Jill Russo Foster

Tips for Successful Personal Finances

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Money, Life and Savings

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A reader asked me about how to save to purchase a home, when your money doesn’t allow much for savings.

That’s a great question. But not an easy one to answer.

We all know that saving should be a priority.  But we have monthly obligations.  So here are so general steps to achieve what you want (in this case a home).

  1. Track your spending – many people overlook this step.  Trust me this is the most important step in achieving your goal.  Write down every penny that you spend for at least a month.  Track everything from the rent payment to purchase of the newspaper.
  2. Weekly (or more often) take your tracked numbers and put it in to a budget.
  3. Analyze where your money is going and make a plan to spend less.  Even saving $5 a week will add up.
  4. Automate your savings goals and pay yourself first.  You will learn to live off less if you don’t see it available in your checking account. You may want to unlink your checking and savings (or have them with separate banks).
  5. Lastly, look into home ownership programs in your community.
  6. Check out to see if you qualify for an Individual Development Account to save for a down payment.

While it’s hard to save money each and every month.  It a necessary step in life to achieving your goals.

 

Love and Money

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Valentine’s Day is a day when we exchange gifts, have a special meal and more with the person we love.  Usually all is well and life goes on. love and money

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I want to talk to you about love and money. I have known many couples who were in love until they found out about the other person’s money habits.

Your money incompatibility doesn’t have to end the relationship. If this is the one, you can make it work. You just have to ask the right questions.

This is what you need to know about each other:

  • Financial Issues: Income, assets, expenses, debt and credit. Understand what is going on with each other’s finances. Are there debts and back taxes? Are the savings accounts available to use jointly? Should some of the assets be merged or sold off, and if so which ones?
  • Money Type: Are you a Spender or a Saver?  If you know, you can use your joint goals to meet in the middle on common ground. If you’re habits are extreme, you might want to keep separate bank accounts. That way, one of you won’t feel pinched while the other is in a constant state of sticker shock.
  • Long Term Goals: What do you want from life?  Do you want to be married or single? Do you want to be a homeowner or rent for the rest of your lives?  Do you want to have children? These questions need to be answered so you can save towards the same goals.
  • CFO (Chief Financial Officer): Who is in charge of the money? Is it one of you or both?  Will you split the responsibilities by category or do everything jointly? Knowing will keep “that’s mine” arguments to a limit.

With this information, you can decide if you want to keep your finances together or separate.  Joining your bank accounts together with someone who has ignored debt or back taxes may mean your money is at risk (even if it’s not your obligation), and in the end, puts you both in the same deep hole with no way out.

Finances can be the doom of relationships.  Being informed and making proactive choices is the best way to make the relationship work.

Paying For College – FAFSA

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It ‘s that time of year.  Your teens are making their college choices for the fall and all the excitement that goes with it. What school should they go to?  Will they stay near or go far? What will I need to do next?

First let ‘s start with the paying for college.  If you have the money saved for the cost of college for all four years (or more), then you can stop reading.  If not, you need to start or continue to figure out the finances.  FAFSA – Free Application for Federal Student Aid – is the first step.  Apply now, even if you don’t think you qualify – you may be surprised.

Here is a great article by Consumer Reports for financial aid that will tell you what you need to know.

Ask Questions

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January has been a month of me asking questions.  You may be thinking what is she talking about.  Lots of items came to light throughout the month that required more information.  Here is a sampling of what came up:

  • I was listed as a “non-owner” on our auto insurance.  I had no idea what that mean and had to do the research to find out more.
  • I received two bills one from the lab for bloodwork and one from doctor’s office for a physical.  It was my understanding that this was covered through my medical insurance as a preventative visit at no cost to me. Again, multiple calls and asking for my medical claims to be adjusted.
  • Receiving less than expected in a paycheck.  More calls to get to get to the bottom line
  • And the list goes on.

Never be afraid or think your questions aren’t worthy of an answer.  In my case, it’s my money.  Call and ask questions until you are satisfied with the answers.

For me, I was able to save money on our auto insurance after a lengthy phone call, the medical insurance company paid the bloodwork bill in full after appeal, the doctors bill was adjusted and I owed less than 50% of the bill and I am still working to understand resolve the paycheck issue.  So far, I with these questions we have saved close to $300. That’s worth my time and efforts.

How Financially Savvy is Your State?

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October is National Financial Planning month!

According to Wallet Hub, 2 out of 5 US adults grade themselves as a “C” or worse on their personal finance knowledge.  To see the report and find out where your state stands, click here.

It’s never too late to learn about personal finances.  Start by reading something each and every day.  Check out my newsletter past issues and sign up to receive, Money Choices it in your inbox.

Take Time To Protect Your Identify Now

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Well it happened again – this time EquiFax! This is not the first time nor will it be the last security breach.

Here are some suggestions that you may want to take to help to protect your identity:

•    Personally, I am not a fan of doing banking on my phone, so I don’t have these apps. But I do have many texts (one for each transaction) and this way, I can catch anything immediately. I will be adding my credit cards to this process.

•    In addition, I use two-step authentication for all my accounts. Having a code either texted or phoned to me to use to access my account.

•    Check your credit report. I am a firm believer of this and now even more so. If you need reminders to check your credit for free three times per year, sign up for my newsletter here and you will get email reminders to check your credit every four months.

•    Monitor your accounts. I typically check in a couple of times a month, both my bank and credit card accounts just to look for anything that I don’t recognize. If you don’t want to do this, make sure you reconcile your accounts monthly.

•    You may want to set up credit monitoring service and/or freeze your credit report. You can check out my article on Credit Freeze here.

•    Change your passwords regularly.They shouldn’t be easy to guess (use a combination of upper and lower case letters, number and symbols) and don’t you use the same password. Each account should have its’ own individual one.

Take the time now to protect your identity. It’s much easier to do this proactively than to deal with the turmoil of identity theft later.

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Saving money daily – discounts

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I love getting a discount.  Don’t you?

When we grocery shop, we use coupons, meal plan and shop the sales.  We eat healthy with any organic products, so there aren’t as many coupons as in the past.  Yes, items do go on sale, but it can still be expensive.

Our grocery store gives us gas points.  For every dollar we spend, we get points – 100 points is 10¢ off per gallon.  Last weekend we saved 90¢ per gallon.  That certainly helps our budget and can helpful to you.

Are you getting all the rewards possible? Learn more on discounts and rewards.

Saving money daily – eliminating expenses

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What are the things you are willing to do without or do differently?

In our household, we do our own yardwork and save by not having to pay for a lawn or snowplowing service.  The trade off is that it takes time to do these tasks and we had to purchase the lawn mower, weed wacker and snow blower.  This can be a big initial expense.  But, we don’t have monthly bills.

Our town has private trash collectors, that’s another monthly bill.  We take our own trash to the transfer station and eliminated that bill years ago.

What are you willing to do or doing that have helped your finances?

For more tips, please visit my website.