When the iPhone first came out several years ago, my husband decided that he needed a single device to streamline his life. Since we are dyed-in-the-wool Apple users, we looked into what it would take to get him set up with an iPhone. After one horrified look at the price of changing service (we were not with AT&T), plus the price of the phone, plus the price of the data plan, we backed away slowly and figured out how to make do with a Blackberry even though it was still ridiculously more expensive than the previous phone and plan that my husband had.
Smart Phones are incredibly convenient, a lot of fun, and a great way to stay connected. What they are not is cheap. However, since you end up paying for them in bits and pieces, it can be hard to know exactly how tough your constant connectivity is on your budget. Here is a breakdown of what you can expect to pay for your Smart Phone:
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“My student loan debt is more than most folks’ mortgage.”
I have a blog post on my personal blog that discusses how much I hated being a lawyer, and offers ways to get out of a profession you hate. The discussion in the comments section is fascinating, and heartbreaking, because so many young people are feeling trapped in a profession they hate, because they must repay huge student loans.
It’s not unheard of for a law student or a med student to amass serious debt, to the tune of $100,000 or so. And that would be OK if they earned so much after graduating that they could repay those loans fairly quickly and move on. But the sad reality is that while college graduates have traditionally earned more than high school graduates, this gap in earnings has remained stable, while college costs have skyrocketed.
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Before I even start to write this post, I know I’ll be opening up a can of worms: for some people, pets are members of the family and entitled to a level of care on par with the rest of the family. For others, pets are great, but are not necessarily worth spending a lot of money on. Each person decides for themselves how important their pets are and nothing anyone else says can or should interfere with that.
There are some considerations about spending on a pet that are worth talking about, however. There are many new pet products coming out every year, making your pet’s care just as important a factor in your budget as any other part of your life.
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It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to improve our financial picture but somehow never taking that first step. Here are five things to try to gain the motivation to get things moving.
1. Ask yourself if you really want to do it. Often, we think that we should want to do things and put them on our giant list of things that should be done, even though we have no interest in them whatsoever. Then, they hang over our heads like big black clouds and make it impossible for us to move on – oddly enough; this isn’t motivating and makes us procrastinate even more.
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China holds an iconic place in our perception of entertainment and value, as many couples still seriously consider requesting china when they get married. Before you opt to spend, or have people spend, hundreds of dollars for dishes, consider the following points.
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It wasn’t that long ago when a career would begin and end in the same workplace. For our parents and grandparents, staying with one job throughout the working years would not only foster a sense of job security, but it would also ensure a retirement. Those days are gone however, and with it the ability of an employee to leave retirement in the hands of his employer. In the new millennium, the average worker will change jobs every 4.4 years. This can lead to some confusion, apprehension and apathy when it comes to handling retirement accounts. And if you changed jobs at any point in your career without taking your retirement accounts with you, you might have completely forgot about them—risking a chance that it might be very difficult to recover your assets after decades of abandonment.
Bottom line: consolidate your retirement accounts. There are two main avenues for consolidating retirement accounts: rolling your previous savings into your new employer’s retirement program or funding an Individual Retirement Account (IRA).
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