Tag: financial planning

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What’s the Point of All This Work as a Cop?

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If you’ve followed my writings for a while, you may have noticed my slant on financial planning for police officers is less about money and more about a rewarding and satisfying life.  Money is a necessary part of life, but not the purpose of it.  Sometimes as cops, we get so focused on earning money, that we forget what that money is for.

Here is a tale that always brings me back to reality when it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.   I’ve seen this many places so I don’t know who credit as the original author.

“It had been almost two years since the American businessman, with an MBA from a prestigious Ivy League school, took a vacation.  He had a very important role as a business advisor at… Continue reading

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Cops Take Heed: Experts Say We Are Entering a Recession, You Need to Act Now!

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We’re facing unprecedented times in our economy. The government is in the midst of a $700 billion bailout.  The stock market has plummeted and we are in the middle of a housing market meltdown.  Unemployment is increasing as well as gas prices (depending on the day).  If you’re following the financial media you already know we’re facing difficult economic conditions and it may seem as if the end is near. Continue reading

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Successful Cop: Chuck Rylant

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I recently had the opportunity to interview a police officer who really has planned for success in his life and his career.

Chuck Rylant began his law enforcement career in 1998 with the Lompoc Police Department in California. During those four years, he worked in a patrol car and later as a field training officer. While working graveyards on patrol, he chipped away at his bachelor degree by taking one class at a time. Looking back, he can remember struggling to stay awake while doing homework between 3:00 AM – 6:00 AM when there were only a few calls during his patrol shift. Unfortunately, he went through a divorce and had to put off finishing college for a couple of years while he got his “life in order”. Continue reading

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How’s Your Financial Health?

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Everyone is talking these days about higher gasoline prices, higher food costs and generally higher costs for everything we enjoy.  At the same time the financial markets of the world are struggling, record numbers of people are losing their homes and the misuse of credit has become a global problem.

How’s your financial health?  Are you unsettled by all around you?  Even though you are a police officer are you in the middle of some of these problems?  As a cop how well to you manage the financial resources you have? Continue reading

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When Will You Retire from Your Police Career?

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As a working cop have you thought about when you are going to retire? Maybe you have a fixed police retirement date that’s not within your control or maybe you can plan your own date but haven’t even started to plan for it yet. Maybe you are like many other police officers in that you feel that you will never be able to retire and that they will find you withering away in your patrol car at age 95.

I’d like to ask you to consider another factor and that is how long can you stay successful in the job? How long can you tolerate the stress and demands of the job and still perform it at a level that you know is acceptable? I don’t think the financial planning aspect and the personal health planning aspect of this decision need to be or even should be separate. Continue reading