Savings secrets do not exist in Europe and Asia, but in the good ole U.S.A trying to put together a savings jar of $400 or $500 is elusive. With most families today, it is matter of falling back on credit cards for emergency expenses, which easily leads many into the great credit card trap. Senior…
Professor Cardworthy, the “Money Explainer” of all things financial, was resurrected by Senior Payments Analyst Robert McKinley, reprising his role first developed in 2007 as the actor in a series of 50 “Cardworthy” YouTube consumer instructional videos. The 2007 project was shelved while Mr. McKinley was in a cancer battle and later placed on hold…
Having a money talk with your children can pay off handsomely when they reach adulthood by delivering a higher level of confidence in their finances. The “birds & bees” talk may help prevent unplanned pregnancies, but the “dollars & cents” talk, or more correctly, “dollars & sense” talk, may avoid boomerang adult kids who move…
Mortgages and retirement can strangle a tight budget and require special planning to be successful. More than a third of older homeowners are approaching retirement saddled, to some degree, with a home with a mortgage. Compounding the struggle is half of retirees without a pension, just drawing mainly on Social Security benefits, will receive less…
Dining with a nice complementary wine is great, but dining without whining is awesome! While dining out can be a gut buster and a budget buster, especially with a family, there are some simple ways to eat healthier and trimming costs. Consider These Time-Tested Proven Suggestions Do Lunch, Not Dinner Dinner prices are typically 20-50%…
For more than two decades the nation’s largest payment networks, top banks, numerous financial firms, trade associations and tons of non-profit consumer advocacy/education have all been preaching the same sermons to teach and develop responsible money management skills. The hard work spearheaded by Visa with “Practical Money Skills for Life” in the mid-90s has paid…
Grandparents today share in the financial and cultural support of their grandchildren, like never before. A new survey estimates grandparents spend $179 billion dollars per year on their grandchildren. The average age of becoming a first-time grandparent is 50 and the average number of grandchildren is four to five. The AARP’s Grandparents Today National Survey…
Americans are still blowing their budgets dining out. Repeated surveys list the top budget buster as eating out, followed by food and groceries (20%) and travel (20%). Around 15% of consumers said not saving enough was their biggest financial blunder of the year. Whether fine dining, casual dining or quick-service dining (“fast food”) most meals…
The unprecedented economic turmoil unleashed on U.S. consumers since December, by the longest U.S. government shutdown ever, is driving Americans’ bananas, heading to food banks, payday lenders and fighting off lenders and landlords. Tax Refund Mess Adding more insult to the financial injury is the reduced tax refund amount produced by last year’s Tax Cuts…
There are dozens of downloadable apps available to count your every penny and help you save, however there are simple methods from the past for saving painlessly. Savings is a big deal as the vast majority of American families have less than $500 in the “cookie jar” for emergencies, relying solely on income tax refunds.…
