Jill Russo Foster

Tips for Successful Personal Finances

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Simplifying Our Mail

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Are you overwhelmed with mail?  If you are like we use to be, we got a tone of physical mail.  It’s taken a while, but we have reduce our paper mail more than 50%.

Step 1 for us was to eliminate unwanted mail.  We called each and every catalogue that arrived to ask to be taken off the mailing list.  It wasn’t as time consuming as you are thinking.  WE created a pile and when we had time we made the calls – thinking wait for an oil change, waiting at a doctor’s office, etc.

Step 2 for us was to call the ones we wanted to ask that they not share our name.  You are probably thinking that the privacy act does this and it does to some extent, not as much as I wanted.  They are share you information with affiliates.

Step 3, in addition, we have signed up for these organization that reduce your mail:

Less mail simplifies our lives in many ways – less paper to shred / recycle, no more piles of mail to go through and not more temptation to buy what we don’t need.

 

Your Finances Today

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Our lives are changing from what we know.  People are losing their jobs, others are furloughed.  You can’t count on unemployment as your survival means.  We have to fallback on our savings (hopefully you have one).  If not, you have to prioritize your spending.

Eliminate the expenses you can.  If a service you pay for is closed, try to stop paying for it.  Reduce other expenses.  But at some point, that may not be enough.  What can you do and what bills should you pay and which can you delay.

Here’s a article from CNBC Which Bills To Pay During a Coronavirus Pandemic

Remember that each state / city has specific policies, check with the state that you live in to see what is available to you.

 

 

You Need An Emergency Savings

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Whether you have been laid off, furloughed or salary reduced, you need an emergency savings to fall back on more than ever.

What’s your emergency savings account look like? Suze Orman suggests that you have eight months of income in your emergency savings. Dave Ramsey and Jean Chatzky both say 3 to 6 months. Hello Wallet suggest that you think of emergency saving in three ways – minor emergencies, major emergencies and job loss. Bottom line, you need an emergency savings account.

As with any goal, start with a plan – then automate it. When we started our emergency savings, our goal was to save $1,000. That would get us through the unexpected small expense. We started by saving $20 per week to reach that $1,000 goal in one year.  Maybe that’s not possible in these challenging times, can you find $5 per week.  While you are home, it’s a good time to review your bills, to find savings.  Take a look at your credit card / bank statements, are there automatic changes you are paying for and not using?  Can you replace an expense with something free?  Can you reduce an expense to save money? 

Once you accomplish your goal, I would like you to about your next savings goal. Sometimes unexpected emergencies cost more than you expect, especially if you are a homeowner. I have always thought that the major repair emergency fund should be in the $5,000 range. So then we started on this goal.  $100 a week gets you to $5,000 in a year. We divided this between both our paychecks. My husband gets paid weekly so he contributes $50 each week. I get paid every other week, so I put in $100. We then have achieved this goal of $5,000 in a year.

Remember, this is not a save for one year and done type of thing. You may need to use this money, so you need to replace what you use. You can never have too much money saved for the what if’s of life.

Financial Literacy Month – Tip #8

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Savings Accounts and ATMs

Here’s the tip from March 28 – Saving More month:

One thing that I have learned over the years is not to have my savings account linked to my debit / ATM card. That way, if I want to make an impulse purchase, I have to put some thought into it and move money either online or at the bank. This delay usually makes me think about the purchase and talk myself out of it.

An added benefit to this is if your card is stolen, the thief cannot access the money in your savings. This is a good thing since most of us keep our money in savings versus checking accounts

To purchase a copy of either of my books Thrive In Five: Take Charge of Your Finances in 5 Minutes a Day or 111 Ways To Save

#JillRussoFoster  #30WaysToSave

Financial Literacy Month – Tip #2

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Unseen Bills

Here’s the tip from January 28 – Analyze Your Bills month:

These are those bills that you don’t get in the mail. Those things that you are set up to automatically renew. The service will tell you that they take the hassle out of remembering to pay by setting automatic payments up for you. Yes, they do take the hassle out of it for you. But, the other side is that you might not remember this bill and therefore don’t look at it to cancel it or to shop around for a cheaper service. Examples of this can be subscriptions and memberships. Today, think about what you have in your life that happens automatically. Is it that gym membership that you bought last January that you don’t use? Is it the magazine subscription that renews automatically and is billed to your credit card? What’s happening automatically in your life?

To purchase a copy of either of my books Thrive In Five: Take Charge of Your Finances in 5 Minutes a Day or 111 Ways To Save

#JillRussoFoster  #30WaysToSave

Spring Cleaning Your Finances & More

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As I sit here and write this blog post about spring, I am glad it actually begins tonight.  The days are getting longer with the change to daylight saving time.

For us, it has been a mild winter with only one snow storm of a couple of inches back in January.  We have even had some record warmth days with one more coming tomorrow.  If fact, I know it’s spring is here because the daffodils and crocus are blooming.

In this difficult time, I am trying my best to stay present and not react out of fear.  For me, the best way is to accomplish something, such as learning a new skills or tackling a project.

Here are some projects that you might want to tackle:

  1. When was the last time you shredded your out dated paperwork.  Typically, after seven years papers can be tossed with a few exceptions.  Check with your tax preparer for your situation.  This is a good time to do this as many communities have a free paper shredding days coming up in April for you to take advantage of.
  2. Did you learn something from filing your taxes?  Maybe you need to make adjustments to your paycheck withholding or to save more to be able to pay the taxes you owe.  Take a look at your finances and make the changes now with your HR department.
  3. Where do your finances stand in relationship to your beginning of the year goals?  Maybe you set a goal to save a certain amount this year.  Are you one quarter of the way there?  We are about three months into the year, therefore you should be at 25% of your goal.  Are you on the path to achieving this goals? Do you need to make adjustments to your finances to achieve the goal?  Now is the time to take a look and make the changes needed, so you are not disappointed at year end.
  4. When was the last time you changed your passwords?  Update your accounts with strong passwords.
  5. How about organizing your paperwork?  Paper comes in everyday and seem to pile up.  Use this time if your home to create a system that works for you.

Stay healthy and use your time wisely this spring.

Required Distributions Are Changing – Make Your Plan

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As we get older and start to think about reducing our working hours or retiring all together, it’s time to make a plan for your finances before you take the leap.  If you have been contributing to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA), 401K or other pre-tax account, you’ll need to start taking money out of your accounts. 

You might be thinking, I don’t want to take the money out until I need it.  Well, the government sees it differently.  They want there tax money since you have deferred the taxes.  Remember, this becomes taxable money and may put you in a higher tax bracket. As always you’ll need to discuss this with your tax preparer, bank / investment professional and/or attorney for what is right for you and your situation.

The old rule, is in the year after you turn 70 1/2 you were required to take a minimum distribution from your account by April 1 of the following year for the first year (then Dec 31 for year 2 subsequent years).  This rules is still true for people who turned 70 1/2 years old by the end of 2019.  Keep in mind that you can take as much as you want, but you have to take a minimum distribution each and every year after.

The new rule is part of the SECURE  (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement) Act, passed in 2019.  Now, if you are younger than 70 1/2 by Dec 31, 2019, you can now wait until you are 72 years old before having to take the minimum distribution from your tax deferred account(s).  So you can let your money grow an additional two years.

Now, to avoid penalties with your required minimum distribution, you must take out a minimum each and every year.  To determine your amount, start with the value of your account on Dec 31 of the prior year and divide that by your life expectancy to come up with your amount.  If you take less than your are required, the penalties are ridiculously high.  They can be as much as 50%.  You have worked very hard for your money and you wouldn’t want to give it up to penalties.

Make a plan that’s right for you with your professionals, so that you get the money you need within the guidelines for the distribution.  Make sure to take at least what your are entitled.  You’ll have to pay the taxes on the distribution, but you don’t want to pay additional penalties to the government.  With this planning step, you can decide if you can afford to fully retire or if you need to keep working.

How To Spend Valentine’s Day On A Budget

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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.

Automatic Transfers To Save More

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savings-automatic

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.

Our January Rituals

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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?