Tips for Successful Personal Finances
If you want to teach your teens about personal finances, I am teaching a class at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, CT specifically for teens.
It’s a five day class the week of July 15, 2019 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm.
For more information or to register your teen, call 203-857-7080 or please visit Norwalk Community College.
Last year this class filled quickly and we turned teens away, so don’t wait to register!
We recently purchased a replacement car. We bought my 1995 Jeep in September 1994 and we felt it was time to get another car.
Here are the steps we took before making the purchase:
All this took place over about a four month time frame. Once we determined what car – brand and model, we did our online research for deals (the model and miles). We wanted to be ready to move as soon as we found the car we wanted. It had been a long time since we purchased a car, so we weren’t sure what we wanted in an SUV and we were open to most car manufacturers. This made the search process long, but I knew when we found what we wanted we would be ready.
And it happened a couple of weeks ago, we found the perfect SUV for me. A couple of years old (2016) with hardly any miles (less than 4,000), certified pre-owned and an extended warranty. That was the car for me. Saw it on a Thursday and make the decision on Friday – all our preparation made us ready to go. We picked up the car the following week.
As you know I am cleaning out stuff n in our home. My goal is to clean out the basement, garage etc. and reduce the family items that have accumulated over the years. We have made tremendous progress and are now down to items that may have value.
I have to admit that this is challenging. I don’t want to toss something of value. On the other hand, I don’t have the time to do all the research involved. So what am I supposed to do?
I found a company that buys gold, silver, coins, stamps etc. They seemed reputable. I have sold items to them in the past. I brought more items to them last month. One item in particular, a Movado watch, I knew was worth something, but I had no ideas how much. They offered me $40. My gut told me that was too low, so I declined. Before I left, he upped the offer to $50 – again I declined.
I took it to the local watch place that replaces my watch battery and asked them. The owner wasn’t in, so I left the watch. Imagine my surprise, when the owner called and we spoke. He offered me $123 for the watch. $73 more that the other place.
In this case, seller beware. Take the time to do the research necessary before you think about selling items. You might get more that you expected (a pleasant surprise), but you don’t want to sell and item to find out that you practically gave it away. I guess I have my work cut out for me over the summer.
I grew up with a mother that recycled and composted, so reducing and reusing is in my blood.
Our town was one of the first town’s in the state to ban the single use plastic bags at stores. They encourage you to bring your own bags. If you don’t bring your own, they will give you a paper bag. I personally keep my reusable bags in the back seat of my car, so that they are always available and with me. Also, when buying one single item, we skip the bag and take the item without a bag.
In addition, we have been reducing our single consumption items in favor of reusable ones. We are eliminating the plastic in our lives. We have switched from plastic bags to reusable silicone bags and from plastic containers to glass jars (mason jars are a great inexpensive alternative). We try not to purchase items in plastic instead looking for alternatives.
We now make our own cleaners in reusable glass jars – no more single use bottles from the store. You can believe how inexpensive it is to make your own (besides not having a single use container to toss). Baking soda, vinegar and essential oils can clean just about everything for a fraction of the cost of store bought cleaners.
We have eliminated the private trash collection service from our home and now take our own trash to the transfer station – we our down to one bag of trash per week. This eliminated a $100 a month bill! I love saving money.
Share with me what reusable things you do.
For your 2nd report of the year, use Equifax
Hello, it’s Jill again, reminding you to get your finances in order so you can relax this summer.
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 for free!
To Learn More, Visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com:
Not comfortable ordering online? There are other ways to order your report:
What should you do with your report?
Were you hoping for your credit score instead? One option is to take a look at CreditKarma.com, Quizzle.com or CreditSesame.com. They won’t give you a FICO score, but they come close by providing a close approximation of your score. And, there’s no charge for you.
May you have a relaxing and successful summer!
We were away and now back and ready to go. Yes, we took another cruise to the Caribbean on the Celebrity’s Equinox.
We had perfect weather 85 and sunny everyday. We did lots of fun things – relaxing at the pool, watching shows, comedians an magicians. Here are some photos of our day on Sapphire Beach, St Thomas, breakfast on our balcony, our glass blowing experience and more.
There are so many ways that scammers can get your information. It’s getting harder and harder to stay under their radar.
Personally, we request do a lot to be off lists:
We were very careful and put minimal information in the newspaper with the last death notice, we were responsible for. We give serious thought to what is posted in social media.
This is a constant effort that needs daily attention.
Do you want to know ways scammers get your information? They can get it through your trash, through your incoming / outgoing mail, over hear you on the phone and so much more. There are ways you probably don’t even realize. Here’s an article from AARP 7 Ways Scammers Get Your Information.
To my subscribers, starting with this weeks issue of my newsletter, Money Choices it will now be coming from jill@jillrussofoster.com 
As you know, I have been cleaning up and streaming-lining things in my life. And this is one of the changes happening.
Shortly, I will be eliminating the email address book@jillrussofoster.com. Please make a note of this updated email if you want to reach out to me and make sure you have whitelisted jill@jillrussofoster.com so that you don’t miss out on anything.
In honor of Money Smart Week, let’s talk about cash. Do you have enough? Are you living paycheck to paycheck? My philosophy about money is that is comes down to make choices that are right for you at this particular time of you life. Let’s start with $20.00 cash. What would you do?
A $20.00 may not seem to be a lot of money, but it can be. If I gave you $20.00 bill, what would you do with it?
You could:
I bet you can think of more choices. Your choices are unlimited. But instead of think about one thing to do, how about thinking about multiple things to do. You might be thinking that $20.00 is too little to do anything with, trust me it’s not.
What will $20.00 buy you:
My suggestion is to think about money is multiples. In this case, it’s not $20.00 maybe it’s 2 $10.00 bills or 4 $5.00 bills. Now what can you do with that? Now you can select multiple things on your list. Your choices are unlimited. Instead of thinking it’s only $20, think 12 months ahead – that would be $240. What could you do with that?
Finding extra money (no matter how small) can be put to good use. The choice is yours – do you use it today or save it for tomorrow?
Another part of my cleaning out, is tackling my digital life.
#1 – I get tons of emails. Yes, I want to read all of the ones I subscribe to and have the best of intentions, but I don’t have then time. I have started to go through the ones I really want to read. I have started to clean out ones that I never signed up for. I have achieved and deleted thousands. I don’t want my life to be tied to the computer reading emails. So I have unsubscribed from many. 
#2 – I have updated my passwords. When was the last time you changed them? I make sure to use a different one for each site. Yes, this can be challenging, but with the help of Last Pass, I can do this fairly easily. They can tell me if I have a duplicate password and the strength of my choice. They will even generate ones for me.
#3 – I have started to close accounts that I don’t use anymore. Like everyone else, I have lots of accounts with my information out there. I want to minimize this, so I am closing accounts. For example, I have closed my account with a college text book company. I finished my degree a couple of years ago and don’t have plans to rent or purchase another text book. So that account is closed. Now, more to go. My theory is the less information I have out there, the less that can be compromised.
#4 – Backing up my stuff. Many years ago, my office was broken into and my computer was broken into many pieces. Fortunately, I was able to hvae the computer restored and all information was salvageable. Ever since then I back up my files. I have a service that does this automatically for me every time my computer is on. When is the last time you backed up your files?
If you haven’t done this lately, now would be a good time to look your situation.