Tips for Successful Personal Finances
Did you miss the Experian Credit Chat yesterday? You don’t have to miss out.
Experian does a Credit Chat every Wednesday at 3pm EST. Yesterday’s timely topic was Valentine’s Day on a Budget – pretty appropriate for tomorrow.
I was one of several panelist who participated in the Twitter chat. There were some great suggestions by the panelist that may be something you are interested in for you to save money. Here’s the link if you were unable to join.
Yes, it’s that time of year again – tax time. As of January 27, you be able to file.
You can get your taxes prepared.
You don’t want to wait until the last minute then realize you can’t find the all important paperwork to back up your tax return.
You may be able to get your taxes prepared for free AND from a reputable source.
There’s help if you’re a senior or have a low to moderate income.
Go to www.IRS.gov to find information on the VITA program (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance), the TCE Program and AARP Tax-Aide.
There you can learn
You don’t have to be afraid to use these services. The tax preparers at these programs are certified volunteers who work under a qualified supervisor. The location near me is at the local community college and is supervised by a CPA and Chair of the Accounting Department.
Each location will have different hours, so check before you make the trip. Some will take appointments and some are walk-in only.
If you qualify, you may save yourself a few hundred dollars. You’ll get the work done at no cost to yourself and a trained preparer can catch details that might net you a bigger return.
Join 
me on Experian’s Credit Chat on Wednesday, February 12 at 3pm EST.
We’ll be discussing How To Spend Valentine’s Day On A Budget.
Mark your calendar for next week.
It’s winter here in the northeast, but you wouldn’t know it by mother nature. The greater New York City area ended up with the tenth warmest January on record. Personally, we had one snow storm and few days close to 60. But there is still February, March and maybe April to get some winter cold, snowy weather. 
Here are some tips to save on your heating bill:
These are some of the things that we do around our home to keep pour heating bill as low as possible. There is more to do outside, before the weather gets cold. Check out this past newsletter with those tips.
Have you struggled to save money because there never seems to be anything left over?Big surprise! We tend to spend the money we have in front of us. Getting a raise never seems to help, because that money disappears, too. There’s always something we think we need or want right now.
The best way to grow the money in your savings account is by setting up an automatic deposit from your paycheck. That way you never see it to spend it. If your company doesn’t offer this, that’s not a problem. Have an amount set up to be transferred automatically from your checking account to savings on a regular basis. The benefits here are that you are saving without any effort on your part and the money isn’t in your checking account to tempt you.
In addition, don’t have your saving account linked to your checking account on your ATM card. Why you ask? It’s too easy to transfer the funds without any thought. Also, you might want to have your saving account at another financial institution. You can access when you need the funds, but it isn’t that easy – so you will have time to think about withdrawing the funds.
Start to put your savings on automatic pilot today.
Let’s talk about where your credit is today. Those of you on my newsletter list should have recently pulled your January credit report. What are you hoping to accomplish? Do you want better credit? Do you want to be able to get financing when you need it at a reasonable interest rate? You can do this and it is possible. If your credit isn’t where you want it to be, you can change it. There’s no magic want and it can’t be done overnight (and you can pay someone to improve your score), but you can see improvements in a relatively short amount of tim
e.
Here are some credit score tips:
All this over time will improve your credit and thereore credit score. The thing to remember is the newer credit counts more than item from the past. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s that time of year that we evaluate many things in our lives:
January is a month that we analyze our bills, We review all bills and if necessary, we take action. It could be as simple as comparison shopping, reviewing overages and more. One thing we have done was to review our homeowners insurance and make some changes. We replaced our home’s roof last fall, that qualified us for a credit on our homeowner’s insurance. We made some other small changes. All that resulted in a $500 premium savings.
As we reviewed finances, we made a decision to close some accounts that were no longer used, cancelled memberships / subscriptions that we didn’t use. We transferred some debt to a zero percentage interest rate credit card. If you do this make sure you payoff the balance before the zero percentage expires. We have taken the balance and divided it by the number of months. We make that payment or more each and every month. We updated our phone and mail preferences so that we receive less unwanted mail and phone calls. For links to these companies visit my resources page.
While we are preparing for our taxes, we are reviewing paperwork. That means filing, scanning and shredding. Be sure to check with your tax preparer about what documents should be saved and for how long.
At this time of year, we update all passwords. You never want to use the same password for your accounts – accounts should have there own unique user id and password. Yes, it can be a pain to remember. But if someone get access to one of your accounts, you don’t want to give them access to everything.
What do you do annually in January?
Have you wanted to visit a National Park?
We have been to a few and have so many more on our bucket list. Many are free but some of the big ones charge an entrance fee. Every year the National Parks Service
offers free days and they are wonderful way to take advantage and see a park on your bucket list and save money.
So mark your calendar, here are the 2020 dates:
Monday, Jan. 20 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Saturday, April 18 — First Day of National Park Week/National Junior Ranger Day
Tuesday, Aug. 25 — National Park Service Birthday
Saturday, Sept. 26 — National Public Lands Day
Wednesday, Nov. 11 — Veterans Day
Enjoy
What is it that you want to achieve with your finances? Is it to have an emergency fund? Is it to save for a specific goal such as a down payment on a home / car? Do you want to save more for retirement? Whatever you want you can achieve it.
Start by writing down your goal (in a SMART format). Then break it down to manageable steps.
For example, I want to save $500 by the end of the year – that’s
Now think of ways to find that money to save
With this in mind, you could find the $9.62 a week to save to meet your goal.
Remember that breaking it down to manageable steps is key so it doesn’t seem so over whelming.
Let me know what your financial goal is and maybe I can help you break it down in to smaller steps.
Hello, it’s Jill again, reminding you to get your finances in order so you can start the new years off right.
How to Order Your Credit Report
The only authorized source for your report is AnnualCreditReport.com. You won’t be charged and they won’t force you to sign up for “credit monitoring”. It’s yours to review by law. Learn more.
Visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com:
Not comfortable ordering online? There are other ways to order your report:
1-877-322-8228What should you do with your report?
Were you hoping for your credit score instead? Try CreditKarma.com. It doesn’t give you a FICO score, but it comes close. And, there’s no charge for you. CreditKarma funds their service through website advertising.
P.S. I’ll send you another reminder in April for your next report of the year.