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TOP GRAM San Rafael-based photographer MICHAEL BENESCH took this stunning photo of fog rolling over the Panoramic Highway from the top of Mt. Tam. “I first picked up a camera in elementary school, when I borrowed my cousin’s point-and-shoot to take some pictures at his wedding,” he says. “Twenty years later, I’m still hooked. Whenever the fog is high enough, I rush up Mount Tam to try to capture some fog waves. I stumble upon something new every time I venture up the mountain, like the foggy light ray burst in this photo.” To see more of Michael’s beautiful fog photos and other Bay Area shots, follow him on Instagram @mbenesch. Want to see your photo in print?

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MARCH 2022 CAN’T MISS VIRTUAL EVENTS!

Family, Law and Finance

Bill Bockwoldt, financial advisor at Wealthspire Advisors and Albert Straus, founder/ CEO of Straus Family Creamery, will join the virtual stage to discuss essential topics about philanthropy, legacy, passing on values with wealth and more.

Date: March 17, 2022

Register now at marinmagazine.com/virtual-events.

What’s on Replay

A Sound Body and Mind: Finding Your Center

Three experts, including Mar Soraparu, partner & chief wellness officer at BIÂN, and Sozan Miglioli, president at the San Francisco Zen Center, share advice on finding your center. We were honored to include U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation president Christine Walshe and raise money for the foundation.

Family Philanthropy: Presented by Bank of America Private Bank

In celebration of National Philanthropy Day, Make It Better Media Group held a special virtual event presented by Bank of America Private Bank that brought together an expert panel of philanthropic strategists and wealth advisors along with leaders in the nonprofit sector to discuss topics that included the current state of the nonprofit and social sector, donor pivots, mission alignment, giving through an equity lens and much more. Some of the panelists included: Celena Roldan, chief executive officer, American Red Cross greater Chicago; Shelley Patenaude, president, Founders’ Board, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital; and Ramsay Slugg, wealth strategies advisor, Bank of America Private Bank.

Watch all of our virtual events on demand at better.net/mibtv

At a recent Make It Better Media Group virtual event, financial advisor and College of Marin professor Helen Abe offered tips to help women achieve their most important financial goals.

Women as a group face many financial challenges. We earn less on average during our careers compared to men, and we compound that shortcoming by investing less. One in five divorced women lives in poverty. All of these shortfalls send us into retirement with significantly smaller nest eggs than men have, yet we live longer, meaning we actually need more savings to cover our living expenses and medical care in later years. As grim as all this sounds, financial advisor Helen Abe knows women don’t have to accept being limited by circumstances. She knows this thanks to her mother, an immigrant who earned just pennies for every piece of cloth she sewed together in a Chinatown sweatshop. “My mother taught me that it’s not how much you earn, but how much you save that really matters,” Abe says. In fact, through frugality — no vacations, no toys — Abe’s mother and father were able to save enough from their meager incomes to buy a home for themselves and their five children. Today, Abe teaches financial literacy for women in her mother’s honor. In her College of Marin class, Wi$e Up: Financial Education for Women, Abe teaches women ranging in age from their 20s to their 80s to take control of their financial lives. “Many of them are reporting back to me that they’re now debt-free when they thought they could never be,” Abe says. “Some are actually homeowners now. And mostly all of them are wiser.” You can be wiser, too, by following Abe’s top financial tips for women, which she shared in a recent virtual Fireside Chat with Make It Better Media Group Founder Susan Noyes.

1. Live below your means. Every other tip here follows this directive.

2. Figure out your income and expenses. If you aren't taking in more than you’re spending, you know you’ve got a problem. The next step is to pinpoint the problem.

3. Use the 50/30/20 rule. This means that out of your take-home pay, half should go to needs, 30% to wants, and 20% to savings or debt payments.

4. Use categories to pinpoint overspending. For a month or more, track every penny spent, by category. This will help you figure out what you need to change. Some expenses are easy to cut, like canceling a streaming service. Others might require bigger sacrifices. For instance, if housing costs more than 50% of your income, you may need to consider getting a roommate. 5. Eliminate credit card debt. High interest rates mean that this kind of debt can snowball and rob you of your financial future. Put every available penny toward credit card payments until the debt is gone. If you have a lot of credit card debt, consider consolidating it with a bank loan in order to reduce your interest rate during the payoff period.

6. Save in both cash and investments. After paying off high-interest-rate debt, your first priority should be to build an emergency fund that covers three to six months of living expenses. Keep this in cash or a cash equivalent (such as Treasury bills or a money market account). But don’t keep all of your savings in cash. Putting money into investments like mutual funds may seem risky, but cash loses value over time due to inflation. When you invest, it’s like having a second job — except your money, not you, is doing the work.

7. Don’t forget the income part of the equation. If you can’t cut your expenses enough to spend less than you earn, this means you need to earn more money. Consider a second job, a home business, or more training that might qualify you for a promotion.

8. Pay it forward. As soon as you're able, consider helping others through philanthropy. The more you can give away, the more you get back in return.