Local financial planner shares advice through books
Kristina Jackson kjackson@themercury.com Jul 12, 2022
When reading tips for how best to save money for the future, it is easy to get overwhelmed, said Jamie Bosse, a financial planner in Manhattan.
Bosse wants to help people stay out of financial hardship without having to find out the hard way. Bosse has self-published three books to share tips on saving money for people of all ages. She said making a plan can be as simple as changing one habit at a time.
“Doing the small things really adds up in the long run,” she said.
Bosse’s interest in financial planning came from personal experience. When she was in college at K-State, her parents filed for bankruptcy. She said it made her concerned for her parents’ future as well as for her own.
“It raised a lot of questions for me,” she said “How did this happen? What does this mean? That really sparked an interest in me in how to get my own financial life under control.”
Bosse had wanted to be a teacher, but she decided to take a personal finance class. She didn’t intend for it to lead her to a career, but she realized it offered a way to help people learn about budgeting and cash flow and avoiding a crisis.
“There’s not a formal process for teaching you how to budget or how to manage your expenses,” she said. “What you do learn you pick up from your parents or you learn by trial and error.”
Bosse, a mother of four, wrote blog posts for employers in the past and said she also loves to read, so taking the step to write books wasn’t a big leap.
Bosse’s first book, “Milton the Money Savvy Pup Brings Home the Bacon,” was inspired by a shopping trip with her son. He asked for a remote control truck, and Bosse responded that it wasn’t in the spending plan that day. He told her to just order it on Amazon, and Bosse saw an opportunity to teach him about money.
“For kids, money has become almost completely invisible,” Bosse said. “You push a button on your phone and Amazon packages magically show up on your doorstep, or swipe your card.”
She began constructing a story starring their family dog, a corgi named Milton, to teach kids saving habits. In the first book, the character Milton learns to identify coins and about working to earn money and saving some rather than spending it right away.
In the second, “Milton Makes Saving a Habit,” he learns about creating a plan for saving, spending and donating. Bosse is planning a third about gratitude.
She said in addition to introducing kids to money and saving habits, she hopes to spark conversations between parents and their children.
“As a parent, you’re reminded of good money habits and it opens up a door to talk about these things with your kids,” she said. “It helps open the lines of communication and make it something normal you can talk about instead of a taboo topic.”
She’s also written a book for adults called “Money Boss Mom: Helping Young Parents Be the ‘Boss’ of their Financial Future.” It has sections on cash flow, retirement planning, and creating and building college funds for their children and more.
Bosse said thinking ahead can help avoid disaster. By doing what they can to prepare, unexpected changes in circumstance will be easier to address.
“There’s so many moving pieces in your life financially, and then so many risks,” she said. “If there’s a job loss, you still have to pay your normal bills.”
One of her tips is to save 10 to 15 percent of income toward retirement, such as in a 401K or similar plan. She said people can start smaller and bump up 1 percent every time they get a pay raise. She also said one way to prepare for more sporadic expenses, like annual car registration or annual memberships, is to divide the expense into 12 and save that amount in a special account every month.
Bosse said she hopes taking these steps will help people feel more in control of their lives. She said people shouldn’t feel guilty if they don’t practice all these behaviors and even choosing one can help.
“Just do one thing, zone in on that for the month, and then next month, maybe you do one more thing,” she said.
This article was originally published in The Manhattan Mercury on July 12, 2022
Jamie Bosse is a lead financial planner with Aspyre Wealth Partners®. You can schedule a free consultation with Jamie by clicking this calendar link: https://go.oncehub.com/JamieBosse
Jamie A. Bosse is a Certified Financial Planner® professional at Aspyre Wealth Partners® and a board member of the Financial Planning Association of Greater Kansas City. For help with your specific situation contact Jamie at jbosse@aspyrewealth.com
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