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My son is almost 13, and he’s very interested in making money choices. I’m working on striking a balance right now between making sure that he is involved (and learning valuable financial lessons), and that he understands that although we are a team right now, I’m still the adult — and the team manager.
Talking About Money
I’m fortunate in that my work allows me to earn a good living, so my son and I aren’t exactly going to be struggling to make ends meet. This is even more so now with our recent move from Pennsylvania to Idaho, as our housing costs alone have been cut in half, along with everything else being much cheaper.
Still, I think it’s important that my son understand the importance of getting good value for his money. I also want him to think critically about financial choices so that he can practice good habits later in life. [ continue reading… ]
Moving to the greater Seattle area from a rural town in the Midwest meant getting used to changes. One of them was the increased traffic of a higher-population center. Even in a smaller ‘suburb’ of Seattle, traffic often slows to a crawl during the early morning rush hour or mid-afternoon commute, and that’s just on the highway.
Our RAV4 doesn’t have the fuel efficiency of a compact car, but it’s a compact SUV which gets up to 24 mpg in the city, so it hardly classifies as a gas-guzzler. Still, we’ve recently started considering whether we’d like to get a second vehicle for my husband’s commute, and a motorcycle (a common mode of transportation in Seattle) has crossed our minds. A thirty minute city commute on a motorcycle could potentially save us quite a bit in fuel expenses plus wear and tear on our vehicle. After a preliminary look, here are a few of the pros and cons we will have to consider in deciding if a motorbike is truly cost effective in our situation. [ continue reading… ]
My mortgage lender informed me that my escrow account, used to pay my homeowner’s insurance and property taxes, was underfunded recently. I could either send them a lump sum, or they could raise my monthly mortgage payment. The funny thing was that I received a check from my lender because my account was overfunded just last year. I was puzzled, as one of these two scenarios plays out every year. Is my lender acting on it’s own policies or are there laws governing the handling of escrow accounts? I decided to find out more about the inner workings of my escrow account. [ continue reading… ]
I’m not a pet person. I like animals fine and don’t mind others’ pets, but I don’t want my own. The closest we’ve come to owning a pet was having fishes a few years ago, but I’ve never had the desire for furry friends.
Pets can be expensive if you care for them properly. On top of that, you also have to consider the time commitment and the care required by pets. While I’m not even overly thrilled about fishes, their relatively low cost (if you choose freshwater fish in a small tank) and low maintenance make them the most attractive pets for me.
I hear people complain about budgeting all the time. Some just have a love/hate relationship with it. When I ask them why, the usual answers are ‘I hate math’, ‘it’s a waste of time’, or ‘it’s just too much work’. While all of these are legitimate reasons, there’s usually a bigger underlying reason: their budget doesn’t work for them.
Maintaining a budget can definitely take up a lot of time and be overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be as long as you set the budget up correctly. A lot of times, your budget isn’t working because you haven’t tailored it to your needs. A budget can be a very powerful tool, but only if you use it correctly. Let’s take a look at 5 common reasons why a budget just doesn’t work: [ continue reading… ]
With major retailer data breaches the last few years, and statistics indicating that 1 out of 5 Americans have experienced debit card fraud in the last 5 years, it’s no secret that debit card technology has been long overdue for a security upgrade. We’ve been hearing rumors for years about the full-scale roll-out of EMV, sometimes termed ‘smart card’ or ‘chip card’ technology, but banks are finally producing them to the exclusion of their magnetic-strip predecessors.
Rampant fraud has made it clear that magnetic strip technology provides very little protection from card theft., as thieves simply have to obtain your card number and swap it out with the magnetic strip on another card (even a gift card). Alternately, they can create an entirely new card using your data. Chip technology effectively eliminates this problem.
So how does it work?
The tiny integrated circuit on a chip card stores your payment information just like a magnetic strip, but with each transaction, creates a unique, one-time code that can’t be recycled. This means that even if a thief gets your payment information, they will be unable to re-use or reproduce these unique codes that verify the card’s authenticity. [ continue reading… ]
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