Jill Russo Foster

Tips for Successful Personal Finances

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College Money Choices

 

 

 

We all hear about the college students and the money mistakes they made while in college.  I was one of them.  This article from US News shares the top six mistakes and gives you ideas to think about.  Read more

Get Rid Of …..

As April is typically a clean out month, I want to make you aware of two different opportunities to get rid of some items in your home.

First, this Saturday, April 28 is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.  Now you can safely get old and unused prescriptions (and over the counter medicines) out of your home easily.  For more details and locations, click here.

Next, do you have unused toys?  Hasbro is offering a pilot recycling program to recycle your unwanted toys.  You start at the website,  register, print the free shipping label and drop off the package.  It’s that simple and keeps the toys out of landfills, click here to start.

For more resources and suggestions, please visit my website to get rid of your unwanted items.

 

Paper, Paper Everywhere!

For the past couple of years, we have tackled paper in our home.  It always amazes me that so much paper could accumulate and how many file cabinets for all this paper .  So in our household, we are working our way to minimal paper.  This is how we are doing this.

Step one was to make a promise to go through the mail each day – recycling what is junk and dealing with the remaining.  That means putting the bills in the bill pay file. Responding to invites.  Creating a folder for menus and discounts.  Keeping on top of subscriptions.  This is working in our home.

But there was still papers! Like many of you, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on this project, so I planned baby steps.  For me, that was one major area per year.  There were two items I needed to tackle this.  First a scanner – I chose one with a feeder to be able to scan multiple pages.  Next, the shredder – I chose a cross cut versus a strip cut to really make confetti out of the documents.

Year one, was our medical records – lab results, doctors notes, insurance claims, cancelled checks etc.  We sorted these into piles – keep and scan, toss and to do.  This took time, we spent 5 minutes most days and did a little more each day.  Within the year, this was done.  One file cabinet drawer tackled.

Year two, was taxes and supporting documents.  This wasn’t as hard as I imagined.  We kept 7 years worth of paper returns.  We choose to scan the actual old tax returns before shredding them.  Now, we scan everything including the supporting documentation and keep the returns in a pdf file.

Year three (honestly, this two two plus years) was the family photos.  For our home, this included movies and slides in addition tot he photos.  I inherited all my families media and sorting this took time.  First, we the movies.  we didn’t even own an 8mm projector.  We took a giant leap of faith and trusted the titles to a company to put them on DVD.  And that worked for us.  Next, the photos. I have to be honest and tell you this was time consuming.  It took lots of time to sort and scan the photos we wanted.  Last, came the slides.  We sorted these and sent them to the same company to be put on a flash drive.  This project is done!

This year is the year of the manuals, you know those items that come with a new item and you keep it just in case.  Ours are very organized and filed by room or type of product and we do refer to them from time to time.  But they are taking up a whole file drawer.  My though process, is to download the manual as we by new products to refer to and not save the paper.  I will create a file with folders like my file cabinet.

Remember to back up anything on your computer, either in a cloud or on external media.  You would to lose your family photos or important documents with a computer crash.

We have gotten rid of three file cabinets – two four drawers and one lateral – so far.  And there is more to go.  What do you do with all your paper?

Spring Cleaning Your Finances & More

As I sit here and write this blog post about spring, I feel that I am missing spring.  Here in the northeast we seem to be having a never ending winter.  Yes, we have had a few days of warm sunshine.  We have been subject to various temperature swings – one day 50 and then cold, snowy / rainy days.  I know it’s spring because the daffodils and crocus are blooming (and something peeking out of the snow).

Because the calendar says spring, lets talk about your finances.  Now that tax season is over, it’s a good time to take a look at your finances and tackle these ideas:

  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 this weekend 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.
  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 third of the way there?  We are about four months into the year, therefore you should be at 33% 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.

Hopefully, the weather will agree with the calendar and spring will arrive soon.

Let me know what your spring finance projects are.

Spring Cleaning Your Finances & More

In honor of spring – which we will see today in the northeast – I will be posting about spring cleaning.

Today, let’s discuss your passwords and computer.

Have you done these things lately (if not, now is a good time):

  1. Change your passwords – remember that they should be of strong strength and no two passwords should be the same.  Worried that you will forget them, consider a password management system.  If you are using a password management system, do a clean up.  You should change your passwords often.
  2. Make sure your software is up to date, run updates.  And while your at it, when was the last time you ran your virus protection / malware scans.  If you can’t remember, then it’s time to do this now.
  3. No one likes to lose anything, do a back up today.  Consider automatic back up both local and in a cloud.  Many years ago, I had an office broken into and the computers were smashed as well as the local back ups (this was before clouds) were stolen.  Luckily for me, my hard drive was recoverable after many weeks without the data and at a hefty price.  I have learned from this experience, you should to.

Visit my resources page for suggestions of the products that we use.

More next week on spring cleaning in honor of the season.

Vacation Planning – Don’t Forget!

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

These are some great tips from Samantha Brown to do before you leave for that great vacation.  This way you will come back to a relaxed home (and maybe have a few more hours of vacation) before you jump back into your life.

 

Vacation Planning – Before You Leave

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

There is so much to do in the days before you leave on vacation.  Here is a check list of what has to be done before we leave:

  1. Place a mail hold with the Post Office – we stop it one day before we leave just to make sure it’s done correctly. This typically can be done up to 30 days in advance.
  2. Stop the newspaper while you are away – we can automate a vacation stop with one call.
  3. Notify your neighbors and police – one quick call to each, so that your home can be watched.  Our local police department will take your information and keep an eye out.
  4. Pay your bills ahead or schedule them to be paid from your account while you are traveling.  You don’t want a missed payment or worse a late fee.  Start the month before and make a note of the due date of each bill, keep a list so that a bill doesn’t get forgotten.
  5. Contact your debit and credit card companies and notify them that you are traveling to …. and on what dates.  They will approve your charges especially if you are traveling internationally.  Note this is not a prefect process.  Have a back up plan just in case.
  6. For international travel, make sure to have some foreign currency with you ahead of time.  We will have three separate currencies to deal with, so we typically get some of each before we leave.  Make sure to get some small bills and coins as you will need these.
  7. For international travel, you can notify the State Department’s STEP program (Smart Traveler Enrollment Program).  This service for US Citizens notifies the nearest embassies of your travel plans and contact information.  They will contact you if necessary about events you need to know about.

Happy Travels!

Vacation Planning – Travel Insurance

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

Should you buy travel insurance for your upcoming trip?  That’s not an easy question to answer, there are many questions to answer so that you can decide for yourself.

According to Wallet Hub, 1 in 6 Americans have an illness or natural disaster happen to them. Are you covered so that you don’t lose you hard earned money? Of these 1 in 6, only 22% have insurance to cover their travel costs and expenses.

Some credit cards offer you coverage for lost or delayed luggage, missed connections, trip cancellations and even death sometimes. All credit cards are different and you need to check your individual card for what your offers you. If you are covered, they offer you reimbursements. That means that you pay upfront. Do you have that money? And they come with restrictions. Remember my Microsoft Surface Pro experience from last fall?

We have one credit card that we always use to rent a car. It gives us coverage so that we can decline the optional rental car company insurances and feel comfortable. We have another credit card that gives us the travel protection of lost or delayed luggage, missed connections, etc. We have done the research for us and you should too.

You should think about what you may need and find out if you are covered with the credit card you already have. Typically, if you don’t charge the trip to that specific credit card, you don’t have the coverage. Then check with your personal insurance, such as auto insurance for rental car coverage, home owners / renter’s for loss of property, etc. Then look into travel insurance, if you need or want more or additional coverage.

You should do this process for your health insurance as well. Most insurance policies don’t cover you when you travel outside the US. All of this pre-planning could offer you the needed assistance in your time of need. So do your research and make the choices that are right for you.

Vacation Planning – Packing

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

You need to pack what you need for the vacation and stay within the limits of your airline.

First find out the dimension and weight of allowable luggage – both checked and carry on.  You don’t want any surprise fees when you arrive at the airport.  We are always allowed one free checked bag each because that is one of the benefits of the airline credit card.

Next, we use a packing list so we don’t forget anything.  There are different things to pack in addition to clothing – such as towel clips for a beach vacation, lanyards for a cruise, umbrella / windbreaker for unexpected weather and more.  Create a master packing list and stick to it.

I select three colors for clothing – that way I know that I can mix and match to create more outfits and pack less.  Packing cubes help keep everything organized.

A few extras that we do:

  1. Take a photo on our phone of our luggage.  If it’s lost or delayed, it helps with the claims process.
  2. Make copies of what’s in your wallet (including credit cards).  If yours in lost or stolen you have the information needed to cancel everything.  Also, leave a copy with a trusted person back home.  You may have to ask them to do this for you.
  3. We take different credit cards.  If one person’s cards are lost or stolen, you still have the other’s perspn’s top use.
  4. Just in case, have a copy of your passport with you.  If will be easier to have it replaced if the need arises.

Have a safe trip.

 

Vacation Planning – Pre and Post Cruise

As you know, we love to travel.  For this month, my posts are going to be about how we plan the day to day details of our upcoming cruise.

Yes, we are arriving a few days early for this cruise.  We try never to arrive the morning of the cruise.  You never know if you run into a delay and miss the ship.

In my opinion it all comes down to planning ahead.  I spend time online and reading travel books to determine what we want to do, see and experience.  With this in mind, we plan out our time, research admissions, tickets, etc – sometimes there is a discount to purchasing in advance / online vs buying (it definitely saves you the time of waiting on line to purchase entry).

For our upcoming cruise, we determined what things we wanted to do and have been making the advanced purchases as our budget allows – that way much is pre-paid and we’ll have minimal expenses on the trip.

Because it’s peak flower season, we needed to make a reservation in advance.  This will probably sell out if we didn’t. We also have let our friends know our travel plans as we try to meet up with them when we are in town.