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How to live comfortably in retirement
This article is by staff writer Richard Barrington.
Your retirement depends on your financial success — but financial success is part reality and part perception. In fact, if you moderate what you perceive as financial success, you could improve the financial reality of your future.
It’s particularly important to consider this as you approach retirement, but this dynamic actually starts well before you’re ready to retire. It has to do with what kind of lifestyle you think you need.
People tend to raise their lifestyles as their income levels rise, but taking this too far can be destructive to both the perception and reality of your financial future. To understand why, just look at the arc household income tends to take over the years.
What’s your best personal finance tip?
This article is by editor Linda Vergon.
We started a project on our Facebook page a couple days ago. We asked the scrimpers and savers to give us their best personal finance tip — and, so far, a few people have offered their advice:
- “The early bird gets the worm.”
- “Stop eating out.”
- “Buy what you need, not what you want – and never what society tells you you want!”
- “Ditch cable/satellite, make meal plans, and only buy what’s on the ingredients list, pay cash, use a no-fee bank.”
It’s a great start. It’s also interesting how even just putting something like this together works. I started reading the comments, and for some reason one of them just hit me in the face: “Stop eating out.” Wow.
How to create a frugal holiday dinner for four or more
This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle.
From late November until early January, we fill our stomachs and empty our wallets.
As I sat down to plan my own little family’s Christmas dinner, I didn’t mind the stomach-filling so much, but I would like to keep our wallets as full as possible too … without the necessity of tapping into our online savings account.
So, I decided to calculate some holiday feasts … on a budget – all kinds of budgets. You know, full of flavor and festivity, but light on cramping your budget style.
Five tips to keep your holiday food budget fat and sassy
My food prices will vary from yours depending on where you live, your food preferences, and where you shop, but keep your budget in check with these five tips:
5 things banks do for you that’s really important
This article is by staff writer William Cowie.
[This is Part II of a two-part series on how banks affect our everyday lives. Part I was Money matters: How money works.]
“The bank” has been a standard villain in the movies since the earliest days. In fact, it wouldn’t be the holidays without Jimmy Stewart reminding us how wonderful life could be without Mr. Potter, the banker villain.
But where would we be without banks? Yesterday’s article looked at how our financial system has evolved to where money is no longer what jingles and crackles in our pockets, but has become only a set of numbers in some bank’s accounting system.
Money matters: How money works (Part I)
This article is by staff writer William Cowie.
[This is Part I of a two-part series on banking -- what it does, and can do, for you. Part II is 5 things banks do for you that's really important.]
What is money? Seriously, answer the question: What do you say is money? Everyone thinks they have a basic idea what money is, but no two people will come up with the same definition. And chances are none of them are correct.
In order to understand what money really is, we need to first look at its uses and then at the history of banking, because money and banking are so intertwined as to be inseparable.
6 things that help me stop worrying about money (almost)
This article is by staff writer Richard Barrington.
It might be the incessant nagging of an unpaid bill, or a stomach-churning plunge in the stock market. Chances are, there are things that occur periodically that make you worry about money. Join the club.
Even having a decent nest egg of savings and a solid financial plan is no cure for money worries because the more you know about personal finance, the more you understand how fragile any plan and any investment program can be.
Still, I worry about money less than I used to, thanks to a collection of habits and attitudes that have helped cushion me from obsessing about money. That means I’ve come a long way, because there was a time when money was a constant worry.
Inheritance disputes: Avoiding the war when there’s a will
This article is by staff writer William Cowie.
The holidays are upon us. It’s the time of the year when family moves from the shadows of a busy life to the foreground. That probably makes it as good a time as any to consider one of the most difficult topics to discuss pertaining to family and finances — the subject of inheritances. Nobody wants to talk about it because it is inextricably linked with, well, death. Someone has to die for an inheritance to come about, and none of us enjoys looking a loved one in the eye and saying, “Hey loved one, you are going to go the way of all flesh soon, so can we talk about what you are going to leave behind?”
How family disputes over inheritances arise
When a dispute arises over an inheritance, it can help to recognize some of the issues that might be contributing to the problem developing between family members — and there are a number of things to consider:
9 different ways to spend FSA dollars
This article is by staff writer Suba Iyer.
Do you still have money left in your Flexible Spending Arrangement (FSA)? If you overestimated your medical expenses for 2015, you might lose those funds under the use-it-or-lose-it rule if you don’t spend it all by the end of the year.
It used to be really easy to do until a couple of years ago. In January 2011, a sweeping change made to FSAs went into effect which made it a lot more difficult to spend FSA dollars in a pinch. As a result, many FSA users have become a lot more careful about the amount they put into their account.
If you are one of those unlucky few (or should I say lucky, because you didn’t spend as much in medical expenses as you anticipated) who still have FSA dollars left in your account, keep reading.
Happy Thanksgiving!
This article is by staff writer William Cowie.
During the past year (and in years prior), all of us at Get Rich Slowly have been focused on money. And yes, that includes you. If you count them, I suspect the comments contain more words than the posts.
GRS would be nothing without you. None of the writers or editors here profess to have all the answers about how best to manage our personal finances. And that’s precisely why the site is set up to offer the opportunity for all to participate. At times the debate may get a little spirited; but through it all, the goal of putting our heads together never wavered. It’s how we figure out what will help us get ahead in an era when getting ahead seems tougher than ever.
We say thank you for being a part of our community and making it one of the better communities on the Internet.
The themes of personal finance
10 ways to maximize your end-of-year finances
This article is by staff writer Honey Smith.
Oh, 2015, where did you go? It seems only moments ago it was time for New Year’s resolutions, and now here we are again. With only a month left before another year is behind us, you may be wondering how best to maximize this year’s finances. Well, look no further!
1. Prepare for taxes.
Hopefully, you’ve already started to put the year-end tax-planning 2015 checklist to good use. But here’s another item: If you pay taxes quarterly, make sure you send in that final payment – and, ideally, save a little bit extra if you think you might owe. (It seems like I always end up owing just a little more than I projected.)
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