Do you want to know how much you’ve spent on Amazon last year? Ha! Don’t you wish. Amazon recently removed the ability to download your order history. So I don’t have a quick trick to give you. Instead, I have a few ideas for how to get the most benefit and the least harm out of Amazon. Limit Spending on Amazon There are things you can do, things to be really careful of (even avoid), […]
Student loan deferrals are happening, in many cases automatically! Here’s the details, but the tldr; is that loans are at 0% and you may stop paying through September 30. Each individual lender is treating this somewhat differently about whether they’ve stopped automatic payments. It’s a very good idea to stop your automatic payment when you’re being offered a 0% loan. Some people – those who are eligible for loan forgiveness – will just be paying principle for […]
I’m having rebellious thoughts about credit rating agencies. Always one to play earnestly by the rules, I have always checked my credit report once in a while to see if any bad data had crept in. Perhaps someone was claiming to be me and running up debt someplace, right? Gotta keep on that. But over the past few years I’ve watched Identity Theft blossom from a one-off done by drug-addicted grandkids to something that is as common […]
Back in 2006 someone walked into my office with an impossible mortgage. Countrywide Bank gave a 70 year old a 30 year mortgage for more than 100% the value of her house. She was underwater the day she closed, with no possible way to ever sell that house. I was aghast, and wondered what was going on that Countrywide was willing to take on risk like that. I didn’t quite understand the whole securitization of […]
Over the week-end I’ve been reading up on how to handle the credit agency breach. Identity theft overall is becoming more and more of a problem, so I don’t mean to diminish this breach as an issue, but I think this is a bit over-hyped. My experience with fraudulently filed tax returns – a form of identity theft – suggests that quite a lot of us – if not all of us – have already […]
A client asked me if I had any financial literacy suggestions for teenagers. It kicked off a reading festival! Here are my notes. Years ago I read Suze Orman’s Young Fabulous and Broke and I was underwhelmed. She seems to think that everyone is as clueless as she was and needs to have a come-to-Jesus moment and she’ll tell you how. Most people I know just want to know some facts and they’ll integrate them into their […]
Last April, I watched as my eldest son drove out of my driveway in his loaded-down Subaru with a brand-new Thule box on it, headed for Utah with all his possessions loaded in his modern-day Conestoga wagon. As many of you know, a month later he fell off a cliff and received a terrible spinal cord injury. (Happy update: it was a terrible adventure, but thanks to a whole host of blessings, he is nearly […]
I’ve heard wonderful things about Elizabeth Warren and I was intrigued by the concept of this personal financial husbandry book. The title of the first books I read, “All Your Worth”, made me cringe as it makes me think of a misspelled contraction. But it’s not a pronouncement or a discussion of what you are worth. Instead, it is a suggestion that you might be better off if you built some net worth. The basic […]
Jean Chatzky’s take on debt. This was a quick read from the library: Pay It Down: From Debt to Wealth on $10/day by Jean Chatzky. The book is abbreviated and condensed into this series of articles on Money.cnn. First off, this book is nearly entirely about budgeting. Figure out what you’re already spending, and then take a look. The topic was just as dreary as it could be in this relentless little book. It would not let you […]
People are calling up to ask for help. “We’re making a lot of money but can’t make ends meet. Help!” I tell them to grab as many statements as they can from every bill they’ve got and every account they’ve got and bring the whole pile to me. Here’s what I know about people’s expenses: the overwhelming majority have expenses that nearly exactly match their income, except, perhaps, they spend about $50/month more than they […]
