It’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, we were eagerly and anxiously counting down from ten to shout, “Happy New Year!” and give a nice, warm welcome to 2023. I don’t know about you, but to me, this past year, or rather, past few years, flew by in an instant, yet so much has happened. There have been ups and downs and twists and turns and everything in between. As I reflect back on these last three years in particular, I, presumably like many of you, have experienced incredible highs and unfortunate lows.

Life is filled with good times and bad times. But that’s just the way life goes sometimes, right? We have experienced our fair share of many of these moments—navigating our way through a pandemic, loss, inflation, financial hardships, and an ever-changing economy—together. If we’ve learned anything these last few years, it’s that life is unpredictable and riddled with uncertainty.

When reflecting on life, especially in times of hardship, it’s easy to look back and want something different for ourselves and our loved ones or wish for things to go back to “normal.” But what even is normal anyway? Normalcy is complacency; it’s what we’re used to and comfortable with. What we need is to evolve, right alongside life. Life happens and things change at the drop of a dime, and we’re forced to do nothing but adapt. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing over the last few years, right? We’ve been adapting and showing tremendous growth in challenging situations, which is something we should be very proud of. And that’s my hope for us as we all begin this new year.

We can never be sure what the future holds, but we can have hope and be positive and know that regardless of life’s uncertainties, we are bound to come out stronger and better than ever before.

2023 Financial Topics

So, what awaits us this year? While no one can answer that definitively, I think we can all agree that this year will likely be filled with more questions, more uncertainties, and more unpredictable moments, but there are steps we can take—together—to better position ourselves financially.

This year, we’ll be discussing a variety of financial topics that you may have burning questions about and providing you with advice to navigate through the economy and its uncertainties.

Here are some topics we'll be taking a deeper look at throughout the course of this year:

• Surviving in a Rising Interest Rate Environment

• Refinancing a Variable Rate Loan versus a Fixed Rate Loan in the Current Rate Environment

• Student Loans

• Leasing versus Buying a Vehicle

• Renting versus Buying a Home

• Saving Money and Avoiding Impulse Buys

  • Wants versus needs

• Retirement Planning

  • Remember to take advantage of your company’s 401k benefits

• Building an Emergency Fund

We’ll be diving into the above topics in detail one by one throughout the entire year, so stay tuned!