Mastering life’s financial journey

Remember when the financial world was melting down? Like six months ago, right?

A barrel of oil was as cheap as an Uber ride and the markets were off to their worst year since the 1988 Baltimore Orioles (my hometown team growing up) had a record-setting yet disastrous year.

Now, everything in the financial world is great again: Oil is up. The stock indexes are up. Even the Orioles are in first. Nothing can go wrong, right? It’s like people have forgotten the brutal election ahead of us.

Things always do go south, even if just for a limited time, and it is why having a solid financial plan throughout all of life’s stages is critical.

At Bankrate, we’ve taken to calling it “life’s financial journey” and our goal is to help people figure it out and make smart decisions at each stage. We want to enable you to master that journey.

There are more financial life stages and decisions to be made than ever before, with more people starting out with student loans and debt than in history, to more people living to 100.

My own financial journey probably mirrors that of many people: A little more complicated than you think when you are at the first stage. Starting out scraping together money, then buying and selling houses as income and job location changed, marriage, a son, divorce, alimony, saving for college, marrying again, more housing matters, employment changes bringing about retirement rollovers, figuring out how to fund a retirement. And more to come.

As I’ve written previously, we’re changing a lot at Bankrate to adapt to the new financial landscape and how people consume content to make decisions about money. I’m writing now to provide a great update.

This month, we’ve launched the first in a series of blogs aimed at each stage of life’s financial journey. The Cashlorette, by Sarah Berger, focuses on savings tips and tricks to maximize your money. Soon, we’ll be rolling out a blog called One to a Million from Jill Cornfield, whose deep background and expertise in financial planning will provide information for those hoping to achieve millions of dollars in savings. (Hint: Start saving early and often.)

We’ll also be launching Game of Loans from Mike Cetera, about all things credit cards and personal loans, and The Home Hacker from Holden Lewis, about the hottest topic right now: Mortgages and housing. And beyond those, we have many more to come.

All of these new blogs will come with new and improved newsletters, and they are part of an overall redesign you’ll start seeing roll out in the weeks ahead.

We’ll be adding more content than ever before on topics relevant to you, in text and video along with photos and data-driven graphics, and you will see more of our content on social media. We have more plans on social that I’m hoping to unveil in a few weeks.

We’re also focusing more on major financial issues in the moment that affect everyone’s thinking, as we recently saw with the Brexit vote. Check out the Brexit hub we recently created for all things about the topic.

In the end, all of the improvements at Bankrate are about making a site that is easier to use and with more content relevant to a dynamic, changing audience that craves solid financial information over a lifetime.

We’ve provided that for decades, and it is going to continue, no matter if the financial world goes into turmoil. Or, if the Orioles fall apart.