money - Surviving and Thriving

An explanation of millennials and money.

January 20, 2015January 15, 2015 by Donna Freedman

Want to get a glimpse of what young people are facing? “The Millennial Next Door Revealed: How to Be Financially Successful in Your 20s,” a free e-book from MoneyTips.com, is available starting today. (Click on the link to get your free copy.)

Author Katie Holmes notes that millennials (those born between 1981 and 1994) face a faltering economy and high student debt, along with a lot of withering generalizations (entitled, narcissistic, lazy). Mostly I agree with her; in fact, I believe that millennials have gotten a raw deal, economically speaking.

Although I have an issue with the ways its conclusions were drawn (more on that in a minute), I think “The Millennial Next Door” offers some valuable info on the mindsets of this cohort. And I’d say that even if I weren’t one of a couple of dozen personal finance writers contributing money tips to the work.

Ticked off at TurboTax? H&R Block can help

January 13, 2015 by Donna Freedman

At this time of year anger begins to build toward the Internal Revenue Service. We collect W-2s and other paperwork, we dread the tax forms and we resent the United States government.

Some consumers aren’t furious with Uncle Sam right now, but they sure are ticked off at Intuit.

The company made major changes to the Deluxe version of its popular TurboTax software, removing several forms (including rental income and capital gains) and nixing help with filling out self-employment and small business income.

Some consumers who already bought the software have found they must pay up to $40 more for an upgrade. Guess what? They’re not happy about that.

“Generally everybody directs their ire at the IRS. This year, TurboTax is catching the hate,” notes tax journalist Kay Bell.

If you were one of those early birds, don’t despair: H&R Block wants to give you a free replacement product.

Why Iowans pay less in interest.

January 11, 2015 by Donna Freedman

As I recently noted in “A simple way to save $159k,” people with poor or nonexistent credit will feel the sting of higher interest rates. Specifically, they’ll pay an average of $159,464 more in interest over their lifetimes, according to Credit.com’s Lifetime Cost of Debt Calculator.

The number-crunchers over at Credit.com have now revealed the states with the highest and lowest lifetime credit costs. Alaska isn’t in either the top or bottom ten. However, the state of my birth, New Jersey, is home to the fourth-highest average lifetime cost of debt. Yay.

Short form: If you want to pay less, improve your credit score and then move to Iowa.

Change that changes lives.

December 4, 2014 by Donna Freedman

It was a good year for found money: a $20 bill, two fivers, a singleton, 13 quarters, 47 dimes, 15 nickels and 216 pennies, plus a ngwee from Zambia. (You find the most interesting specie in Coinstar machines.)

That $41.86 will become a $50 donation to the Alaska Food Bank. As my 8-year-old nephew and I stacked and wrapped the coins, I pointed out that while it’s fun to find a $20 bill even the pennies add up over time. I’d be writing about this, I said, and maybe it would remind them that dimes add up to dollars.

“Maybe it will remind them to pick money up,” he said. “Or not to drop it.”

Change your clock, check your finances.

October 30, 2014 by Donna Freedman

Every autumn we’re urged to change the batteries in our smoke detectors when we change our clocks back to Standard Time. Those batteries might be just fine, but why take a chance?

I propose another ritual, one that should be observed at both the spring-forward and fall-back time changes: Checking in with your personal financial goals.

Some people are organized enough to revisit their PF wish lists regularly. Some aren’t. If you’re in the latter group, the twice-annual clock change could be a good time to open the ledger.

What’s your financial bogeyman?

October 26, 2014 by Donna Freedman

When it comes to things that go bump in the night, poltergeists have got nothing on underfunded retirements.

According to a new survey from MoneyRates.com, 79 percent of respondents have had a specific “financial scare” in the past and 87 percent have money fears about the future.

Of those 87 percent, the top fear is not having enough for retirement. Some other fears:

Debt: 31 percent have had credit-card balances or other bills they could not pay off immediately.

Carelessness: One in 10 admit to having forgotten to pay a bill, thus incurring late charges.

Bounced checks: Three times as many men as women say that an NSF situation was their worst financial scare.

The underlying theme of many of the fears cited? Not having enough money to build an emergency fund, says study author Richard Barrington.

Why you can’t afford an apartment.

October 17, 2014 by Donna Freedman

If you want to find a place to rent, make sure you earn at least $18.92 per hour. Or so says the 2014 “Out of Reach” study from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

That amount represents the “housing wage,” the hourly amount a full-time worker needs to earn to afford a two-bedroom rental at HUD-estimated fair market rent, while spending no more than 30 percent of salary for lodging.

That wage is more than two and a half times the federal minimum wage – and 52 percent higher than it was in 2000. As study authors note, “in no state can a full-time minimum wage worker afford a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom rental unit at fair market rent.”

Think that’s depressing? According to the Center for Housing Policy, 25.4 percent of working renters spend at least half their income on housing.

Why are guys still expected to pay?

January 30, 2026October 7, 2014 by Donna Freedman

A recent study from the NerdWallet consumer blog — love that name — indicates that men still pick up the tab way too automatically.

(Yes, I’m aware that men still tend to out-earn women; I’ll address that in a minute)

But seriously? I thought this kind of thing was supposed to have gone out after the 1970s:

77.4 percent of those surveyed thought men should pay for the first date.

Even in a relationship, 56.1 percent of men still pay for date nights.

Almost 40 percent of men cover all household bills; just 14.3 percent of women do.

Remind me: In which century are we living? I just don’t see how this is fair.

Tomorrow’s Tweetchat could make you $100 richer.

September 30, 2014September 29, 2014 by Donna Freedman

Those of you who actually enter the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes [hand goes up] may remember the $5,000 bonus award you could get if the PCH team ever showed up at your front door.

You were supposed to look at the camera and say something like, “I just won a gazillion dollars in the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes! Now I know it’s real!”

Why someone who’d just won a gazillion dollars would be compos mentis enough to remember to say that – and why he’d even care about an extra five grand – was never explained to my satisfaction. That won’t stop me from pirating the slogan, however:

“Last month I won a $100 Amazon card from the Ally Bank Tweetchat! Now I know it’s real!”

(Yeah, that’s some teeny print. But if you click on the screenshot you’ll see my Twitter handle, @DLFreedman, as one of the winners.)

I already knew it was real, because a Surviving and Thriving reader wrote to tell me she’d won a card. That made me happy.

You may already be a winner!

It would also make me happy if one (or two!) of you guys won the Amazon scrip at tomorrow’s Ally Bank Tweetchat. Certainly it’s a topic to which we can all relate: “Developing enviable saving habits.”

In which I reveal my paycheck.

March 26, 2016September 9, 2014 by Donna Freedman

Almost four years ago I wrote a post called “I’ll show you my salary if you’ll show me yours.” In it I explained why I declined to reveal how much money I earned:

“Is there no such thing as privacy any longer? Are we required to tell everything? Myself, I’d sooner talk about my sex life than my salary – and I believe that either one would be an overshare.

“Maybe it’s because I’m in my 50s and am thus a couple of generations removed from the new tell-all culture. I was raised not to talk about money and certainly never to brag about what you have.

“… Personal finance is exactly that: personal. No one needs to know what I earn or how much my 401(k) lost in the crash. It’s bad enough that people can Google my home address. I don’t want to give away any additional details of my private life.

Well, last week I had a piece up at Get Rich Slowly that revealed all. “Why I voluntarily slashed my salary” talked about my decision to downsize my worklife after Microsoft fired all its writers on the same day.

That decision represented a salary cut of almost 58 percent, possibly more. Would that be worth maybe eating cat food and saying “Welcome to Wal-Mart” when I’m 80? That’s all I could think of at first, but then I did the math and it’s not as scary as I’d feared.