financial literacy is the ability to understand the impact of your financial decisions.

By this point, most people are well aware that gender can have an impact on their financial situation. As women, we face the wage gap, the investing gap, the pink tax, the mommy tax, etc. But many people are less familiar with the financial barriers that transgender and non-binary people experience.

The past few years have been particularly challenging for trans people and the folks who love them.

With the massive movement towards remote work, a lot of us have questions about what this means for our 2021 taxes. Are there deductions you can take advantage of? What if you use your cell phone for work? Can you deduct for a home office? The answer to these questions is more complicated than you might think, and more often than not the answer is no. Here we clarify some myths about tax deductions for those of who have been working remotely for most of this year. While it seems intuitive to take home office deductions, in reality few W2 employees can take these deductions.

A developmental disability is a type of condition that affects a person’s physical, language, behavioral, or learning abilities. According to the CDC, roughly 17% of children ages 3 through 17 have a developmental disability. Examples of developmental disabilities include autism, ADHD, and intellectual disabilities. People with developmental disabilities face a lot of the same challenges as any of us do with our finances. However, there are specific challenges that need to be understood so that we can find pathways to financial health and empowerment.

Here you are, ready to embark on an American tradition: purchasing your first home. It’s an often-sought-out goal, one that is implanted in our minds early on. All that aside, how do you actually go about it? It seems daunting; there are all of these expenses, ratios, and procedures you need to follow before you can even consider purchasing a home, so where do you start?

For many people, coming up with the cash for a down payment and closings costs is the biggest hurdle to homebuying.

As I sit down to write this note to you, I’m reflecting on all of the messages I’ve sent before — especially over the last two years. I’m thinking about how many challenging stories I’ve shared with you, how much our business and team have evolved, and up until three months ago, I never thought I would have to write this message. Unfortunately, the pandemic has forced another change, the loss of our physical Gym locations.

One of the most common goals our clients have is to buy a home. Some are looking to expand their space because they have a growing family. Others are relocating from cities to places where they can enjoy a little more space. Some want to house hack and create a source of relatively passive income. But one of the reasons we hear most often is that they are tired of throwing money away on rent.

This month at the TFG, we are focusing on homeownership. In honor of International Women’s Day, we want to highlight the strides women have made in homeownership and the challenges they still face.

Over the past 30 years, women have made substantial gains in homeownership, but challenges for women in homeownership remain. Particularly for single women, single mothers, and BIPOC women.

This is a continuation of Breaking the Debt Cycle (Part 1) from last week.

Getting out of debt often feels like an uphill battle. One month, you receive a bonus at work that helps you pay down your balances, and then next, you have a big car repair that brings them back up. One step forward, one step back. This is what we call the “debt cycle.” While getting out of the debt cycle is challenging, identifying and committing to a few strategies can help ease the process.

As part of Women’s History Month, we want to provide women with a resource to negotiate higher salaries. Negotiating pay isn’t always the most natural skill, and it can be especially difficult for women.

These strategies can be used to unlock the door to earning more money whether you’re interviewing for a new job or asking for a raise with your current employer.

Tax time! That tedious time of year that inspires the champion procrastinator in so many of us, for so many reasons. For some of us, we dread the bill. (That cash looked so much better sitting in our savings account!) For others, we may have been a little disorganized and we’re afraid to find out how much we owe. Or, if you’re like me, getting together all that paperwork gives you agita.

We can’t make taxes disappear, but we can make things a little bit easier by helping you get prepared for the process.

This blog post is part one of two about breaking the debt cycle. Stay tuned for part two next week.

Getting out of debt often feels like an uphill battle. One month, you receive a bonus at work that helps you pay down your balances, and then next, you have a big car repair that brings them back up. One step forward, one step back. This is what we call the “debt cycle.” While getting out of the debt cycle is challenging, identifying and committing to a few strategies can help ease the process.

In honor of Black History Month, we have rounded up some resources that our team members recommend. These sources provide education about the generational poverty cycle, gentrification, the racial wealth gap, Black-owned banks, and more! Books: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs

This is a powerful book that depicts the struggles a young man faces in his time growing up in inner-city Newark and when he enrolls at Yale University…

Have you ever thought about being a financial trainer? If so, we have some exciting news! We recently launched “The CFT School” which is The Financial Gym’s new Certified Financial Trainer licensing program. In this program, people will go through Trainer Academy and become a Certified Financial Trainer in order to work with their own clients. Up until now, the only way to receive this designation was to work here at The Gym.

Great question, Financial Friend! At the heart of your question is the concept of habit formation. Reward mechanisms can be a big motivator when we are working on creating new habits. In some cases we work the rewards into the formation of a new habit so we can get a little boost each time we work on our goals. For instance, I used to meet up with my friend to work out in the mornings, and seeing someone who I loved spending time with was the reward that got me out the door at 7am.

Interest rates! What are they?

I like to explain interest rates as the cost or price of money in order to borrow it today. This directly relates to a concept called the time-value of money (TVM). TVM is the idea that a sum of money is worth more today than anytime in the future. This is a core principle in economics and finance, and helps explain why interest rates exist. Conceptually, it’s important for you, the reader, to understand that when money is borrowed a fee is added.