Category: budgeting

How to Use Cost-Effective Strategies to Leave Your Assets to Your Beneficiaries

After accumulating many assets over the years, you want a way to pass them on to your beneficiaries and do it as cost-effectively as possible. Many cost-effective strategies are available to pass an estate and assets to your loved ones. Establish a Trust One of the best ways to do it, which is expensive, is…


Bounce Back From Bankruptcy and Advice to Readers

Dear Mary: Please give me some pointers on bouncing back from bankruptcy. Will this have any effect on future employment opportunities?—Henry, email Dear Henry: Live on cash. Have only one credit card, and if you use it, pay it in full every month. Refuse all other offers of credit, and take on no unsecured debt….


How to Save on Heating This Winter

By Erin Bendig From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance With energy prices increasing, many people are looking for ways to save on heating bills this winter. One solution: Turn off your heat when you’re away from home. The idea that your heater works harder to heat a cold house than it does to keep a home warm…


Spending: Don’t Rush to Buy a Sales Item

By Sandra Block From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance When is a sale not a sale? Most of the time, according to Consumers’ Checkbook, a nonprofit consumer organization. After tracking prices at 25 major retailers over 33 weeks, Consumers’ Checkbook concluded that the same “sale price” was offered more than half the time. Worse, some retailers’ sale…


Why Are Eggs So Expensive?

That omelet has become expensive. Buying anything with eggs in it is a considerable monetary investment. So egg prices have been increasing, but chicken prices have remained the same or, in some areas, are decreasing. Eggs, which have always been a low-cost way to eat protein, are expensive. But why are they so pricey, and…


Economics of Electric vs. Gas Vehicles

Besides buying a house, the average person’s biggest purchase is a car. So when you go to make that large purchase, shop around. Many factors, like cost, maintenance, gas mileage, depreciation, etc., are considered. You want the best deal that will make sense financially. Electric vehicles (EVs) have been in the news and are touted…


What To Do When You Can’t Pay All of Your Bills and More

Dear Mary: Our mortgage was due on the first. As I write it is the 21st. We have the money to pay it, however my husband thinks it would be better to pay our credit card bills and get 30 days behind on our mortgage. What do you think should be paid first?—Lisa P., Florida…


Kimberly Palmer: Family Budgeting Tips That Actually Work

When Tom Snyder coaches people in his church about how to budget, he starts by encouraging them to track their spending. “If we don’t track, we don’t know when to stop spending,” he says. The retired engineer and financial coach in Grand Rapids, Michigan, adds that it’s easy to be bumped off track by irregular…


How to Safely Use Payment Apps

As a frequent PayPal user, I wasn’t surprised to see a payment request on the app pop up. But when I read it, I knew something was wrong. In the message, a stranger asked me to send them $699 in order to get a “refund.” While I instantly recognized the request as a scam, I…


TV Viewing Costs—What’s the Best Deal?

When you sign up with a cable or satellite provider, the first-year pricing is usually a great deal. But then the second-year hits, and you have sticker shock, and reality sets in. That first-year deal turns out to be the bait that locks you into a high-priced trap. There has to be a less expensive…