personal finance

Giveaway: “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk.”

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Personal finance journalist Cameron Huddleston’s new book was written from painful personal experience. “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances” came about after Huddleston’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

She learned a lot – and she learned it the hard way. Now she wants to help other people from having to go through the difficulties of dealing with someone else’s finances after the person is ill and unable to help sort things out.

End-of-life issues are never easy to discuss. With wisdom and compassion, the author offers a tremendous amount of expertise to take you through this touchy process.

Huddleston has graciously offered to sponsor a giveaway of two copies of “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances.” If you or anyone else you know has aging parents, this book could save a lot of grief and wasted energy, and let you focus on what’s important: finding the best solutions for your family.

The book shows how to get the conversation started before your parents actually need any help. You’ll learn how to talk about things like estate planning, whether they can (or should) age in place vs. moving to a smaller home or to an assisted living facility, what kinds of documents and legal paperwork you should have just in case, how to bring siblings into the conversation and – this is super-important! – what not to say.

Suppose your parents resist any kind of talk at all? Huddleston has a chapter about that, too. These are invasive questions, after all, and your parents (who may still see you as “the kid”) might not want to talk about money– especially if it turns out they don’t have enough).

I haven’t yet finished “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk,” but I can already say that anyone whose family hasn’t discussed later-in-life issues needs to read this book.

 

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How much can you borrow in student loans?

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Trick question! As in, wrong question.

What the student in your life ought to be asking is, “How much should I borrow?”

The answer, of course, being “as little as you must – and, if possible, nothing at all.”

That was the topic for a recent piece I did for the Experian blog. Student loans are a personal bugaboo because it’s so easy to sign up for life-hobbling debt when you’re too young to understand the true consequences.

Understand: I don’t think student loans are evil in and of themselves. I just think that too often people borrow without thinking it through. Learn more by clicking the link above.

Some readers have asked me to continue these roundups, aka “where I’ve been lately.” It’s been a while since I did one (thanks a lot, summer messing with my head) so this one will take a while.

 

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Saved Savings Challenge, Week 2: It adds up.

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My BFF has found a way to make money from Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi. It involves absolutely no work and will earn her more than $1,000 within a year.

You guessed it: She stopped drinking the stuff.

Linda B. had already been inclined to cut down on soft drinks due to various reports of their horribleness. Recently she decided to go cold turkey, both at home and at restaurants – and to put $20 in an envelope every week. That’s how much she figured the habit was costing her.

Watching the savings grow is fun, and it couldn’t have come at a better time: She and her oldest friend (think: going on 70 years) are taking a European cruise next year. A thousand bucks will come in handy during shore leave.

It adds up. Some of the Saved Savings Challenge participants would agree.

 

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FinCon 19: C.U. in D.C.?

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Once again I’ve been chosen to be one of the more than 200 speakers at . This year FinCon takes place in Washington, D.C., from Sept. 4 to Sept. 7.

I’ll be coming in a few days early for some sightseeing and to hang out with my daughter. And maybe with some of you, but more about that in a minute.

First, a shout-out to any other personal finance bloggers out there: How would you like to get free admission to FinCon19?

If you can meet a couple of conditions, then I urge you to apply for the FinCon19 scholarship. Those conditions are:

You started your money blog/podcast/website/YouTube channel after January 2018.

You haven’t already registered to attend FinCon19.

 

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Saved Savings Challenge, Week 1: Define “savings.”

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In last week’s introduction to the Saved Savings Challenge, I declined to post specific, hard-and-fast rules. That’s to leave room for each participant to define “savings” in her own way.

As of May 16 I’d set aside $104.09, which I rounded up to $105 and transferred over to Ally Bank on May 31. Since then my savings haven’t been gigantic, but they have occurred – along with some additional questions about the definition of “savings.”

According to the bottom of a recent supermarket receipt, I saved another $107.06 in a single shopping trip. But that’s true only if you think that in a free country a box of Triscuits should cost $4.49 and eggs go for $2.49 per dozen, or that it’s acceptable for a five-pound package of ground beef to retail for $31.15.

This particular grocer generally has higher prices than the one at which we do most of our shopping. Just as department stores mark clothing higher than it should be in order to offer hot deals later on, the store offered a short-term sale and downloadable discounts to bring the Triscuits down to $1.69 a box, the eggs to $1.50 a dozen and the meat to $10.35.

To be clear: Those final prices were pretty darned good for Anchorage. But I don’t see the discounts as savings, because I would never have bought the products at that price. Instead, I’d have waited until they went on sale and then stocked up.

Some people would say, “Hey, point is you wound up paying $1.69 – that’s a pretty skookum deal for Anchorage! If the regular price was $4.49 you really did save $2.80 per box.”

Maybe you would agree. I don’t buy it.

 

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Join me in the “Saved Savings Challenge.”

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A few months back I asked readers to join me in a No-Spend February Challenge. It went so well that I figured we’d do another one at some point.

That point is now. As of June 1, I’d like to invite you all to take part in the Saved Savings Challenge.

That is, any money you don’t spend gets squirreled away (in a jar or in a special savings account) for 30 days.

After all, it’s not savings unless you save it.

Next time someone tells you he saved 20 percent on holiday shopping or $40 on a great pair of boots, ask this question: Where’s the money you saved? Chances are that it, too, got spent because suddenly there was this “extra” cash.

Of course, sometimes people are thrilled to save money on something absolutely necessary. As in, “If I don’t cut the grocery bill by 20 percent, we won’t have enough to eat this month.” Or they’re grateful to have found affordable winter boots, or a coat for the kid who outgrew his previous one sooner than expected.

But for the purposes of this challenge, “saved savings” generally means stuff like:

  • Money you were going to spend before you talked yourself out of it.
  • Money you saved on an essential purchase thanks to sales, traded-in scrip at CVS or Walgreens, discounted gift cards, or coupons/discount codes (CVS, et al.) or the use of store credit or coupons.
  • Refunds you got from a cash-back shopping site like Mr. Rebates, Dollar Dig or Ebates.
  • Money that showed up in some other weird way (more on this later).

I did a dry run for this challenge in May, after my daughter – whose own saved savings example is pretty epic – suggested that the two of us take a trip to London. Although this trip probably won’t happen until spring 2020, I want to start setting aside the funds now. That way I can pay out of pocket, i.e., without incurring debt or interfering with my other financial goals.

 

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#1goodmoneything, and its #badcousins.

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Lately I’ve been noticing the #1goodmoneything hashtag on Twitter and Facebook. People use it to describe both major and minor money choices and actions.

Stuff like using increasing a 401(k) contribution, reaching a side hustle goal, winning tickets to a show, using travel rewards credit cards for a big trip, taking charge of bills vs. ignoring them, and not being upside-down on an auto loan any longer.

My daughter, whose blog many of you read, contributed one as well:

$10.95 sale on sports bras + $10 rewards card = $1.03 Victoria’s Secret sports bra.

That surprised me, since I had no idea that VS sold sweaty grunty stuff like sports bras. I thought they were all about frilly scanties. Live and learn.

Lately I’ve encountered a few #1goodmoneythings of my own. The most recent example was Saturday’s J.C. Penney anniversary sale. Coupons were handed to us at the door, good for $10 off a purchase of $10 or more. Because a video-game-themed T-shirt (destined for a nephew’s birthday gift bag) was on sale, I paid just $2.99.

My niece, a single mom who sniffs out deals the way a Brittany Spaniel scents quail, got six items for just over $20. Among other things this included tops she can wear to work, a handsome Henley shirt for her older son and a long-sleeved, screamin’ aqua bike jersey for the younger. (One of his plans this summer is to “ride my bike as much as I can.”)

Wish I could say it’s been all good-money-things, all the time, lately. Some But me being me, I’ve also met a few of the hashtag’s cousins.

 

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Financially dependent (adult) children.

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Feeling sentimental about your kids growing up and not needing you any longer? Take heart: They might rely on you for longer than you think (or want).

About one in three teenagers expects to remain financially dependent in some way until reaching age 30, according to a new national survey from Junior Achievement USA and Citizens Bank.

About three-quarters of them figure they’ll own a car before they hit the big 3-0. Way to keep the bar low, guys.

According to Jack Kosakowski of Junior Achievement USA, the survey results show “a disconcerting lack of confidence among teens when it comes to achieving financial goals.

“With a strong economy, you would think teens would be more optimistic,” says Kosakowski, president and CEO.

“It just demonstrates the importance of working with young people to help them better understand financial concepts and gain confidence in their ability to manage their financial futures.”

Only 44 percent say they’ll have begun saving for retirement by then, and about the same number hope to have paid off their student loans. At the same time, 60 percent of those surveyed think they’ll own homes.

There’s a disconnect there, I think, that may not be the simple optimism of youth: How do they plan to save for retirement, pay off all their student loans and still own a home?

 

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Financial planning: Too many women don’t care.

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This just in: In the 21st century, plenty of women are still leaving the long-term financial planning decisions to their husbands.

According to a study from UBS Global Wealth Management, 58 percent of women let their spouses handle the big-picture finances.

Here’s what really startled me, though: In the United States, 56 percent of millennial women (ages 20 to 34) were okay with letting their husbands handle the big money choices.

Have we learned nothing from the past few decades?

As a very young woman experiencing poverty, sexism, harassment and exploitation, I used to think, “Things will be better for our daughters.” Surely they would have more. More education. More redress. More lifelong options. More financial security.

Yet we’re still raising our girls to think they’re not good with money, or maybe that men are somehow better at it.

 

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Life hack: 9 uses for a rice sock.

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Recently DF committed to giving his older granddaughter a ride to school every morning. She’s in a charter school, i.e., no buses.

The booster seat required by state law is chilly, and she let him know. The next morning he warmed up our biggest rice sock (we have several) and put it on the booster, to create a kind of poor man’s heated car seat. Thus her narrow little butt stayed toasty-warm all the way to school.

Now that’s service. DF also brings along a banana and an old Altoids tin filled with bacon. This kind of thing could give Uber and Lyft a run for their money.

For the uninitiated, a rice sock is a classic life hack. Simple, too: a cloth bag (sometimes an actual sock) filled with uncooked rice. Heat it in the microwave and you have a steady, lasting source of heat.

You can also heat it atop a wood stove: During a prolonged power outage some years back, DF put a rice sock in a clay pot atop the fireplace insert. Until the heat came back on, the rice sock was as good as a hot-water bottle. Better, maybe: If it had leaked it wouldn’t have soaked the bed.

As the headline of this post indicates, that’s not the only use for a rice sock.

 

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