Layne Steffen Financial Coach

09/05/2026

Helpful savings guide...

09/05/2026

I haven't posted in a while. My mind has been elsewhere the last few weeks. Because of this, it hit me again how important it is to have a financial plan. Because life happens. We get distracted. We lose interest. Priorities shift. 🎭

Having a financial plan with automated investing, regular giving, saving, and budgeting is absolutely paramount to building a stable and long-term future. 💯

Of course, life events may require financial adjustments such as temporarily reducing investing and that's okay. If you have a solid plan in motion, you can modify as needed in the moment to accommodate life's unexpected opportunities and set backs!

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08/15/2026

Investing tip #10 - Last one! Invest in yourself and others. 🏃‍♂️‍➡️

While stock market returns and compound interest grows a financial portfolio over time, taking care of your own mind, body, and soul and those around you will pay numerous benefits over the course of life.

Mind - always keep learning new things. Seek insights into how things work. Read a book. Try something new. 📖

Body - stay active, eat well, and regularly rest. 🛌

Soul - walk with God and live in harmony with those around you. ✝

Each of the above takes an investment of time, sacrifice, some pain, humility, and sometimes delayed gratification. But keep the return in mind. Focus on the ROI. And just like stock investing, develop regular patterns that promote and sustain your well-being.

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08/15/2026

This is why dollar cost averaging and automating regular investing is so important! Unless you have hours of time in a day and advanced analytical tools, keep it simple by regularly investing when the market is high and when the market is low.

This is going to ruffle some feathers... but you really shouldn’t be trying to “buy the dip.”

This is one of the most common phrases tossed around the investing world and at first glance, it makes sense. If you can “buy the dip,” you get a nice lower buy-in price and can ride it straight back up. More money in your pocket, right?!

Here is the thing though: no one really knows when a dip is coming. The market can be “overvalued” by whatever metric you want to look at (P/E, Buffett indicator, earnings yield, etc. etc.) and the market can continue to rip along for another year or more and gain substantial value. It can, and often does, surge beyond what a “dip” would bring it back to.

It’s really hard to internalize this, even for experienced investors, but the market reflects all current information. That means that if there was credible reason for the market to dip, it would already be in the dip.

This strategy of moving in and out of the market to get a lower buy-in price will make you a billionaire if you can do it with any semblance of reliability. Since you’re not a billionaire, you shouldn’t be trying to time the market.

Real wealth is built by buying and holding assets through the ups and downs. Unfortunately you’re not going to do better in the long term by trying to time market corrections.

- Matt

08/07/2026

👇

A frequent comparison among people who haven't learned about investing is that the stock market is like a casino and that buying stocks is equivalent to gambling your money.

From the outside, that might be what it looks like. You see rich getting richer, people blowing their life savings, and everything in between. Like most things in life though, the devil is in the details.

Part of what makes this confusing is that you CAN treat the stock market like a casino. Heck, there is multi-million person sub-reddit called WallStreetBets that doesn't even hide the fact that they are doing that. Short term fluctuations are effectively random, so if you throw your money in, it kind of is like a roulette table.

What's even MORE confusing is that some people research a ton, and then do what you see on this graph. They let their behavioral tendencies and fear get the best of them and they do the classic "buy high, sell low." To be a truly good investor, you have to be willing to wait WAY longer than any gambler or emotional stock buyer would wait to reap the benefits of your decision.

When you take guess work out of which stocks to buy by buying an index fund, and you take timing luck out of the equation by ALWAYS buying consistently, luck is eliminated from the investing equation.

Historically if you do this, you will ALWAYS make money over a decade plus long period. I'm not kidding, always. And if that's not true in the future? Well, if population growth stops, innovation grinds to a halt, and there is zero global efficiency improvement, your portfolio will be the least of your problems.

Buy an index fund and chill and you won't end up like our friend on the graph here. End of rant!

- Matt

P.S. I use SoFi for my high-yield savings account and they are running a sign-up bonus where you can get up to a $400 with opening a new account and connecting direct deposit. Comment "HYSA" and I'll send you a link to get your bonus!

07/31/2026

Investing tip #9 - Watch emotions😁🥺

If you were holding Microsoft yesterday, you would be quite elated. Pleasantly surprised maybe. But happy nonetheless. You may have even subtly felt like you were a savvy investor with good instincts.

If you were holding Meta, you would have been disappointed and frustrated. You'd feel lousy and deflated. You'd feel like a poor investor with bad intuition.

Yesterday was a good reminder for me that holding individual stocks for long term investing can be more emotional than it needs to be. The emotions described in both cases from yesterday are very real for people and can then make them buy or sell at the unwise times and make poor decisions.

Broad-based ETFs and mutual funds (many of which contain both Microsoft and Meta) are great investment tools for regular every day people who don't want to experience as many emotional rollercoasters that come with holding individual stocks.

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07/24/2026

Side hustles. Try one. Find something you enjoy doing that brings in some extra cash. This isn't required especially for those of us balancing family and work life already. But for short term goals, paying off a debt, or expanding your skill set, a side hustle can be rewarding both personally and financially!

07/24/2026

Struggling with your finances? Do you feel like things are out of control? You likely don't have a good plan. While there are several solid approaches, Ramsey's "Baby Steps" has helped countless people develop a plan and challenge poor money choices. That said, knowing about a good plan and actually doing it are two different things. That's where coaching can be pivotal to actually make progress. Someone to mentor, inspire, challenge, affirm, and walk along side to help you towards financial peace!

07/11/2026

Investing tip #8 - Have a strategy! 👈

I was talking to someone recently and they were showing me their holdings in their employer 401k. They had a little of this and a little of that: Vanguard funds, a target date retirement fund, some in a Baron Growth Fund and some bonds to which they said, "Because everyone needs bonds." This person was in their low 40s.

They had diversification down, for sure, but in reality, they had no strategy. No plan.

I walked them through two things. First, their investment choices had quite a bit of cross over when looking at what the funds were actually invested in. So it was inefficient to have a target date fund and other funds with similar underlying stocks. Second, after explaining more about bonds and them being several years out from retirement, they agreed they didn't really need/want bonds as part of their holdings. (Bonds are great for those near or in retirement but not those several years from retirement).

Don't hodge-podge it. Have a strategy. 100% in a target date fund is a sound strategy. So is 100% in the S&P 500. There are certainly other approaches. But it's okay to have a simple, even boring, approach. The important part is knowing what you are invested in and why.

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07/11/2026

Regular, consistent investing is key. Don't time the market. Start early! Time in the market is more important!