Bravely Go, a financial education company, will present a free Feminist Financial Summit on June 5 and 6.
It’s virtual, as so many other things are these days. On the bright side, you won’t have to travel to it.
In fact, you won’t even have to take time off from work to watch in real time. The prerecorded sessions will be sent to you both mornings, and will remain available for a couple of extra days.
Throughout those two days the speakers will be doing Facebook Live sessions, which means you can ask any questions that the programs brought up. (Join the Facebook group here.)
To be clear: This isn’t just for women. The Feminist Financial Summit is for “people who give a sh*t about financial equity,” according to founder Kara Perez.
During the two-day event, financial programs will cover topics including (but not limited to):
- Paying off debt
- Writing a budget that actually works for you
- How to start investing
- Handling finances as a single-person household
- Building an ethical business
- How policy and money relate
- Getting over “financial fear” to take control of your cash
- Being the first in your family to generate real money
- The prerecorded sessions will be sent to you both mornings. Throughout those two days the speakers will be doing Facebook Live sessions, which means you can ask any questions that the programs brought up. (Join the Facebook group here.)
Did I mention that it’s free? Let me also mention that there is a donate option. When you sign up to attend, the Eventbrite page gives the option of paying $10 plus a $2.24 fee. Any monies raised will be used to pay the speakers.
Now I’m going to put my money where my mouth is: I will reimburse (via PayPal) the first 10 people who sign up for the Feminist Financial Summit and send a clear screenshot of name and payment confirmation to SurvivingAndThriving (at) live (dot) com. So go ahead and pay that $12.24 – it’s on me, if you act quickly enough.
Should you still be writing checks?
Liz Weston recently got a letter from a woman whose husband believed that paying at least some of his bills by check would improve his credit score. That was a new one on me. The credit urban legend I hear most often is “carrying a balance will improve my credit score.” (It won’t. I promise you. See “Credit scoring myths that will. not. die” for more information.)
Weston urged the reader to get her husband to start using e-payment, since “a check that goes astray can result in a missed payment that can knock 100 points or more off credit scores.” Electronic payments, she notes, are not just more efficient – they’re more secure.
Another reader took issue with that statement, harrumphing that in 40 years of sending checks there had been only one problem. “In contrast, not a month goes by without news of some large organization…being breached in a cyberattack. If the bad guys get my credit card information, I’m out no greater than $50. I’m not also going to risk them having my bank account and routing numbers for the dubious convenience of saving a stamp.”
Well.
First, regarding the reader’s 40 years of success, keep in mind that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.” Just because they never had any problems doesn’t mean this is a safe way of doing business.
Second: The bank account and routing numbers are printed on the check this person sends!
Third: Those checks “are almost certainly being converted to electronic transactions” anyway, Weston notes, via a company such Automated Clearing House (ACH).
Finally: While databases are, in fact, open to hacking if the companies aren’t vigilant, that doesn’t mean that check-writing protects you. Fact is, your information is being collected and stored no matter how you pay. In addition, e-payment transactions have some fairly skookum encryption that makes it hard to hack.
“Criminals would much rather target information that’s at rest in databases than try to capture and decode it in transit,” Weston says.
Whether you pay by check is, of course, a personal decision. Just know the risks ahead of time. And please, please, do not leave bills in your mailbox with the flag up. If a thief gets your checking account number, he or she can have new checks made up.
This happened to a couple I know. They were shocked to receive a late notice from the mortgage company, because they knew they’d paid it. Turned it turned that a scammer filched the payment from their mailbox.
Readers: Do you pay bills by check? Why or why not?
Auto-pay all the way!!! It is easy, saves a stamp and worry free. I think it is easier for the receiver of the money too. Let’s add “good for the environment” in there. I get electronic bills whenever I can….save a tree.
By check. A few drafted from my account. No problems so far.
Almost all on line except at my church I still give my offering via check. I also always carry my checkbook in my pocketbook just in case. It’s come in handy quite a few times.
Pretty much the only checks I write now are for sending donations to my childhood church. It’s very small and they don’t do PayPal or credit cards.
Most are e-payments. A few electronically sent checks. A very few paper checks.
I pay a lot of things with a points card that gives me options for gift cards.
I might do this financial summit, but will not be sending the screenshot. I have no clue how to do that, and none of my photo attachments with the new phone are going thru and neither is the message included with the photo. Thanks for the offer.
I pay the guy who mows my lawn by check.
I rarely carry my check book. I figure I have enough blank checks to do me for the rest of my life.
I use electronic payment or electronic bill pay checks almost exclusively because it’s handy and I don’t need to find a stamp. Writing a check is so rare that I find I can’t remember where my checkbook is when I need it. I have to check the safe, my desk drawer and the file drawer to see where I stashed it last.
Automatic electronic payment works well – unless you have a change of some kind (new bank acct., death in family, etc.) Why can’t all companies adjust to this – we have one monthly payment we have to keep an eye on. Otherwise, groceries and in person shopping are done by bank card, as are on line purchases. Meals out (now that our area is open) payment is by bank card or cash – but tips are ALWAYS in cash. The older I get the handier it is just to carry a bank card.
That credit card of mine that got hacked is attached to my personal PayPal, so I will have to adjust it when the replacement card gets here. Technology is wonderful — when it works.
And I, too, tip in cash.
I honestly can’t even remember the last time I wrote a check. I’m not even sure I remember HOW to write one! I’ve done the electronic thing for years. That said I still have some checks on hand for that unforeseen circumstance!
I paid my rent by check through the mail for decades (landlord insisted), but now use e-payments for all bills except water. The water company is happy to charge $2.95 for an e-payment. No thanks! The building’s just a few blocks away from where I live, so I write a check and use the night deposit.
I also prefer to pay/tip in cash at restaurants. A restaurant server gave herself a much bigger tip than a friend originally wrote and I’ve had a couple of cashiers try a similar scam on me. I use cash in those situations because it keeps me from overspending as well as being ripped off.
I write “CASH” in big letters in the tip line before signing the credit-card slip. Just in case.
Always by check. Why, because I want to. Whatever is the best way for an
individual to take care of their financial obligations, is the best way for them.