Your retirement comes before your children's tuition. That's because there's no financial aid for retirement, and there's still a good deal available for college.
Eliminating or substantially lowering just one major monthly expense can give you enough cushion to move into a more comfortable place financially.
I've gotten emails from people who purchased items from an infomercial, only to find out that the shipping was more expensive than the item itself. The lesson: If you truly want to order something you see on TV, go online to the product's website and see if you can find out more information.
Being charitable provides a boost to your psyche that is tough to replicate in any other way. But note that although any charity will happily take your money, you can give in other ways and still reap the same happiness reward. Volunteering and donating your old or unused belongings have the same result.
At the time of my second marriage, my husband was in his early 50s, I was in my mid-40s, and we each had two kids. We maintained our individual accounts and opened one for the house. We each kick the same percentage of our incomes into the house account and have a joint credit card. But we pay for our children separately.
I love a hotel that offers Wi-Fi Internet access, especially if it's free. But I never access sensitive information, like my bank account or an online shopping site that stores my credit card information, on a public Wi-Fi connection.
I've never been a fan of loans between relatives or friends. They can divide relationships.
If you haven't gotten a raise in the past couple years for a job well done, it might be time to ask for one.
If you're just starting out in the workforce, the very best thing you can do for yourself is to get started in your workplace retirement plan. Contribute enough to grab any matching dollars your employer is offering (a.k.a. the last free money on earth).
You'll get the biggest bang for each buck by paying off the highest interest rate debt in your portfolio first, while making minimum payments on the remainder. It's called the avalanche method, and it gets you out of debt cheapest and fastest.
After two decades of personal finance reporting, I've heard every excuse in the book for not saving money. That said, none of them really hold up - at least over the long term.
Face your financial issues head on. Open your bills, pick up the phone, call your lender. If applicable, tell them you're struggling and explain why. If you lost your job or took a pay cut, be ready to prove it.
Once you're retired and are no longer counting on earned income to live on and supplement your nest egg, you're done with disability insurance. At that point, though, the need for long-term care insurance - which protects you from spending that nest egg too fast - takes over.
Simply calling your credit card issuer and asking them to lower your interest rate may yield immediate savings.
You have no control over the market. You can't predict where it will go, and you can't bring it back from the depths. What you can do is save more. Make sure you have cash on hand - an emergency fund of at least six months of expenses.
The older you are when you buy an annuity, the shorter your life expectancy will be - so the greater a monthly paycheck the same sum of money will buy you. When interest rates are higher, the size of the paycheck for the same sum of money will rise also.
Anticipating a boomerang child seems the odds-on thing to do. Think about furnishing - hello, sleeper sofa - with this in mind.
Older couples bring obligations such as support payments and debt as well as decades of financial experience to a marriage.
Wills are trumped by legal titles to real estate or beneficiary designations on financial accounts, retirement plans and insurance policies.
One way to make sure you don't lose assets in the future is to streamline your accounts. Consider using one bank for all your banking needs and one brokerage firm for all your investments.
