Walk With Money » Reason

Best Money Tips: 7 Worthless Excuses for Not Saving

Robert Wilkinson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:20:05 +0000

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips roundup. Today, we destroy all those lame excuses for not saving, help you shop for a laptop, and give you the facts behind MLM opportunities.

How to Die Young: Retire Early

Robert Wilkinson — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:20:07 +0000

We’ve all heard stories of guys who, after busting their hump for 40 years, kick the bucket at their retirement party or shortly thereafter. These stories scare the crap out of me and make me wonder about the idea of retirement, or on the flip side, working so hard to accomplish retirement. After all, what happens when we retire? For many, a whole lot of nothing. Maybe some games of bridge, golf, and laying on the beach, but doesn’t that get boring? Yes, and in fact, it might even bore you to death!

Photo by Ernst Moeksis via Flickr

Don’t believe me? Consider this:

In a study done by Shell Corporation a shocking discovery was made about the age of retirement when correlated with age of death. According to the article:

“People who retire at 55 are 89% more likely to die in the 10 years after retirement than those who retire at 65.”

Doesn’t that seem a bit backwards? So they found that the workers living to the age of 65 were 89% more likely to live 10 more years after retirement even though they were 10 years older than their early retirement counterparts. I find that to be completely shocking, I hope you would as well.

So what does this mean?

The only difference between the two groups was retirement from work. From this we could infer that work could be the reason we continue to live as long as we do because it gives us purpose. Many people who leave work aren’t really sure what to do with their days. I can relate as one of the worst months of my life was when I was unemployed, not because I didn’t know where money was coming from, but because I didn’t have anything to work towards. Even if you’re financially free at retirement, it doesn’t mean you’ll be living a fulfilling life.

Is work your purpose?
Without a purpose people tend to live shorter lives. This is simply because without ...

Flexible Spending Account and Eligible Expenses

Robert Wilkinson — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:20:08 +0000

The year’s end is quickly approaching, and with it rests the spending deadline of flexible spending accounts (FSAs). What is an FSA? A flexible spending account is an account that employees can use to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses completely tax-free. FSAs are built as employees make equal, recurring contributions from their paychecks to the account.

Why Have an FSA?

The advantage of having an FSA is that it is tax-free, budgeted money for medical expenses — a huge benefit if you anticipate significant medical care such as the birth of a baby, surgery, or any other expected out-of-pocket costs. Even without major expenses, it can still save you a good amount of money.

How does it works? You determine the total amount available in your FSA; this amount is then divided by your number of paychecks for the year. The resulting figure is withheld from each paycheck, pre-taxes.

So How Much Can I Save With FSA? Quite a bit actually. Here is a FSA Saving Calculator to help you figure out exactly how much you’ll be able to save.

How to Get Started with FSA

You can start your FSA by enrolling during your company’s open enrollment period. This almost always corresponds with when you can enroll for other benefits, such as your company’s 401(k) or health insurance plan.

Note: unfortunately, if you’re self-employed, FSA is not available to you.

Using Your FSA

As soon as you have an active FSA account, you can use the entire year’s balance as soon as you would like. If you use your entire FSA and for any reason leave your employment before the end of the year, you are no longer responsible for the remaining FSA paycheck deductions — your former employer will pay the balance.

But, and this is important, if you do not use the full amount of your FSA by the end of the year but you make your full payments, your employer receives the unused balance. In this way, FSAs benefit both the employees — by giving employees tax-free money that can be used immediately; and the employers — by giving employers remaining employee FSA balances at the end of the year.

The deadline for most FSAs — December 31 — is quickly approaching. Use your FSA before then or forfeit your balance to your employer. You could use your FSA to pay for:

Birth Control — Includes condoms, birth control pills, and other forms of contraceptives.
Contacts or Prescription Eyeglasses
Dentistry ...

The New Rules for Mortgages by Dale Robyn Siegel

Robert Wilkinson — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:20:24 +0000

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0478#ff0478#p>>>>><<<<When I was initial approao a evaluati o>>>>The New Rules for Mortgages by Dale Robyn Siegel<<<<, I was keen to get my fingers on the manual simply because of all thieI had heardbo h oaining a house loan these days was a great deal tougher than it was a couple of of many years in the previous. three many years in the previous, you could get a loan mainly based on thin air simply because the house loan company could market it to an even bigger sucker down the road. That’s element of the trigger why we are in the financial funk we’re in these days.

However, I really feel for the individuals who, by way of no fault of their private, now have to offer with the subsequent outcomes these days and thought a evaluation of this manual might be useful. So, let’s dive into the manual!

Who is Dale Siegel

She is an lawyer and licensed house loan broker with twenty-plus many years of understanding in the real estate company. She clearly has a great deal of understanding in the company to be writing this kind of manual and the understanding exhibits. She not only covers the large components, this kind of as the entire house loan process from an ultra greater diploma, but she is made up of little notes along the way that exhibits she’s carried out the process a lot more than and a lot more than and a lot more than as soon as more (preserve in thoughts ...