Personal Finance

New Year Finance Checklist

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annual personal finance checklist

It’s a new year. Contrary to popular opinion, for the most part, when it comes to money, finances, banking and investing, it doesn’t really matter if the year is new or not. That being said, plenty of people take the opportunity of a fresh calendar to take a fresh look at things like personal finance and their financial plans. So, here is a checklist of things to start thinking about to make sure you personal finances are lined up for 2016. 2016 Personal Finance Checklist Don’t get overwhelmed. Not all of this stuff needs to be done at once. Put a section on your calendar each week or two, and by the end of the first quarter, your finances will be reviewed, tuned-up, and ready for the year ahead. Banking Checklist Review your checking account statements and make sure your bank isn’t charging you fees just for having a checking or savings account. If you are paying monthly fees, or minimum balance fees, find a new account. Check with your current bank first, you might just be signed up for the wrong account. Remember, at today’s interest rates, there is no way having a higher rate compensates for having to …

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Money Investing and Personal Finance End of Year

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end of year december finance money

Here comes the end of 2015, are you ready? Are your finances and investments ready? On the one hand, the end of the year means absolutely nothing to your money. Those twenties in your wallet don’t care what year it is, and your bank accounts don’t either. The stock market goes up and down before December 31st, just like it will after January 1st. That being said, there are some end of year tax issues to be aware of, as well as some smart money moves to make before the end of the year. What To Do With Money Before Year Ends Step One: Don’t Panic. Seriously. Too many people get all wrapped up in the end of the year and the start of a new year. I think that some of that comes from the added stress of the holidays, or the vacuum left behind when they end. The reality is that you and your money are probably fine, even if you don’t do anything at all before the year ends. Yes, tax deductions matter, but probably not as much as you might think. And, yes, there are deadlines, but many of them may not apply to you. With that …

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Safe Online Holiday Shopping

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Shopping online hasn’t really gotten any safer in the last few years. Most reputable online retailers use secure transfers to encrypt your credit card information when checking out. However, as an increasing number of high-profile corporate hackings have shown, just because your credit card number was safe when you entered it, doesn’t mean it stayed safe. The other issue with online retailers is knowing when the retailer themselves might not be safe. Sure, company’s like Amazon, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble aren’t out there to steal your credit card data, but there are a tons of little retailers you haven’t heard of, and they are the ones with hard to find items, unique gifts, and occasionally, deep discounts. Giving your financial information to them can be dicey. So, just how do you manage to have safe online holiday shopping this year? Limited Use Credit Card Numbers There are some tricks you can use to stay safe while shopping online. Many credit cards, or credit card companies, offer limited use numbers. These virtual numbers can usually be generated online. They link to your actual account, but the number you enter is a one-time use number, or limited to a certain amount. …

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Credit Sesame Safe, Scam or Legit?

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Credit Sesame is another online financial utility that lets you check “your credit score for free.” Of course, there are always more than a few caveats with these kinds of websites. So, let’s take a look at CreditSesame.com and see how it stands up. Credit Sesame Review Any reviews of Credit Sesame need to start with how much does Credit Sesame cost, and is Credit Sesame legit, or is it an online scam? One catch comes during the signup process where you are asked to “do more” with your credit score by adding “goals”. Some clicks there and you’ll get targeted ads, and maybe more. There isn’t a way to skip this step, so choose something you don’t mind hearing about, and as always use your “store email” or “email list” email address. (You should have a separate email address that you never use for anything “real” that helps avoid hacking attempts and keeps your real inbox clean. If you don’t have one, get a free email from Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, or other service before signing up.) I chose rewards cards when I signed up and the first thing at the very top of my screen every time I log in is …

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Big Budget Destroyers are Little Expenses

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Once upon a time, businesses sold you goods and services. You paid once and then used them until they wore out, broke, or no longer served your needs. Then, you went and bought something new. This works pretty good for customers, but can be hard on businesses who have to constantly come up with new ways to sell you something. These days, business has found a better way to consistently fund it’s profit and loss statement, but it may have ruined its customer’s budgets along the way. Little Subscriptions When you make your budget for the month, chances are you properly account for those standard monthly bills like electricity, phone, cable, HOA dues, car payments, rent / mortgage, water, heat, and so on. Chances are also good that these payments eat up a fair amount of your budget. But, are you accounting for all of those little subscriptions out there? If you try replacing any of those above services, chances they come with different monthly subscriptions. Cutting the cord on your cable company? Netflix, or Hulu Plus are monthly subscriptions. You can also subscribe to Amazon Prime on a monthly basis. If you want to replace your DVR, Tivo wants …

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All Three Credit Reports Free

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Credit reports are a very important, and very frustrating part of personal finance. Nearly all financing requires a credit score, which is generated from the information in your credit report. However, you get no say in what is in your credit report. In fact, with one exception, you have to pay money if you even want to see what your own credit report says about you. Seems unfair? Blame the millions of dollars the finance industry spends on lobbying and the politicians that care more about where their next campaign contribution comes from than about what is right for the American citizens they supposedly represent. There are various services springing up to help fill this gap, but they all come with the potential for scams and abuse. You can get a free credit score from Credit Karma, or Credit Sesame, and you can buy a credit score from myFICO, but none of these come with full access to all three credit reports. Free Credit Scores Website The one (and only) thing the government has ever required the credit bureaus to do is give each person free access to their credit report, but only once per year. To comply the three …

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What Is Bitcoin Is It Worth It?

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bitcoin investing

Bitcoin is a topic that pops up in the news every now and then. It’s also the kind of thing a freelance writer with ADD might get distracted by when he was supposed to be rebuilding the content on an old website. In fact, he might feel guilty for spending so much time looking into it that he would have to write several articles about Bitcoin as a way to make it seem more like work. * Ahem. * What Is Bitcoin? Explaining Bitcoin is a little bit tricky. In essence, Bitcoin is a digital currency. There are no actual coins, only computer data. In many ways, this is not unlike most of the US currency, which exists electronically on bank computers and balance sheets, not in stacks of hundred dollar bills in the basement of GE headquarters. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. That is, that there is no organization or group that gives it a value. Instead, it is simply a means by which bitcoins are generated in a limited supply. Like anything else, supply and demand can set a price for Bitcoins in other currency, including US Dollars. How you convert Bitcoins to Dollars is that you find …

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Spend Your Values

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I have written here before about how people are not robots and that earning, spending, savings and investing money is seldom done in an emotionless vacuum. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t understand what is the “right” move according to an unemotional spreadsheet, but actually living with your money and personal finance is much more important than trying to pretend you should strive toward never doing anything but what the calculator says is right. Spending My Values The concept of spending your values, is not mine. I’m not sure where it came from originally, but now that I’ve heard of it from someone else, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at it, and pass the idea on to you. When we look at spending money responsibly, the first thing we do is look at a budget, whether formally written down and calculated, or just sort of sketched out mentally. The main component of spending responsibly is not spending more than you have. After that, personal finance at its most basic level is paying your obligations in any given month, and then, determining where to spend and save whatever is left over. For many of us, …

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Your First Basic Financial Plan

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As a former Certified Financial Planner, or CFP, I tend, like many other financial experts, to think (and write) in terms of the tricky, the convoluted, and the complex. The truth is that money and personal finance can be very intricate and complex. However, it is also true that the biggest bang for the buck financial planning wise comes from doing the most basic things. Too often, we get caught up in things that actually end up being tiny details of your overall financial life. For example, many people shop endlessly for higher savings account interest rates. Whether you have a high-yield savings account, a regular savings account, or even a kids savings account, the interest rate matters far less than how much money  you put in it. If you have $10,000 and you put it in a regular savings account earning 0.5 percent, your interest for the year will be approximately, $50. If you got double that rate, 1.0%, then you’d have $100 in interest. In either case, you would still basically just have $10,000 at the end of the year, $10,050 or $10,100, respectively. Neither has a meaningful impact on your overall financial status. On the other hand, if …

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Complete Definitive Guide to 529 Plans

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For some reason, I thought I had written about 529 plans to death. After all, figuring out a way to pay for a child’s college education is a top priority for many people, and something I worked on a lot when I was a financial planner. More than that, I’m also a dad with a couple of rug rats that I’ll want to send off to get a great education, and then on to a wonderful life in the real world unencumbered by the all too common, crushing student loan debt. So, naturally, I think a lot about how education planning and college savings fit into a person’s personal financial plan. And, usually when something money related stays on my mind, I write about it a lot. Then, a family member shot me a message asking a question about paying for college for her growing sons. I figured I’d send her a dozen links to all my best college saving advice and 529 plan information. Only, it turns out, I haven’t covered near as much over the years as I thought I had. So, starting Wednesday, I’ll be cranking out the Complete Definitive Guide to 529 Plans and College Savings …

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