December 2012

Weekly Roundup: Everyone Should Have Their Own Theme Song

I almost for about this commercial from Starbucks that came out a couple of years ago. Needless to say, I love it! I always have. Everyone deserves to have their own theme song. I even tried to make this my ringtone at one point too! Do you have your own theme song?

Here are some of the best articles I have seen on Google+, retweeted on @MoneyQandA, shared on Facebook, and read in my RSS Reader this week. These are some of my favorite money investing, retirement, and other finance related articles this week from some great personal finance writers around the web. Be sure to check them out!

Would You Stop Speeding To Pay Lower Premiums? @ Money Beagle
Mortgage Insurance; Annoyance or Helper? @ Beating Broke
Socially Responsible Investing: Where’s Your Limit? @ The College Investor
Donating Money to Your College: Do You? @ Tie The Money Knot
Financial Moves To Make Before And After The Fiscal Cliff @ Financial Samurai
Are My IRA Contributions Tax Deductible? @ Financial Ramblings

Top 6 Critical Lifetime Milestones When To Buy Insurance

by Hank Coleman

Our lives are constantly changing, but far too often our life insurance policies do not keep up with our changing lives. Have you hit a different phase of your life? Have you reached a new milestone? With each new milestone in your life, your life insurance coverage may need to change. So, you must decide when to buy

With each new milestone in your life, your life insurance coverage may need to change. So, you must decide when to buy life insurance, when you have enough, and when you need to add more life insurance coverage to protect your loved ones.

No matter if you are starting to work at a new job or you are retiring, you may need to rethink your life insurance coverage. You may need to adjust your life insurance policies if you are newly single or just got married. Buying a new home or having children can also be a signal was to when to buy insurance. Each milestone in your life and transition to the next phase of your life can trigger a time when to buy insurance. Your unique personal circumstances often

Each milestone in your life and transition to the next phase of your life can trigger a time when to buy insurance. Your unique personal circumstances often warrant a time to reexamine your financial life. The right amount of life insurance that you have will change throughout your life as the circumstances of your life changes over time.

Changes in your life may require changes in your insurance coverages. Here are a few milestones in your life when you should look at buying new life insurance and increasing your coverage.

Life Insurance When You Are Single

If you are single and do not have children, you may not need very much life insurance. Although there are a couple of instances that you may want to consider purchasing life insurance while still being single. One reason that you may want to consider purchasing life insurance is if you have significant debts from cars, homes, or other assets that will need to be repaid by your estate. You may want to consider buying enough life insurance to pay off your home mortgage, any car loans, student loans, credit cards, and any other debt that you may have.

This is one reason when to buy insurance that you may want to consider. Another reason that you may want to buy life insurance while you are single is to guarantee your insurability later in life. You can purchase riders for insurability later when you may be in poorer health and would have trouble buying life insurance. You should also consider the cost of life insurance.

When you are young and in your 20s or 30s, life insurance is considerably cheaper than it would be if you had to purchase the same type of life insurance policy later when you are in your 40s or 50s. This is especially true when you buy whole life insurance. You may not see much difference or only a smaller rate increase when you purchase term life insurance.

Reader’s Question: Handling Finances In Marriage With A Reluctant Spouse

by Hank Coleman

Here is the next installment in our the Reader’s Questions Series which highlight questions emailed to me by you, the readers of Money Q&A.

Be sure to find out at the end of this article how you can receive a free copy of Dave Ramsey’s book, The Total Money Makeover if your money question is chosen to be featured on a future week’s blog post.

If you’re not familiar with Dave Ramsey’s book, you should run right out and get it. It is one of my top ten best personal finance books that everyone should read. Now….on to our reader’s question. Kathleen emailed me a question about handling finances in marriage…

How do you convince a reluctant spouse to talk about finances, savings, and investing when you are up to your eyeballs in debt? What is the best way of handling finances in marriage with a reluctant spouse?

A Little Bit Of The Back Story

Here are a few more details from Kathleen’s email to me. She has been married 2.5 year, and she can’t get him to start a joint savings account. He keeps saying they do not have enough money at the end of each month to start saving. Kathleen also said that the couple also has no sort of savings, no emergency fund, etc. Nothing!

And, every time she brings it up, her husband says that they have student loans and car loans to pay back, and they can’t afford to start a savings account, open a credit union account, or even get a secured credit card.

She ends her email by saying that she knows that the couple needs a savings plan and an emergency fund, but she does not know how to convince her husband. So, what is the best way of handling finances in marriage with a reluctant spouse?

Saving, Investing, AND Paying Off Debt

There are many different schools of thought about paying off debt and investing at the same time. Many people like Dave Ramsey says that you should focus on debt repayment immediately after you have an initial emergency fund of $1,000 set up and before any investing takes places.

So, my number one piece of advice for Kathleen is to get her emergency fund set up as soon as possible before anything else. You will never be able to get out of the cycle of debt without a backstop of savings that you can go to when the car breaks down or the kids are sick. It is imperative that you have that initial emergency fund. Dave Ramsey has found that $1,000 handles 99% of most true emergencies that people have.

Top 8 Reasons Women Are More Honest Than Men With Money

by Guest Contributor

When it comes to financial dealings, it is rather difficult to maintain extreme levels of honesty. Honesty plays a significant role in efficiently handling personal finances. This is true with women and money.

A healthy and productive relationship, whether professional or personal, can only be maintained as long as there is truth and honesty in all dealings. If not timely dealt with, your financial dealings may cause severe credit problems.

The views and actions of men greatly differ from those of women and money. The acceptance of these differences can severely help to understand how women lead their financial lives.

Women and Money – Top 8 Reasons Women Are More Honest With Money

It has been a general observation that women, for some reason, tend to show more courage and honesty in financial activities. Following are the top eight causes of this belief:

1. Less Corrupt

Women are mostly believed to be less corrupt than men. The fact that stands them apart in corruption contest is that they are usually more fearful of financial scandals. Though, a majority of public and political offices have a great number of women employees, it is generally men who are involved in financial corruption.

2. Less Willing to Cheat

Most women, by nature, are less prone to cheat and deceive others. Despite being involved in financial activities, women find it easy to maintain their unique characteristics of fairness. For them, financial honesty in their personal and professional lives can provide them maximum results.

What To Do With Your Unwanted Gift Cards

by Hank Coleman

It happens every Christmas or birthday. You inevitably receive a gift card or two to a place that you never shop at. Or, even worse, your relative from out of town sends you a gift card to a place that does not even have a local outlet in your town.

The hard part is deciding what you are going to do with those unwanted gift cards. Luckily, you are not the only one in this situation by a long shot, and there are several alternatives that you can use to get rid of those unwanted gift cards and either earn cash or exchange them for gift cards that you do want.

Sell Your Unwanted Gift Cards

The first thing you can do is sell your unwanted gift cards or trade them in. There are a lot of different websites on the Internet that specialize in selling or exchanging unwanted gift cards such as Gift Card Mall, Cardcash.com, Giftcardlab.com, Cardpool, or several others.

On these sites, you can sell or exchange your gift card for another brand of gift card that you would prefer to have. However, you may not quite get the face value for your gift card, but you will get close.

It all depends on how popular the store whose gift card you hold. There are many gift cards that are selling for a 5% to 10% discount or more. Buying discounted gift cards like this can also work in your favor if you are on the hut for saving money on gifts for friends or even yourself.

At Gift Card Mall, customers can buy, sell, or trade these gift cards. You can buy gift cards at a discount averaging 15% off the card’s face value, and in some cases 30% off or even higher. There is no risk since Plastic Jungle verifies and guarantees the balance on each card before they offer it for sale on their site.

Their gift card inventory can include discounted gift cards from stores such as Amazon.com, Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot, Macy’s, Lowe’s, Sears, Applebees, Cabelas, NFL Shop, T-Mobile, & MANY more!

Top 5 Websites To Sell Your Unwanted Gift Cards

New Year’s Resolutions That Will Save You A Ton Of Money

by Hank Coleman

In the final weeks of the year, we are looking forward to a new year. With a new year comes resolutions that millions of people make to change. Some New Year’s resolutions are often forgotten mere weeks into the next year, while others are year long goals and finally accomplishments come December. Resolutions save you money if you keep them which is of course the hardest part of making them. But, it doesn’t have to be impossible. There are many common goals that people make, but these New Year’s Resolutions can save you money in the New Year: Quit smoking A popular resolution is for people to stop smoking. Smoking is a bad habit and a pretty expensive one too. … Read more