Life Events (Applied Efficiency)

Most of the biggest financial decisions in a person's life don't happen on a schedule — they happen around specific events: a car purchase, a home, a marriage, a new job, a loss. Each one comes with its own traps, most of them well-documented but rarely explained at the moment they'd actually help.

This track walks through the real total cost of owning a car versus what a monthly payment implies, the gap between what a lender approves and what a household can actually afford in a home, merging finances (and visibility) after marriage, what 529s and other education costs actually require, the rollover sales machine that targets a 401k the moment someone changes jobs, and the six-month rule worth following before acting on a windfall or inheritance. The common denominator: these decisions are big enough that a small amount of preparation changes the outcome substantially.