Are you holding onto a 3% mortgage and wondering if moving will ever make sense again?

With rates in the 6% range and home prices well above where they were a few years ago, many homeowners are staying put, and buyers have fewer homes to choose from.

Todd Sheppard, founder and owner of Inspired Mortgage Brokers and a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, explains how he builds a preapproval around a comfortable monthly payment, how discount points and loan recasting work, and what divorcing spouses should know about keeping or buying a home.

Listen in as Todd shares real client examples to help you set a price range you can live with, decide when buying down your rate pays off, and plan your next home purchase during a divorce.

What You’ll Learn:

• What's keeping homeowners with low rates from selling and what could change it.
• The question to ask before "How much can I qualify for?"
• A $250 option that can lower your mortgage payment without refinancing.
• How to tell if buying down your rate is worth the upfront cost.
• What's behind the rising age of first-time home buyers.
• How divorcing spouses can buy a new home while still on the old mortgage.
• What to expect when refinancing to buy out a spouse after divorce.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• "One of the biggest mistakes folks make over the years is liquidating their retirement account because the stock market wasn't doing anything." - Todd Sheppard
• "If it's spelled out in the settlement agreement that one spouse is responsible for it, then the other spouse is not. We don't have to include that mortgage payment in their debt-to-income ratio." - Todd Sheppard
• "For every $100,000 you pay down the loan balance, it would reduce your payment by about $570 a month." - Todd Sheppard

Resources:

• Todd Sheppard: Website | LinkedIn | 770-304-6699
• Genevieve George: Website | LinkedIn

Connect with Us:

If you're ready to stop avoiding your finances and start building the future you deserve, schedule a free call with me at pelicanfinancialplanning.com and let’s create your personalized financial plan together.

And if you want ongoing guidance, clarity, and confidence as you grow your wealth, subscribe to our newsletter for financial insights delivered right to your inbox.

How much is one skipped negotiation actually costing you?

A missed $10,000 raise does not stay a $10,000 problem. It resets the base that every future increase is calculated from, shrinks the employer match, and removes years of compounding from the retirement number. Compensation decisions are financial planning decisions, even when they feel like career decisions.

Stacy Jackson, executive coach and founder of SBJ Consulting, works with leaders on understanding total compensation as a leadership skill. She breaks down which parts of an offer are genuinely negotiable, where people undervalue themselves without realizing it, and what the research shows about the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood premium.

Listen in as Stacy explains how to anchor your number to the market instead of your current pay, how to ask direct questions without being labeled difficult, and what to protect during a career break so re-entry starts from a stronger position.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why base salary is often the least flexible part of a compensation package.
• Where to find credible market data before entering a negotiation.
• Why anchoring your ask to your current salary limits lifetime earnings.
• How the motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium appear in pay research.
• How mitigating language weakens a request before it is made.
• Why equity, vesting schedules, and benefits belong in the total compensation math.
• What to maintain during a career break to protect future earning power.
• How workplace proximity and mentorship affect early-career pay outcomes.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• "You should never anchor your base salary number off what you're currently making. That's another huge mistake." - Stacy Jackson
• "If you haven't been compensated the way you want in the past, why is that? It's not necessarily because you didn't deserve it. It's because you didn't advocate for it." - Stacy Jackson
• "All you need is somebody to answer one question, and you're off and running, because the next question will give you the next question, will give you the next question." - Stacy Jackson

Resources:

• Stacy Jackson: Website | LinkedIn | stacy@sbjconsultinginc.com
• Genevieve George: Website | LinkedIn
• Thought Partner Newsletter
• Glassdoor
• SHRM

Connect with Us:

If you're ready to stop avoiding your finances and start building the future you deserve, schedule a free call with me at pelicanfinancialplanning.com and let’s create your personalized financial plan together.

And if you want ongoing guidance, clarity, and confidence as you grow your wealth, subscribe to our newsletter for financial insights delivered right to your inbox.

How do you make the biggest decisions of your life when nothing around you feels stable?

Major life transitions strip away the routines that make people feel capable, and they tend to arrive right when the most consequential decisions need to be made. The instinct is to wait until the dust settles. But waiting is its own decision, and it usually costs more than people expect.

Marisa Messana, former professional golfer and founder of Marigold Elite Partners, coaches executives and high achievers on performance systems built for this kind of pressure. In this episode, she walks through her three pillars of mental resilience, physical optimization, and emotional intelligence, and how they combine into what she calls a personal operating system.

Listen in as Marisa breaks down the daily mental gym practice that sets the tone for an entire day, the weekly reflection ritual that builds self-trust, and the values exercise that reveals what people actually want.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why people in transition tend to make decisions based on past patterns.
• How the mental gym practice works and why the first 30 to 60 minutes of the morning matter most.
• The three foundational health levers that determine your available energy.
• How the weekly reflection ritual builds discernment and removes the pressure to be perfect.
• How zooming out and zooming in keeps long-term goals from becoming overwhelming.
• What controlling the controllables looks like in practice during a chaotic season.
• Why golf works as a setting for building confidence, trust, and business relationships.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• "It's very common that I see women making decisions based off of the patterns of their past, rather than the desired future that they're looking to create." - Marisa Messana
• “There's so many things in transition that you can't control, but what are the things that you can control? That's your own energy, your mindset, and how you show up in relationships." - Marisa Messana
• "If there is an area that you're deficient in or maybe you don't feel comfortable, invest your resources in getting the support that you need to get there, whether it's golf, whether it's business, whether it's your finances." - Marisa Messana

Resources:

• Marisa Messana: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn
• Genevieve George: Website | LinkedIn
• Corporate Group Programs
• 1:1 Programs
• Function Health

Connect with Us:

If you're ready to stop avoiding your finances and start building the future you deserve, schedule a free call with me at pelicanfinancialplanning.com and let’s create your personalized financial plan together.

And if you want ongoing guidance, clarity, and confidence as you grow your wealth, subscribe to our newsletter for financial insights delivered right to your inbox.