Personal Finance

Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard Review

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The folks at Barclay Card are nothing if not persistent. A buddy of mine is overseas. I picked up his mail, and there are at least a dozen Barclaycard MasterCard mailers in here. It got me wondering, is the Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard good or is the Barclaycard MasterCard a waste of money? Without further ado, here is the Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard review. Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard Reviews The Barclayscard MasterCard rewards card is issued by Barclays Bank Delaware. Barclays Bank Deleware was originally Juniper Bank, but was bought by big British bank Barclays in 2004. There is no actual bank, it only issues credit cards in the U.S. In addition to the Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard, the bank issues co-branded cards, such as an American Airlines credit card, the JetBlue credit card, and a Priceline.com rewards card. As always, different customers can get different terms and conditions for the same cards, but in this case, it looks the Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard is setup as a points rewards credit card. For every $1 you spend on gas, utility, and grocery stores, you earn 2 point. Note, that Target and Walmart are specifically excluded as grocery stores for the purposes of 2x points. Then, …

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2017 Finances and Money Issues

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investing in hsa account calculator

Welcome to 2017! Relax. Take a deep breath. There. Feel better? Good. Then let’s jump in. Finances Updated in 2017 With a new year, come some new numbers. There will be updates to the maximum 401k contributions, income limits for Roth IRAs, and others. Plus, there will be adjustments to the 2017 income tax brackets, the 2017 standard tax deduction, and more. And, of course, there is a new IRS mileage rate for 2017 as well. What about 529 plans? There aren’t a lot of updates to those numbers each year, primarily because most facets of 529 college savings plans are administered through the states, who aren’t always as keen on changing and updating everything. You’ll want to re-evaluate your financial plan for the new year, and you’ll want to review how your financial plan did in 2016. Plus, you’ll want to rebalance your portfolio, if you didn’t do it at the end of 2016. Retirement Plans 2017 A big part of most retirement plans are tax-advantaged savings accounts like your 401k plan, IRA accounts, and, for some of you, 457 plans, 403(b) plans, and various differed compensation plans. All of those need adjusted and reviewed for 2017 as well. …

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Fed Raises Interest Rates

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fed raises interest rates

As I’ve long pointed out on this blog, the Fed has been dying to raise interest rates in 2016, but each time a meeting came up that they were planning to announce an increase, something happened in the world that made the markets shaky, and rate hike even dicier. As a result, this December 2016 interest rate hike is the one and only rate hike for the year. The current interest rate increase takes the Fed’s main short-term interest rate to 0.50% (officially 0.5% to 0.75%) from 0.25 percent. The Fed and 2017 Ironically, inflation has been very contained for all of 2016 without any interest rate hikes. In face, inflation during 2016, even without a single interest rate increase, has been so low that the formula for Social Security benefits means that there well be no cost of living increase. That makes you wonder why the Fed has been so eager to raise rates, if the whole point of an interest rate increase is to hold back inflation, when there was no inflation at all. There still isn’t any inflation, but the Fed wants to raise rates for other reasons. One that keeps getting floated around is the idea that …

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All The Basics

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Coming this week on the Finance Gourmet, all of the basics in one week of posts. That’s right, all the things you need for a successful basic financial plan, retirement plan, and college savings plan all in one place in a series of easy to read posts. Consider this the intro to personal finance that you always wanted to read, but never really found. We’ll continue next week with some interesting reviews of financial apps, like our Acorns review, and Digit review, as well as reviews of various online financial services such as Credit Karma and Credit Sesame. I’ll probably bail on Thanksgiving, but I’m willing to bet that most of you won’t be looking to brush up on your personal finance knowledge on that day either. So, no harm, no foul. Going into the new year, we’ll get back to what started it all here on Finance Gourmet, a series of financial recipes. These are recipe style financial solutions and personal finance plans that you can implement without an in-depth understanding. Instead, just gather the necessary “ingredients” and then follow the recipe. We’ll cover everything from a 401k plan to more complicated topics. We are also going to start …

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When Do I Need Umbrella Insurance?

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What is umbrella insurance exactly? I overheard someone saying that umbrella insurance covers everything. That isn’t entirely true. What umbrella insurance covers is personal liability. It does cover most all personal liability, so I suppose in a way it covers, “everything.” Liability Insurance Most people already have some liability insurance. Your car insurance, for example, has liability insurance for anything you become liable for while driving a car. Most auto insurance coverage is specified by three numbers like 100/300/100. The first number is your liability coverage limit per person per accident. The second number is the total liability coverage per accident for all persons. The third number is the liability limit for property damage for each accident. Of course, this liability coverage only involves things that happen while you are operating a covered vehicle. Homeowners typically have some liability coverage through their homeowners insurance policy. This liability covers a lot more ground (but NOT when you are driving a car). Anything that happens on your property is covered. So, if someone trips and hurts themselves on your driveway, that liability would be covered. This coverage is also limited to a specific dollar amount depending upon your policy. An amount like …

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When Should I Start Taking Social Security

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Deciding whether to start taking Social Security now, or waiting until later is a complicated decision, or at least it frequently gets made out that way. If you want to read all of the nitty-gritty details about Social Security benefits, there is a lot of great information available directly from the Social Security Administration online at www.ssa.gov. Despite what you think, the information there is just as easy to read and understand as what you will find anywhere else. They even have Benefit Estimator if you want to get a rough idea of what your benefit might look like. If you sign up for a mySSA account, you can get pretty exact details, if you are close to retirement age. (If you have several years to go until retirement, any data will be an estimate because the amount of your future earnings can affect what your actual benefit is.) Social Security Benefit Full Retirement Age or Early These days, Congress has tinkered around with how and when Social Security benefits are paid in order to prop up the system. The first thing you need to know is when your “full” retirement age is. The scale is based upon when you …

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What Is Fiduciary Responsibility?

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Fiduciary responsibility, sometimes referenced as fiduciary duty, is the best term in finance, with the possible exception of fungible. So, what is fiduciary responsibility, and do you need someone with a fiduciary duty to help with your finances? Fiduciary is a fancy word for the concept of doing what is in the best interest of someone, typically a client or a trustee. Most people are shocked to find out that most financial planners, financial advisors, stock brokers, and the like do not have a fiduciary duty to their clients. In other words, the guy you have managing all of your money is not required, by law, regulation, or contract to act in your best interests. Rather, they typically have a much more easier standard called suitability. Suitability means that the investments or other recommendations they make are merely suitable for someone like you, not the best for you. So, if it isn’t wildly inappropriate for you to be investing in Apple stock, then they can recommend Apple stock, even if they feel like another investment would be better. Any attempt to ever make any of these financial professionals required to be fiduciaries is met with immediate and ravenous attack from …

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Fast Retirement Math

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Want to make a quickie calculation about how much money you’ll need for retirement? I’ve talked before how, for most people, knowing “your number,” or whatever you want to call it isn’t really all that helpful. The simple reason is that most people cannot save as much for retirement as they should be, so they should just be saving as much as they can. Simple. But, what if you are getting ready to retire, or if you just want to know how much retirement income you have stored away? Quick Retirement Income Calculation The quickest way to calculate your current retirement income is to take the amount of money you have saved, and multiply it by 4%. That’s your current “safe” annual income in retirement. As in, if you have $1 million stashed away in your 401k plan, you can count on $40,000 per year in income. Sucks, doesn’t it? Before we get to some info that might help you feel better, let’s take a look at where the 4% comes from. Check out my review of Credit Karma here. A chimp with a hammer can get you 4% income without ever running you out of principal. In fact, at …

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ITT Tech Shuts Down

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ITT Technical Institutes is one of those colleges that you seem to see more on TV commercials than anywhere else. It announced that it is shutting down immediately, blaming the government. Unfortunately, the reality is that this was a long time coming. For years, many of the so-called, “for profit” colleges have been accused to providing their students little more than a big balance of student loans and degrees that weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. Somewhere along the line, enough powerful politicians switched from protecting these colleges to protecting their students, and the die was cast. As soon as ITT’s accrediting agency raised questions, the Feds acted. How ITT Shut Down Despite what you may read, the government did not shut down ITT. That would be an overstep over government power. Instead, it did the one thing it is allowed to do. It removed the eligibility of students to use federally backed student loans, which, are most student loans, at ITT schools. Lower income students make up a lot of the student body at schools like ITT Technical Institute. Without loans they wouldn’t be able to pay tuition, and without federal backing, they aren’t going to qualify …

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Calling a Market Top

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As a financial planner a few years back, I noticed that my clients’ attitudes about stock market investing changed along with the tenor of media reports. That isn’t surprising. Many of our ideas are influenced by various media. But, if you look closer, you can see that it isn’t really the media, it’s the same mindset that occurs in the general population about any phenomenon in live. Trendy Stock Market Opinions Think about a recent trend. Not some edge trend that never was mainstream, but some big trend that “everyone” got into at one point in time. It doesn’t really matter what the trend was, whether it was a new band, a fashion trend, or something else. How about we use Pokemon Go as an example? These trends follow a familiar pattern. First, the initial wave of popularity gets going. These people love whatever it is, and tell everyone they know about it: friends, family, co-workers, you name it. Your friends ask you to download the app. The news is all about how there is this great new thing. Their motivation is just that they like something and want to spread the word. The next phase are the people who …

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