personal finance

7 money lessons from “A Quiet Place.

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Linda B. and I went to see “A Quiet Place” recently and it was as frightening as I’d expected it would be – even though I already knew a couple of major plot points, due to having read a couple of spoiler-filled articles. (Will I ever learn?)

Even when I knew what was going to happen, “A Quiet Place” genuinely scared me. That’s because these weren’t jump-scare moments or, worse, the torture porn that passes for suspense/horror these days. The underlying emotion was fear.

Fear that we can’t protect our children, or teach them enough to survive in the world. Fear that we won’t have enough to eat. Fear that we’ll lose the ones we love.

Those are some grade-A terrors, all right – and given all the recent bluster about nuclear weapons, they’re not exactly unfounded.

I, of course, also found personal finance lessons in the movie. That’s how I roll.

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Giveaway: “Frugality For Depressives.”

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Greetings from sunny Phoenix! I’m visiting my daughter and meeting some deadlines. While I do have to finish the paying work, I also wanted to put up a new post. Yet why come this far south and spend my non-work hours writing?

The solution came to me this morning: Do a giveaway post! Haven’t done one in a while, after all.

And why not make the prize a copy of Abby’s book? That’s a hostess gift she can really appreciate. #virtualetiquette

One lucky reader will get either a paperback or Kindle copy of “Frugality For Depressives: Money-Saving Tips For Those Who Find Life A Little Harder.”

Of course a mother would think her kid’s book is awesome. But I’m not the only one who thinks the book can help depressives and the chronically ill (and maybe others — more on that below).

 

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Five fast financial fixes.

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This post is a second-generation copycat post. Specifically: My daughter wrote “5 fast, easy ways to improve your finances” after being inspired by a post from the Bitches Get Riches website (whose title is not ready for prime time, but definitely worth a read if you’re not averse to salty language).

Hey, if it worked for their readers, it should work for mine.

 

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Hey, Josh Radnor: You’re frugal.

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The other day I read an article about Josh Radnor, the actor who played Ted Mosby on the television series “How I Met Your Mother.” Now 43, he talked about staying in his $750-a-month sublet for the first two years of the show, even though it was a megahit.

“You don’t know, as an actor, how sustainable things are going to be, how long things are going to last,” he told CNBC.

Finally he bought a house – the last person in the cast to do so – and by the end of the series he’d made the Forbes list of the highest-paid television actors, earning $10 million (salary plus syndication bucks).

Normally I don’t write about celebs, but I want to highlight something Radnor said in the article:

“It’s not that I’m frugal. I don’t mind spending money if I believe in the thing. (But) there’s not a lot of stuff I look at in the world and say ‘Oh, man, I gotta have that’.”

As long as we’re doing TV today, I’m going to paraphrase Eleanor Shellstrop* from “The Good Place”: Josh Radnor…Ya frugal!

 

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Pinterest won’t cover your credit card bills.

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According to the “Generations Ahead” study from Allianz Life, millennials aren’t doing too badly, financially speaking.

They’re building good savings habits, thinking about retirement, etc. However, social media is doing a number on their good intentions.

Almost 90 percent of the millennials surveyed believe that social media encourages people to compare their own lives with the way other people live.

You don’t say.

More than half (57 percent) of those millennials cop to having spent money because of social media influence. That’s why I wrote “Social media will try to bankrupt you: Here are four tactics to stay solvent” over at The Simple Dollar.

 

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Even the Tooth Fairy is cutting back.

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PF how much the Tooth Fairy paysWhen I was a kid the Tooth Fairy would bring a nickel or a dime for each lost tooth. I sorta-kinda remember getting 25 cents once, but that’s probably wishful thinking. My parents had four kids and not a whole lot of cash.

Possibly one of my classmates bragged about getting a quarter per cuspid and I dreamed it would happen to me as well.

The annual Original Tooth Fairy Poll from Delta Dental says today’s kids are getting an average of $5.70 per first tooth lost. Dang.

That’s actually a slight drop from last year’s average of $5.72 per tooth. Even so: Dang.

 

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Living “poor” and loving it.

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Happy Throwback Thursday! This is the original version of my second article for MSN Money. Given the popularity of the reboot of my first-ever MSN piece – the one about surviving and thriving on $12,000 a year – I’ve decided to post its successor.

Some of its sentiments about the Us-vs.-Them mentality are still relevant. (Unfortunately.)

Incidentally: I didn’t write the headlines; they were thrust upon me. My own suggestion was “How to be poor,” but the editor liked his version better. I’m leaving in the original because I’m masochistic like that.

 

I don’t consider myself deprived, although I can see why some people might think so. I don’t own a laptop computer, television, DVD player, stereo, iPod, video-game system or  many of the other things marketed as necessities.

But I have food, shelter, family, friends, a radio, a bus pass, a library card and the chance to attend a respected university. How could I consider myself “poor” when so many people have nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep and no chance to improve their situations?

Yet there is another reason I hesitate to call myself poor: the cultural baggage associated with the word. Poor people are lazy, stupid, immoral, shameless and incapable of making smart decisions. Poor people are losers; our country loves winners. We want poor people to trade their rags for riches. We want them to embody the American dream.

 

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Cheryl paid off her mortgage.

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When I visited my dad in Tarpon Springs, Fla., last year, he and I met up with a reader named Cheryl. The three of us sat in a Dunkin Donuts talking about life and money. One of the things she mentioned was a rapid mortgage paydown.

Recently she wrote to say she is now completely debt-free, 14 years ahead of schedule.

Cheryl also included a letter she wrote to her niece, a mid-20s newlywed who’s trying to vanquish student loans. While I’m loath to throw around the word “inspirational,” this note fits the bill. That’s why I’m excerpting it:

 

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Early auto loan payoff: Three inspiring stories.

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Aside from a house, a car is probably going to be the most expensive thing most of us ever buy. According to Experian’s 2017 “State of the Automotive Finance Market” report, the average auto loan amount is now $30,621.

Sound like a lot? That’s because it is – and our cars probably cost more than that. The $30,621 figure is the auto loan amount. Imagine how much it might be without trade-in allowances and/or down payments.

Oh, and we’re borrowing for a lot longer. Almost one-third of borrowers (32.1 percent) are choosing terms of 73 to 84 months.

These are the kinds of numbers that make me want to lie down with a cold cloth over my eyes. I learned them while researching “How to finally pay off your car this year,” an article for Magnify Money.

Fortunately, I also know of some consumers who didn’t opt for seven-year loans. Instead, they paid off their vehicles in six to 18 months. They weren’t well-heeled – just determined.

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How we use credit: A new federal report.

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A recent report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau contained a couple of concerns and a big surprise. For me, anyway.

“The consumer credit card market” states that both the total amount of credit line and the average amount of card debt have gone up over the past few years. No surprise there, given our national preoccupation with spending.

Here’s what got my attention: More people are signing up for secured credit cards, which require cash deposits. The number of secured cards provided by mass market issuers was 7 percent higher in 2016 than in 2015.

Until fairly recently most financial institutions haven’t put a whole lot of oomph into marketing secured cards. That’s changing, the federal agency notes, as consumer groups and the media suggest these cards as a good way to build credit scores.

What’s in it for the banks? Loyalty.

 

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