Living for today - Planning for Tomorrow
Appliances are some of the best inventions in the world. They’ve made household chores so much easier and have drastically sped up the time it takes to make dinner (that’s how we cook at my house a lot). The only drawback to appliances is that sometimes they break. We have one of those “in wall” microwave/oven combos. It’s a Jenn-air model that came with the
Have you ever needed a tool that you didn’t own to complete a job around the house? Have you ever worked on your car and had to run to the store to buy a tool to get the job done? Do you have limited space and don’t want to fill it with tools you’ll hardly ever use? Are you on a limited income and don’t
Rob Carrick with the Globe and Mail wrote an interesting article comparing what it was like to be a young person in 1984 versus what it’s like to be a young person in 2012. It was a great article and really makes you think, especially about the cost of getting an education. The reality is that he could have thrown in health care (if this
I turned 40 last year and, while the milestone was a little hard to swallow, I think I’m finally finding my “40’s groove”. It’s amazing how fast life happens. It seems like yesterday that I was sitting in a college dorm room with only a few dollars in my checking account thinking about whether I had enough for a takeout pizza and a six pack
In case you haven’t seen this, Amazon is trying to increase interest in their daily deals site and are offering a $10 gift card for $5 but it’s not going to last very long. You better get over there quick!! http://local.amazon.com/bellevue/B007KCX25Q
Have you seen this? It’s GREAT! Vanguard has a very “simple to use” tool that lets you slide a few bars and get an idea of whether your nest egg will last long enough to fund your retirement. They use the Monte Carlo simulation, which is a basically a really big math equation with lots of variable inputs. Since I have a bachelor of arts
If you haven’t already done so, now would be a good time to check your retirement accounts to ensure they are balanced appropriately and that you are contributing as much as you can. The maximum contribution amount for 2012 is $17,000 and if you’re 50 or older, you can contribute up to $22,500 to your retirement account. I have tried to keep our contributions maxed
Have you seen this great website for “America Saves Week”? It has a ton of great information about saving and I especially liked reading about people who have started saving and overcome their financial problems. Here are some great highlights of the site: Saver Stories: http://www.americasavesweek.org/read-savers-stories Assess Your Savings Progress: http://www.americasavesweek.org/assess-your-savings-progress Are You Saving Enough for Your Retirement: http://www.choosetosave.org/ballpark/ Mortgage Payoff Calculator:
In what is becoming a very commons occurrence in the US, Bank of America announced that it will be freezing it’s pension plans for existing employees starting in July. This means that worker’s pensions will only pay out whatever they’ve accrued until July. After July, Bank of America will start adding an additional 2-3% to their 401K matching for workers. http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/23/news/companies/bank_of_america_pension/ I have to admit,
Lately I’ve been spending some time looking over our budget to see if we have any areas that we can shave our expenses and I thought I’d summarize a few key data points. We have always strived to minimize our expenses for things that don’t matter to us. The result has been that we don’t have much of what I’d call “leakage” to our monthly