Jill Russo Foster

Tips for Successful Personal Finances

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Holiday Debt!!!!

Did you vow to not accumulate holiday debt this year!

According to Wallet Hub, the average person is expected to spend over $1,000 this year, that is up 4.1% over 2017.

What’s your plan to stay out of debt this holiday season?  Here are some questions you need to think about?

  1. How much can you afford to spend this year without going into debt?
  2. How many people are on your list?
  3. Can you eliminate or reduce the number of people?  Think group gifts where you can pool your money with others.
  4. Could you offer a service they need instead of a gift?  What can you do that they need? Think childcare for an evening, so they can go out without the kids.

Take some time to think about what is important to you and your family.  Don’t forget to think about your budget too.  This is something that is really important so that you don’t have a January hangover. Everyone wants to celebrate the season, but no one wants someone to have all these bills come in January.  Make a plan and stick to it.

Make sure you don’t fall off your plan with Black Friday this week.

Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends.

When Disaster Is Coming To Your Door

My heart truly breaks for all the people effected by these disasters.  The latest one being the California wild fires.  It seems that no matter where you live something could be coming your way.

For us here in Connecticut, we get Nor’easters and this year plenty of rain. For other parts of the country it could be a hurricane, wild fire, major storms with repercussions and so much more in the way of natural disasters.  Unfortunately, these aren’t the only situations you have to be prepared for in today’s world. Are you ready for what could be coming your way?

You need a plan and possible several plans (for all that’s involved in your life).  Here are something you may need to consider:

  1. How will I know what’s going on?  Think your power is out and many items need to be charged or do you have a manual option.
  2. Where do I go if I need to evaluate or should I stay in place?  Remember, you may have to plan for your elderly family members, young children and pets too.
  3. What are the important things to take with you or have available to access?
  4. How will I communicate to / family others that I am safe?

Just this week on the news, someone tried to abduct a young girl.  Her family had a plan in place with a “code word”.  She asked the potential abductor what the code word was.  They didn’t know, so she was able to figure this not to go with that person and run safely away.  This was great plan and it worked for them.  What’s your plan?

There are so many questions and situations that you need to be prepared for.  One place to start is with the government website.

America Recycles Day

Thursday, November 15 is America Recycles Day!

I have always been someone who recycles.  My mom started me recycling when we were growing up.  That all I knew and we still continue to this everyday in our household. We separate our deposit cans/bottles to return to the store, we sort our plastic, metal and glass for trips to the town’s transfer station and we shred and recycle our paper items.

For those other items, we participate in special days throughout the year. Here are a few in our area:

  • Light bulb day – we are able to turn in used light bulbs for new ones
  • Prescription / Over the counter medicine – we turn in on that day of the year

And now, we have America Recycles Day this week.  You can turn in a variety of items in your local area.  For more details of what is available in your area, go to America Recycles Day.  In addition, Staples has make this day a week long event from November 11 to the 17, they will accept your old electronics and give you a coupon towards your next purchase (see Staples for details).

For more information on places to get rid of items, please check out my resources page for more suggestions.  If you have a place that you use that’s not on our list, please let us know.

If you want to reduce what coming in, here are some other great links:

Take advantage of this and other recycling days in your area.

 

 

 

We’re Back From Our Anniversary Trip

This year we celebrated our anniversary with a Pacific Northwest cruise.

Back in the early summer, I wrote two newsletters about planning our fall vacation.  We are back and wanted to share the trip with you.  Here’s the link to the two earlier newsletters – first and second issues to remind you of the details.

We took a Pacific Northwest cruise out of Seattle with stops at Astoria, Oregon, San Francisco, California and Victoria, BC and few days in Seattle too.

With all this planning and paying ahead, we spent very little on the actual vacation.  Mostly everything was paid (or paid with points / miles) in the months before as our budget permitted – hotel, cruise, airfare, attractions and some meals were included.  We selected hotels with breakfast included, bought City Pass’ (discount admission to attractions) and walked and/or public transportation.  Lots of steps – over 21,000 in San Francisco in one day!

Yes, there was a lot of research and planning, but this step saved us money and we have fun – lots of money!

Here we are at the Space Needle.  To view more photos, visit our Pinterest page.

Are You Nearing Retirement?

No (or minimal) retirement savings!  If you are getting up there closer to retirement, this can be a scary thing.

Suze Orman wrote this great article, that there can be hope and it’s not too late to start or catch up on retirement savings.  Help! I’m 55 and Have No Nest Egg

You can do anything you set a goal to do.

IRS and Travel

If you love to travel like we do, you better read on.  Do you owe the IRS money?  If you owe a substantial money and haven’t made payment arrangements, your passport could be in jeopardy.

Here’s some more information from AARP’s travel newsletter.

Another reason to stay on top of your finances.

Have You Checked This Lately?

Every year around my birthday is the time I check my social security.

No, I am not ready to apply.  But it’s something I do annually to make sure all is correct.  Every year social security posts your income to your account (the same income you file on your federal tax return).  I like to double check to make sure mine is correct.  It’s much easier for me to check now, then to figure it out when I apply for social security down the road.  My records are easily accessible and easy to review to double check.

When was the last time you looked at your social security account?

Planning Our Fall Vacation

What to do in each port?  That’s a difficult question.  So much to do and so little time.

If it’s a new place, sometimes we just want to take a tour to get an overview.  That’s the case for the first and last stop of this cruise.  We are taking a cruise line shore excursion to see the coast and in another city we are doing a whale watch.

Yet another city, San Francisco with a two day stop (we have been there before), what to do?  Our original thought was to go to Yosemite for the day.  We even worked out the details to make it work for us.  But now the wildfires may derail this plan.

For us, the research is critical to saving money.  First, what do we want to do?  To start, we look at the cruise line shore excursions for ideas.  If we find something that appeals to us – great!  Then the research begins.  What other companies offer this excursion?  The research piece begins with for these other companies:

  • Is there a cruise guarantee?  Do you get your money back if the cruise line doesn’t come into port?
  • Will they guarantee you will make it back tot he ship in time?
  • Will they pick up and drop off at the pier or very close by?
  • What are the companies reviews like (both on the website and with outside companies)?
  • What is the cost and what does it include?
  • Are there discounts?

These are important questions that we need the answers to.

Some of my favorite websites are Trip Advisor, Viator, Cruise Critic and more.  I should tell you that Cruise Critic is the best. You join the chat room for your specific cruise and this puts you in touch with others sailing with you.  This is a great resource, as we have shared private tours many time by joining others (and sometimes we have booked the tour and are looking for others to share with us).

All these are factors in determining what to do in port.

 

Planning Our Fall Vacation

Those of you that are regular readers, we have an upcoming vacation for the fall.  I am going to take you through the planning this week, to see how we save money.

Our airfare, hotels and cruise are booked and paid (a while back).  We always fly in a day or more before a cruise (never want to miss the ship).  Since we are arriving late the night before, we are staying close to the airport.

Getting to the the ship in the morning, we have several options:

  • Back to the airport and take the cruise transfer
  • Make our way on our own
  • Alternate transfer

Our choices was the alternated transfer.  This was our thought process, we have never been to this city and wanted to see some of it.  We didn’t want to get to the ship too early and wait there to board.  We found a cruise transfer tour company that will pick us up at the hotel and give us a 3 hour tour of the city and drop us off at the pier.

The savings for us:

  • No rental car needed
  • Tour company will take luggage on tour
  • Hotel pick up with pier drop off

Yes, this is more than the transfer alone, but we have never been to the city (I don’t count changing planes here years ago a visit).  This way we will be familiar with the city before we spend the weekend after the cruise.