Blog | Ron Gallen Financial Wellness

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Make a Covid Cash Plan

Jun 10, 2020
3 min

Make a Covid Cash Plan

Figuring out how you will stand cashflow-wise may be the most important thing you do during the Covid crisis. Having a cash flow plan can give you both peace-of-mind about the state of your finances, as well as clarity about what's coming down the road. What is a cash flow? It's simple, really. It is a chart that tells you how much cash you will have at the end of each month. You simply take the amount you have now, add the amount you expect to come in this month, then subtr

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What's Going to Happen to Stores/ Galleries?

May 5, 2020
4 min

What's Going to Happen to Stores/ Galleries?

The commercial space landscape is in total flux, suspended animation really. No one can accurately predict where everything will land when we emerge from this crisis. The good news is what's fairly likely to be on the other side. There will be more opportunity than ever to begin anew with lower costs. Rents will inevitably be less, maybe a lot less. Supply chains will stabilize. Prices will come into line and stabilize. The biggest opportunity of all: that the economy has alw

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Galleries and Stores: Do I Pay the Rent?

Apr 29, 2020
4 min

Galleries and Stores: Do I Pay the Rent?

It didn't take long to call the question. Did we think it would? Do I pay rent? How will I do that? At home, 43% of renters nationwide hadn't paid their April rent by April 15th. We're two days from May and it's still more than 30% who haven't paid April. What's May gonna look like? Already renter's strikes are being organized--ten thousand have signed on for a demonstration this Friday in New York. Can a wildfire spread of rent strikes like that around the country be far beh

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Artists and Self-Employed Covid-19 Benefits

Apr 27, 2020
3 min

Artists and Self-Employed Covid-19 Benefits

People who work and get a W-2 have filed for unemployment benefits in a tidal wave of website-crashing benefit claims. Through Thursday, there were already 26.5 million claims filed for unemployment benefits. And most states have not been able to process anywhere near all the people attempting to file. Let's figure the real total at somewhere north of 30 million now (that's 20% of the whole work force). But artists and self-employed people, professionals and gig workers, don'

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How to Redo Your Budget During Quarantine

Apr 17, 2020
3 min

How to Redo Your Budget During Quarantine

I'm hearing from people across the spectrum of income and wealth who are now in a financial bind. A woman from Texas relying on social security and a small income from a client that is now gone. She can't pay the rent. I spoke to a man who invested all of his inheritance in a real estate project that is now on hold, and at the worst possible time since no cash is available and the project is completely illiquid. It's true, he is worth more than a million dollars so why should

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We Need a National Rent Moratorium

Apr 8, 2020
3 min

We Need a National Rent Moratorium

The minute California governor, Gavin Newsom, issued his order to stay home on March 19th, a treacherous line of dominoes began lining up, at the ready to begin their fall. What was going to happen in less than two weeks, come April 1st, when large amounts of people would not be able to pay their rent? And even the ones who have enough to pay the April rent will give way to the vast majority who will not be able to pay come May and June. And who's to say that June is the end?

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Parents: Setting and Keeping Financial Boundaries

Apr 7, 2020
3 min

Parents: Setting and Keeping Financial Boundaries

Most of the parents I have worked with who are struggling to set and keep reasonable financial limits with their children are in fairly serious circumstances. That said, the solutions for less challenging, more common situations, are very much along the same lines. A good many of the parents I see are referred to me by psychotherapists, trust and estate specialists, psychiatrists, treatment centers and the like. In general their situation is a child out of control in some way

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Underearners (artist department): Sarah's Story

Apr 6, 2020
2 min

Underearners (artist department): Sarah's Story

If you were to meet Sarah, you would not mistake her for an executive or someone working in finance. At first sight, it is hard to imagine anything except that she is an artist.You can sense it in the way she walks down the street.You can feel an otherworldliness, an ethereal glow about her. She spends a lot of time on what can only be described as another plane. I have never met a more sensitive soul. Ever since she was a very young girl, Sarah knew she wanted to be an artis

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Underearning in Brief

Apr 6, 2020
2 min

Underearning in Brief

Deprivation is like a world with certain colors missing. Chronic underearning or anorectic spending are adaptive responses to living in a world that feels too damn scary. These are subconscious devices that struggle to reconcile the outer world with an inner world of fears and doubts about ourselves and our abilities. In some ways, under earning is a protective barrier against rejection, competition, and envy. Underearners do not do well with these. Neither do they do well ad

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Dealing With Creditors

Apr 5, 2020
3 min

Dealing With Creditors

Here is an outline of what I recommend if debt is a problem. First, establish a spending plan (see The Spending Plan) that takes care of your needs. Once that is done with great care, it is time to address your creditors and set a plan to retire the debt. First, make a list of all your creditors and note down how much you owe each of them. Total them all up. Then assign what percentage of the total each one of them is. That will be the percentage of the total amount you have

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Money and the Recovering Addict

Apr 5, 2020
3 min

Money and the Recovering Addict

Money is particularly troublesome for people in recovery. Addicts of all stripes often have stubbornly entrenched money problems long into their recovery from other addictions. I know of no surer route to depression and despair for a recovering addict than chronic and baffling trouble with money. I regularly field calls from people with five, ten, twenty-five years of recovery who are at their wit's end about money and work.And it's not just the bill collectors who are demand

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Creating a Spending Plan

Apr 4, 2020
3 min

Creating a Spending Plan

Excerpt from The Money Trap... Ok, get out a pad and a pen. Let's do your spending plan. Don't worry if the whole idea scares you, don't worry if you have trouble keeping focus, or you can't do very much in the first sitting. Give yourself a break. Go for a walk. Come back to it tomorrow. But stick with it. And don't worry if you get confused or spaced out about the numbers and the money. It's natural. Do your. best, and take it at your own pace. In the end you will have some

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Money, Therapy, and Depression

Apr 4, 2020
3 min

Money, Therapy, and Depression

Excerpt from The Money Trap... The problem with psychotherapy for people with chronic money is that it can be uncommonly frustrating-for both the Patience's and the therapist. Beside the money or work obsession, people with chronic money problems exhibit mostly the same symptoms others generally seek therapy for: fear, anxiety, problems with relationships, feelings of alienation, a lack of integrity, of integration. Relief is sought from psychic pain. Initially, those with ch

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Are You an Overspender? Part I

Mar 3, 2020
1 min

Are You an Overspender? Part I

Excerpt from The Money Trap Overspenders Compulsive spending and compulsive debting are a very effective way of keeping unwanted feelings at bay. They are, like any addiction, an attempt to manage anxiety, and to find a way to feel good about yourself. Essentially, compulsive spending and compulsive debting are a defense, a comprehensive system designed to avoid psychic pain. Spending and buying bind anxiety, give a little ego boost, and produce the momentary illusion that al

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Overspenders: Billy's Story

Mar 2, 2020
2 min

Overspenders: Billy's Story

Excerpt from The Money Trap... Billy's Story...a pretty stark example of how overspending is not about earning enough. Billy owns a small but hugely profitable company that he built from the ground up. But no matter how much the company earns, Billy spends more. He is afflicted with what his friend called, "fabulosity." There don't seem to be enough luxury goods in the world for Billy. No amount fills him up. Although he has a Merceds and a Range Rover, he became obsessed wit

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