“Rough times don’t last long, but a women with a plan does”— Anonymous.
Sister Spokesman’s “Life Planning from 18-62,” Saturday April 4, is sure to be a money-making event for many. No, you will not win any money or get a check, but if you come with the intent to listen and learn, you may gain a personal strategy for saving and managing money, thus making more money for you and your family in the long run.
Select panelists include: Natasha Phillips, Joseph Dillard, and Vicki Casey-Steward, who will share their expertise on life planning. Tamiko Morgan, medical director at Metropolitan Health Care, is co-organizer of the Sister Spokesman event. She is also a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Inc., and serves on the programming and planning committee for the sorority. One of the sorority’s goals is financial literacy.
Morgan had this to say about working with Sister Spokesman: “Along with the committee chair Demeka Campbell-Kilgore, and several other committee members, we thought Sister Spokesman would be a great partnership with Delta Sigma Theta.” Morgan (who has been a panelist in the past), along with many of her committee members who have attended many Sister Spokesman events, thought it would be a great way to blend the annual Delta Financial Literacy event for the local chapter and the Spokesman financial event. She is hoping participants leave with ways to better manage their money and finances.
Dillard is a financial educator who has been in financial services for over 25 years, including 15-20 years as a branch manager and in retail branch banking. “One of the reasons I am in financial education [is], through the years as a branch manager, I saw lots of people who were not able to take advantage of the banking system because they did not know how to manage their money. A lot of those people in our community were people of color.
“So, instead of taking advantage of financial services, they were getting taken advantage of,” Dillard concluded. “They were being charged higher interest rates, they paid NSF fees, they were not able to get loans, and were not able to build credit [or] savings, and manage their money well.
“What I really want to do is change people’s lives through financial education,” continued Dillard. “My role in the event will be to help people set S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely). He added, “People do plan to fail, plan to have bad credit, plan to lose their homes…people fail plan. Because people do not plan, they fail. I truly hope people leave with one goal that helps them next week, next month, next year.” Dillard is available for small group consultations; you can contact him at jdillard3723@msn.com for more information.
Natasha Phillips is a Sr. Associate at a downtown Minneapolis law firm where she is in the tax, trust and estate group. Her primary focus is estate planning, and she does some nonprofit work as well. “We serve everybody up and down the economic scale and do different ways to pass down wealth or plan for death or plan for financial management during life,” said Phillips.
“At the Sister Spokesman event, I plan to present on what kinds of basic underlying laws are regarding estates. So if you were to die without a will, where would your property go? What are the reasons you would want to create a will? And what [will] the whole probate process look like when you do? I plan to cover what basic documents I think everyone over 18 should have,” Phillips said.
Phillips wants to help people understand what estate planning is all about, why you should consider doing estate planning and what it will do for you. “I really hope people come away with an understanding of the probate process and ways to plan for death and life,” Phillips added. She can be reached at nphillips4@gmail.com.
Our other panelist Vicki Casey-Steward, an AARP caregiver legislative advocate, could not be reached by the time this article went to print. However, we are very excited about all of the information she will bring to the panel.
Brandi Phillips welcomes reader comments at bphillips@spokesman-recorder.com.
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