In the winter, freezing temperatures and roads coated with salt can wreak havoc on your car, nevermind icy windshields, dead batteries, and cars that won’t start. Safe driving in all weather conditions can help you avoid car accidents and claims on your auto insurance policy, and some simple car maintenance and an emergency kit can [...]
Year after year, we work with the same old business tax forms, with just the date changed on the top of the form. The IRS doesn’t generally change forms much because each time they do, confusion results when people start filing taxes. However, in 2012, two forms have in fact been changed. What follows is [...]
Retirement strategy now is nothing like it was 100 years ago, and for today’s college graduates the retirement outlook is even more uncertain. Gone are the days of relying on Social Security to provide for a comfortable retirement. For many of my baby boomer clients, Social Security provides a nice cushion for retirement savings but [...]
Not long ago, I joined a popular weight management program to help me shed some post-baby pounds. (No comment on the fact that my “babies” were almost entering their double-digit years!) As I started learning techniques for shedding extra weight, I noticed something interesting. As my weight went down, my husband’s and my savings balance [...]
I’m more of a winter person than a summer person—I’d rather endure 20 degrees over sweating through 100 degrees any day. However, your home and property may not hold up as well through the winter, and Mother Nature can be very temperamental. I urge everyone to make sure your homeowners insurance policy is ready to [...]
What the heck is a 1099-K? It’s a new tattletale form designed to help the IRS know more about your income sources when you’re filing taxes. Its targets are the many people who run online businesses, sell at swap meets, or have home-based businesses but who don’t necessarily report all their income. The 1099-K tells [...]
Budgeting is often touted as the best path toward saving money. Unfortunately, budgeting sometimes doesn’t work in the long term, as many people don’t have the discipline to log their every expenditure and say no to spending. Instead of implementing a traditional budget, try PERK—an easy and effective money-savings plan, says Robert Pagliarini, founder of [...]
Have you noticed that women’s sizes in catalogs now go up to 6X? Twenty years ago, you were lucky to find clothing in size 1X. January is when we look in the mirror and resolve to be smaller by the end of the year. It’s when all the weight-loss resolutions kick in. Let’s see what [...]
One of the biggest concerns for someone facing retirement is figuring out how one’s healthcare costs will be covered. Especially in the last few years, there have been a multitude of changes in healthcare costs, benefit options, and pension elections. Your health insurance options will also change depending on your age of retirement and the [...]
Today we’ll continue taking a look at the gender gap in retirement strategy. Women tend to need more money than men in retirement because on average they live longer, have more healthcare expenses, and often make less money in their working lives than men do. In addition to financial options—such as saving more, delaying retirement, [...]
