Personal finance expert Lynette Khalfani Cox was less than 5 feet from the reception area at News Corp's offices in Manhattan to check in for an interview with MarketWatch before she ran into an old colleague who now runs one of the departments where Khalfani Cox works. She had been working, before she was laid off, for about 20 years.
She's come back before, but not quite this way. She's here to talk about her new book, “Bounce Back: The Definitive Guide to Financial Resilience,” in which she highlights losing that dream job in 2003 and turning defeat into an eminently successful career.
“It's kind of surreal to be back here, but it feels like a full circle moment in a lot of ways,” says Khalfani-Cox, sitting in the conference room.
After years as a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal, including as an on-air correspondent for CNBC's Journal, Khalfani-Cox immediately picked herself up from her layoff and started her own financial education company, The Money. The coach is with her husband, Earl. She has spent years helping people get out of debt, and has written several books on the subject, including the bestseller “Zero Debt.” There have been many adventures along the way, such as being a personal finance expert on “The Dr. Oz Show” and raising three children. (Disclosure: I also wrote a freelance column for WalletPop, a website I ran that dissolved in 2011.)
“My last day on air at CNBC was March 1, 2003, and that same month I started my company. Now I'm over 20 years old.” [into it and] It strengthens. Honestly, I haven't looked back.
10 fucking Ds
Downsizing isn't the only challenge covered by “Bounce Back” and the corollary “Bounce Back Workbook” being released at the same time. Khalfani Cox goes through nine other “scary situations” — divorce, death of a loved one, disability, illness, disaster, debt, damaged credit, dollar shortfall, discrimination — most of which she went through herself and came out the other side. side.
Her key to dealing with all of this stems from the way she handled her layoff, which was the belief that you can't let bad circumstances derail you from your long-term goals. You deal with it and move on.
“People resort to austerity when faced with a financial crisis. The trend is to kind of shut down, and in some cases even double down on doing bad things,” says Khalfani-Cox. “People will ask me, what should I do first: pay off my debt or save?” ? And I say you have to do both. The two things are not mutually exclusive, and it is in your interest to do both.
Take, for example, what happens when people turn to 401(k) loans and hardship withdrawals. Typically, people will stop contributing as they withdraw money, which makes sense intuitively, but not financially in the long run. “They don't realize they're making the problem worse,” says Khalfani-Cox. “You should definitely continue to contribute, especially when you have a really strong year for the stock market, like we did in 2023.”
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That's how Khalfani Cox learned to manage things when she went through that business crisis 20 years ago and needed seed money to start her company. She was spending her retirement savings because she didn't have emergency funds, but at the same time, she started saving again for retirement from the company's proceeds.
“I went through a period where I saved less, but then my husband and I opened a solo 401(k), and we're just maxing it out for both of us every year,” she says. “Our retirement strategy is about broad diversification and being in areas where we feel most comfortable. So I definitely invest in the stock market, but we also own eight investment properties and use real estate as part of the cornerstone of our retirement strategies.”
“D” is something most people don't talk about
Dealing with real estate prompted Khalfani Cox to include an explicit chapter on discrimination in her book, “Bounce Back.”
“As I was writing, it occurred to me that a lot of personal finance matters are laden with judgment. “It's as if the morality police come out and start pointing fingers, telling people that any shortcoming they have is practically a sin,” she says. “There's not much recognition of the powers that be.” The systemic structure that plays a role and that can sometimes present barriers to people achieving financial security. So I just wanted to put it out there.”
Discrimination in the financial sector can come in many different ways for many communities, whether it is about race, gender, sexuality, disability, or any other factor. Most of this is due to missing opportunities or getting a lower offer in some way.
The story Khalfani Cox tells in her book is about how she, as an African-American applicant in a predominantly white town, got her home appraised for a loan worth $100,000 below market value. “I can't tell you how many black people have had this experience,” she says. She and her husband appealed through the bank, sent a second appraiser — this time an African-American man — and got a better result.
“There is a whole issue that the financial services industry needs to address when it comes to financial inclusion, and they are very aware of that,” says Khalfani-Cox. “It needs to be addressed on multiple fronts, not just from the standpoint of what's happening with respect to housing.”
The message of “Bounce Back” is that the way forward – and all the other disasters that can strike – is to keep fighting.
“My sisters and I always use this expression: One monkey never stops coming. It means the show must go on, you have power through things,” says Khalfani Cox. “Change will happen for all of us. It gets dropped into your lap whether you want it or not. But change is something external that happens to you. Transformation happens within you, when you process the change that has occurred in your life. “It is an opportunity for a new, brighter future.”
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