What is Modern Financial Wellness?

Modern Financial Wellness was created as a place where people seeking financial peace of mind can come to find advice, guidance and resources aimed at helping them improve their financial wellbeing.

I'm Jim Grace and I am a financial planner. My business partner and I run a wealth management firm called Silver Pine Capital outside of Boston, MA. We often spend a great deal of time working with clients on the "technical" aspects of financial planning. How much do we need to retire? What's the best way to fund Roth IRA accounts? Can I own real estate inside of my IRA? How much can I put into my SEP IRA this year?

These are all great questions, but you aren't likely to find the answers here. Modern Financial Wellness is the place where I explore the more "personal" aspects of personal finance.

I'm a subscriber to the philosophy that a great deal of the financial decisions we make and perhaps as important how we feel about them, have more to do with being a human being than anything else. Where we came from, who our parents were, the teachers and mentors we had along the way, experiences we've had both good and bad, books we read, the news and social media we consume on a daily basis all impact what we do with our money and the emotions involved along the way.

So we'll try to learn more about ourselves as people and hopefully come away with some practical ideas on how to improve our wellbeing, financial or otherwise. I'll do my best to take what I've learned from conversations with podcast guests and expand upon it in a blog post. I'll share any of my own personal experiences I can or other real world examples that my clients have experienced to better highlight where the lessons learned are actually being applied.

I will also be keeping track and cataloguing all of the resources, webpages, books, podcasts or other helpful tools that people share with us during our conversations. So if anything resonates with you along the way, you'll have next steps to explore as you continue your own journey.

About Me:

I live in Portsmouth, NH with my wife Abigail and two young sons Gunnar and Hendrix. We love taking the kids to the beach and feel blessed to live in an amazing community.

I try to play golf once in a while and read as often as I can, but that usually means listening to Audible. Because if I'm in a position to read an actual book these days, I usually fall asleep!

WELLBEING:

The things I love to do to improve my own wellbeing:

• Cooking - I consider myself a half way decent cook and I do love it. But my wife jokes that cooking for friends and family is really my way of taking some time to myself, away from the noise of people gathered in the dining room!
• Exercise - I can feel my anxiety levels rise when I haven't set aside enough time for exercise during the week. My skin starts to crawl and I know I need to go burn some energy. I started swimming laps a few years ago and I love it. I find it's truly one of the only places where I physically can NOT have my phone. And getting into a rhythm with my breathing becomes almost a form of meditation for me.