Friday Feature (Christmas Edition): Tana Gildea, Author of "The Graduate's Guide to Money," Speaker, and Financial Planner with Compass Financial Consulting

             Tana Gildea
Author of "The Graduate's Guide to      Money" 
​Speaker and Blogger
Financial Planner with Compass Financial Consulting

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Merry Christmas!! I hope you are enjoying this time with family. Today I want to introduce you to Tana Gildea. She is truly a "superwoman"--mother of 4 children in their late teens and early 20's, award winning author, and partner at her financial planning firm. She also manages to find time to speak and blog about financial topics and has a passion for educating teens and young adults. She works with teens to understand their "money story" and how their view of money impacts their decision making. I LOVE her candid advice for teens in the last question segment: "Make your money work for your deepest desires and your biggest goals rather than having it slip through your fingers doing what everyone else is doing."  Since it's Christmas day, Tana is offering a gift to my readers--$10 off her book if you decide to invest in it for your children or students (instructions below). 
 
Q: How do you serve the youth of our community?
I am a financial planner but did not get into that arena until I was in my 40’s so I spent my 20’s and 30’s making a lot of mistakes with money. Since I have 4 children who are in their late teens and early 20’s, I know that the financial education that they get is no better than what I got. I really wanted to pour everything out of my head and into theirs and the only way I knew to do that was to write a book. So, in 2014, I published The Graduate’s Guide to Money. Now, using the book, I have a blog to give my readers financial tips and tricks and I speak to young adult groups about starting their financial lives on the right foot. (The book has won 2 Gold awards and is a 5-time finalist so someone besides my mom thought the book was good!)

In so many ways, people just leap into action when they graduate without stopping to think of the kind of life they really want to lead. Through my speaking engagements and workshops, I try to get them to stop and consider what is truly important to them so they can structure their life to include those things rather than just spending their money doing what all of their friends are doing.

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