The holidays can be a wonderful time. A time to rekindle family bonds, share new friendships, and welcome people into your home. Everyone has different ways to spend the holiday season but people often fall into similar traps-- overspending is the main culprit.

Your life as an athlete has been exciting. You’ve cultivated a strong work ethic, determination, grit, and perseverance-- skills that everyone desires and spends years trying to attain. You’ve fought battles, grown as an individual, but more importantly learned to grow as a team, a unit of like-minded people pursuing the same cause: victory.

We live in a world hyper-aware of the present. Phrases like carpe diem, c’est la vie, it’s now or never, you only live once, and many others like these have ingrained in us a mindset and lifestyle around instant gratification.

Education-- in its broadest scope-- is the bedrock for advancement in our society. It provides a framework for expansion in technology, science, art, business, and much more. But knowledge (along with most everything else) comes at a significant cost.

Strategy goes beyond the desire to accomplish a single task, or the resolve toward single, isolated projects. It is a translation for the way you want to live your life. Setting your financial goals in tandem with a strong intention will increase your likelihood for success because it is something you believe in and becomes inherent to your lifestyle.

If you had asked me ten years ago whether I thought you should rent or buy, I would have suggested you buy if you were planning to stay in your new home for two or more years. Houses were selling quickly, and home values were consistently high. However, after the 2008 housing crash, that all changed.