Bank OZKSmart Money Habits Blog

I wonder if there’s a correlation here: according to an Allstate/National Journal poll, 64% of workers expect to retire by age 70, and according to a study performed by LinkedIn, 63% of professionals use to-do lists. Does this mean to-do lists help you retire on time? The correlation is likely a coincidence, but I believe […]

In only ten minutes of watching this video, I went from laughing so hard I was almost crying, to holding back tears because the message was so heartfelt. No exaggeration, pinky swear. This was my response to Dr. Rick Rigsby’s commencement speech about making a positive impact on the world. It’s so good, I’ve now […]

“Financial responsibility is a day-to-day affair, but for the first time in my life, I’m beginning to care.” -Dean Martin in Living it Up. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the responses to our smart spending habits series, it’s that people care about their financial future. People want a better life and they are […]

The hands of an entrepreneur are often as tired and calloused as the hands of a laborer because we have our hands in everything. This is why the promise of hands-free technology is so appealing. And since many of us are already using Amazon Echo in our home, which allows us to check the morning […]

This is the third installment in a four-part series that helps you take control of your spending.  Be sure to check out our first article on raising self-awareness and second article on fixing spending problems. How many New Year’s resolutions have you made that were going strong in January but were sunk by July?  I […]

I was standing at my mailbox in a light snow, hoping for two things: that the snow would stay until Christmas and that I’d find my first credit card acceptance in the day’s pile of envelopes. This was before the days of online credit applications. I was barely 18 and still in high school, but […]

I recently donated $10 to my child’s nature preschool to help them acquire two donkeys.  It was a small gift, but I guess you could say I am an ass-et to their program. Puns aside, I now regret this donation. Before you start wondering what type of black heart I have for regretting a measly […]

This is the second installment in a four-part series that helps you take control of your spending. To read the first installment on raising self-awareness, click HERE. It’s one thing to know you have a spending problem. It’s another thing to fix it. The road to becoming a reformed overspender is paved in temptation. You […]

This is the first in a four-part series aimed at helping you take control of over spending. There’s a lot of personal finance tools available to modern savers, but have you ever wondered what’s the most useful? It’s not automatic transfers, online bill pay, spreadsheets, or some form of financial app. It’s a mirror. According […]

You’re probably an accountant, marketer, purchaser, HR director, salesman, maintenance worker, CEO and every other possible role in between. It’s true: every small business owner wears too many hats. Full email inboxes taunt you, phone calls pull at you, customers glare at you. As much as you want to do it all, chances are some […]