A Day in the Life: What I Do as an Insurance Agent We’re in the middle of the holiday season, a time to spend with friends and loved ones—and also get to know each other better. I’ve learned so much from some of my online friendships, and I’d like to get to know my Equifax [...]
2011 Outlook for Home Sellers It’s been a lousy few years for home sellers. With home prices falling by an average of 30 percent (but more than 50 percent in some places, according to the National Association of Realtors) and foreclosures hitting a record high in 2010, home sellers have found it’s pretty hard to [...]
Checklist for Buying Funeral Insurance When I set out to write about funeral insurance, I was hesitant. I don’t sell it and thought I really didn’t know much about it. But as I researched funeral insurance, I realized I knew more than I thought I did. Since I started selling life insurance, I’ve been frustrated [...]
Cut Your Energy Bills Without Cutting Comfort There’s nothing better than snuggling up in front of a roaring fire in the middle of a raging snowstorm. (Can you tell I grew up in Chicago?) And while I like to sleep in a freezing cold bedroom at night, not having heat isn’t really an option. If [...]
Domestic Partner Insurance: How to Find Out If Your Partner Is Covered Falling in love is wonderful, but combining two separate financial lives may not be as much fun. Especially when partners decide not to marry, or cannot get married. In the last ten years, most Fortune 500 companies have extended domestic partner benefits, and [...]
Need Credit Card Insurance? You Might Already Be Covered When I think, “Credit cards,” I think, “Plastic.” When I think, “Plastic,” I think, “Plastic surgery.” It’s not such a stretch—some people need help as drastic as plastic surgery to manage their spending habits and prevent credit card fraud. Have you heard of credit card insurance? [...]
Best Time of the Year to Start Big Home Improvement Projects There are a lot of folks who are happy 2010 is over and are looking forward to a better 2011. For many homeowners who struggled to make mortgage payments and get bills paid, 2010 was a year of putting off big home purchases, like [...]
Balancing What the Bank Says You Can Afford and What You Can Really Afford How much can I afford to spend? That might be the most asked question among homebuyers. Just to make it extra confusing, the answer to that question depends very much on whom you ask. A mortgage lender might approve you for [...]
Evaluating Your Insurance Needs on a Tight Budget In this economy, every penny counts. Everyone is evaluating what sacrifices they can make to pay the bills. It’s one thing to downsize from the six-thousand-square-foot home, or to drop the third car. However, when it comes to downsizing your insurance, careful consideration should be taken. If [...]
Tax Schemes and Tax Turkeys: Stay Away from Too-Good-to-Be-True Tax Advice Several years ago, an attorney asked me to handle an IRS audit of a trust for one of his clients. His explanation of the trust was confusing at first (and I’m a tax professional!), but I finally understood it. The trust was brilliant in [...]
