Welcome! I’m Michelle

I support parents & educators in identifying, setting, and reaching their

financial goals, including investing to make work optional!

Do you want to feel confident investing for
you and your family's future?

From financial confusion
to financial intention

Everyone always has financial advice to give, like “using a budget”, but most people don’t really explain why. Here, my focus is on YOU.

Financial education applied to YOU

I’ll cover all sorts of financial information, and I will always come back to how it relates to you and your life. I want you to feel confident as you make your own financial decisions, so you can intentionally use money to create a life that you love.

Awareness of systems and situations

I will NEVER shame you for your financial situation! I understand that there are several reasons why we’re in the financial situations that we are in (including systemic racism and other forms of oppression, schools that failed to give us financial education, not having any other options, having a bad relationship with money, and so many more). I don’t do shame and blame.

Personal support & accountability

I integrate 1:1 support into all my courses and programs, and I’m here to help you figure out where you do have power and what kinds of strategic changes you can make to reach your goals.

What my students are saying

"Usually I feel bored when I think about the nitty gritty of money and math, but because we are pairing empowering knowledge with specific goals in my life that actually do make me excited, (I can’t believe I am actually saying this) I am looking forward to digging in about the bolsa de valores." (stock market)

- Alicia S., Module 1, Level Up Your Finances

Are you ready to put your money to work, intentionally creating a life that you love?

There’s a lot of financial information out there, but often it’s prescriptive, telling you how to live your life while knowing nothing about you, your values, your goals, and your dreams. I want to help you understand those things about yourself, and then put your money to work in order to provide yourself with a fulfilling life, whatever that looks like for you. Get started with my free Money Strategy Assessment!

Onaka Family in February of 2020

What New Parents Need to Know about Money – Part 2

What New Parents Need to Know about Money – Part...

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IntentionalMoneyLifeAugust 15, 2022

Financial Literacy Courses

Financial Literacy Courses: Take Control of Your Money Today

Financial Literacy Courses: Take Control of Your Money Today Guest...

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IntentionalMoneyLifeMay 14, 2022

Michelle and baby Kaiya - 2017 - New Parents Blog

What New Parents Need to Know about Money – Part 1

What New Parents Need to Know about Money – Part...

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IntentionalMoneyLifeMarch 21, 2022

Blog - You will never pay more in taxes than you earn, so don't be afraid to earn more.

Reaching for your next tax bracket

Reaching for your next tax bracket You will never pay...

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IntentionalMoneyLifeMarch 1, 2022

intentionalmoneylife

Financial educator helping higher ed pros & parents plan for retirement + Mom + Paraplanner
Free resources to help you invest and retire sooner ⬇️

We let so many things get in our way and stop us f

We let so many things get in our way and stop us from investing. From lack of knowledge to misunderstanding the stock market to fears about volatility and timing to misinformation to mindset issues like wondering if $20 is enough to invest...

So I want you to stop and take a step back from all of that. Do you have some disposable income? And you don't have high interest debt? (And hopefully you have some of an emergency fund.) Then stop getting in your own way, start investing!!!

Check out my blog post for some of the basic decisions you'll need to make as you start this journey. And feel free to reach out with questions! intentionalmoneylife.com/startinvesting

#StartInvesting #nevertoolate #nevertooearly #investing101 #investingforbeginners #millennialmoney #momsofinstagram #collegegrad #educatorsofinstagram #intentionalmoneylife #moneymindset

This was the first (and likely best) blog post I e

This was the first (and likely best) blog post I ever wrote, and it's just as valuable now as it was back in 2021 when I wrote it!

It gives you an overview of stock market basics, how investment fees work, the evidence that shows that only a small number of actively managed funds survive (and even less beat the index), the impact of those investing fees long term, and several of my visuals that you can save.

So if any of this stuff seems new to you, I'd strongly encourage you to check it out!

intentionalmoneylife.com/fees

#investingfees #expenseratios #activevspassiveinvesting #investing101 #blogpost #intentionalmoneylife #indexfunds #rothira #moneystrategy #evidencebased

As I sat down to come up with something to post la

As I sat down to come up with something to post last night, my 6-year old came in to say good night to me. She asked what I was doing and I told her I needed to write something to share with people about money, and I asked her what people should know about it. She said "ummm don't spend all your money". Which is of course perfect 😍

It's also perfect because just this weekend, she finally chose to spend some of her money. She showed restraint and bought 3 things from the dollar store (despite her sister buying 5), and she talked about how she wanted to buy more but she didn't want to spend all her money. Then when we got home and she got out her money to give to me, she decided that she also wanted to invest $20 for the future. So I opened her a UTMA account at Fidelity, transferred her money, and put in the order to buy the Fidelity total US stock market index fund (FSKAX). I explained to her that the purchase won't go through until Monday evening but after that I can show her. She does have some money invested already (we have a 529 and brokerage accounts in our names for her) but this is the first time she's actively decided to invest her own money, and I'm super excited to watch her learn about the ups and downs of the stock market!

So anyways, back to her message. Don't spend all your money now (even when you're tempted to), set some of that money aside for future you!

#kidwisdom #lifelessonsfromkids #moneymindset #moneymatters #IntentionalMoneyLife #lifelessons #moneytalk #momsofinstagram #6yearoldwisdom #futurethinking

Are you ready to take action to improve your finan

Are you ready to take action to improve your financial situation?

Do you want to feel confident that you are managing your money well, to protect yourself in emergencies and also to help you save for short-term goals?

Do you want to put your money to work towards your future, and know exactly what that looks like and how to do it?

Do you have money questions that you need answers to (or that you need to make sure the answers you already received make sense)?

Do you want a second opinion as to how you could prioritize your finances or pay down your debt?

Do you need someone to help you go in to your 401k investment options and understand what they mean?

For these and many other questions or issues, I want you to know that I'm here!!! If it's a quick question we can just message about it. If it's a more in-depth question or issue, we can do a Money Strategy Session. If you're ready to really dig in and learn, I have my Level Up Your Finances program. Whatever it is, know that I'm here and I'd be so happy to help! Send me a message and let's get started!

#moneycoach #moneystrategy #investing101 #debtpayoff #financialpriorities #momsofinstagram #educatorsofinstagram #supportnotshame #intentionalmoneylife #rothira #financialeducator

I don’t mind working out… but it’s definitel

When our "reward" for doing something is far in th

When our "reward" for doing something is far in the future, it becomes a lot harder to convince us to actually do the thing even though we know we should.

So I'd encourage you to envision yourself 10, 20, 30, 40 years in the future, after investing from now until then.

What does your life look like?
What did investing this whole time allow you to do?
Do you have more opportunities now because of how your money has grown?
Was it worth it?

Try to make your future life as real as possible, because through really seeing and understanding that future, you may find the motivation and encouragement to make it happen. And when you get there, you will thank yourself for all your hard work!!!

#longtermplanning #longtermthinking #yourfutureselfwillthankyou #youcandohardthings #knowledgeispower #shorttermpainlongtermgain #CompoundInterest #momlife #educatorsofig #intentionalmoneylife

I got this question recently, and honestly see it

I got this question recently, and honestly see it quite a bit in Facebook groups. So here are the things that I would consider when trying to decide if you should roll over your old 401k (or 403b, or 457, or whatever) money to your new employer or to a Roth IRA.

Check out the images for explanations. Note that I do not suggest rolling the traditional money to a Roth account because that's a taxable event. Aka if you rolled $50,000 from a traditional 401k to a Roth IRA one year, then your income for that year would go up by $50,000 and your taxes would go up accordingly (assuming you were in the 22% federal tax bracket and the 8.75% state, and that the extra income didn't push you into the next tax bracket, that would cost you 30.75% or $15,375 in taxes).

Do you have more questions? Send them over!

#moneyquestions #moneydecisions #moneystrategy #momsofinstagram #moneymanagement #RothIRA #moneycoach #401k #educatorsofIG #howtoinvest #intentionalmoneylife

Now is a good time to check in on your current fin

Now is a good time to check in on your current financial situation!

For instance, you may still have time to make changes to your retirement contributions at work! If that's the case, it would be smart to figure out how much you contributed and if you'd like to make any changes.

- Did you get the full match at least?
- Were you trying to max the account, and if so, will you?
- Did you invest the amount you decided you needed to invest when you set your long term goals? [Wait, you didn't do that yet? Maybe that's something to tackle either over the holidays or in January when your life gets a little less chaotic!]

As for IRAs and HSAs, you still have time to max those out (you have until the tax deadline, aka April of next year). That being said, if you are contributing directly from your paycheck to your HSA, then you'd want to focus on getting that maxed!

Also, if you have an FSA account, make sure you understand the rules and whether you need to be spending down those accounts in the next few weeks! [Often, with a healthcare FSA you can either roll over $500 or have until March 15th to spend the money, but you need to know for sure how your company does it!]

It's also a good time to check in on your spending and see how that's going on. And check on your sinking funds to see if any of them need topped off. Which doesn't mean you have to be stressed finding the money to do that right now, but at least you'll know where your focus should go.

#moneymatters #moneymanagement #moneymindset #RothIRA #401kmatch #HSA #fsa #FinancialCheckUp #momlife #intentionalmoneylife

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!!! This weekend is one

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!!!

This weekend is one of my absolute favorite weekends of the year!! We’re usually all home for the full 4 days… we start it off with delicious food with friends, then when it’s nice like this weekend was I moved on to putting up my Christmas lights (and I didn’t fall off the ladder!), then we decorated the windows, went and picked out and cut down our Christmas tree, decorated the tree… my husband made egg rolls with the kids, and we had yummy thanksgiving leftovers always available… I made brownies and the kids and I practiced our handstands… I worked on my paint by numbers… and I got to sleep in twice. It was really just a lovely weekend ❤️❤️❤️

I hope you all had great weekends as well! I’m so thankful for all of you, those who I know and those who I don’t 😊. Happy holiday season!!

#thanksgiving #christmastree #familytime #momlife #longweekendfun #familyfun #familyadventures #bestweekendever #holidayseason #momsofinstagram #intentionalmoneylife

Are you just now realizing that the way you're inv

I've used pie charts to show the impact of investi

I've used pie charts to show the impact of investing fees in the past, but now I wanted to show how the impact of those fees increases over time. As you can see, with the 2% fee, you lose an additional 10%-ish (of what you could have had) every 10 years, so that after 50 years, you've lost more to fees than you now have invested!

Come back on Friday to see what happens when you were paying a 2% fee and then you switch that to a 0.04% fee instead!

#expenseratios #fees #frugalliving #intentionalmoneylife #investing101 #indexfunds #knowledgeispower #rothira #budgetfriendly #howmoneyworks

Many of you are familiar with my pie chart visuals

Many of you are familiar with my pie chart visuals about the impact of investing fees (the 2nd one is a slightly modified and updated version of an old one).

Someone requested a version with a shorter investing horizon, so I created this new one, with a $1,000 initial investment plus $6,000 annually for 25 years with an average return of 9%. [I honestly would prefer a lower return rate, but I wanted these two charts to be comparable and didn't have the time to redo the first one, so I chose the same rate.]

Note that when your timeline is shorter, the impact of fees is less, however it is still pretty impactful. As you can see, the 2% fees reduced the final total by almost 25% and almost $130,000 compared to the 0.04% fee.

Keep checking for the next few days as I share additional visuals around the long-term impact of investing fees (as well as the impact of getting out of high fees and into lower fee investments!).

[And if none of this stuff makes sense, check out my blog post, intentionalmoneylife.com/fees for a bit of an overview of investing and what expense ratios are.]

#investingfees #Fees #CompoundInterest #investing101 #howtoinvest #RothIRA #knowledgeispower #IntentionalMoneyLife

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