Budgeting, Food

Your Grocery Budget: How to Make It and Stick to It

Do you have a grocery budget that’s working for you? To me, it’s super basic, but to so many, making any kind of budget is like speaking a foreign language. Setting a budget goal for food will help you save money, period.

Whether you're making a grocery budget for the first time, or simply trying to save more, these tips will help you reach your goals.

Without a budget or a plan, your spending habits and your control over your money are doomed to fail. And it doesn’t matter how much money you may have, it still happens. But I can help you find your budget and stick to it.

Continue reading“Your Grocery Budget: How to Make It and Stick to It”
Debt, Family & Relationships

Will Relationship Debt Destroy You as a Couple?

I was just discussing with my wife how these days we have planning resources for just about everything in life. We have health plans, retirement plans, wedding planners, and estate planning. You can plan a vacation with experts and plan where to go to college with sage advice when you need it. But despite the fact that we have marriage counseling and credit counseling available, they always come after the problems arise. And for unmarried couples, well, it may not even exist. “Couple planning” is left to the couples themselves and it can be a huge task to get it right. If there’s relationship debt, it gets even more complicated.

Relationship debt puts a serious strain on married and cohabiting couples. Here's how couples can plan to avoid big debt.

Debt can quickly and easily become a source of contention between a couple. That’s why it’s important to deal with relationship debt proactively, before it becomes a destructive force.

Continue reading“Will Relationship Debt Destroy You as a Couple?”
Retirement

Why Most Americans Do Not Prepare For Retirement

I just finished watching some really depressing information on CNBC today, information that I know is true, but still shocks the senses out of me when I hear and see it in detail. Americans do not prepare for retirement!

Have you done what you need to in order to prepare for retirement? Most Americans haven't prepared properly. Here's why and what can be done.

How it is possible that smart people like us (well supposedly smart, that is) just don’t take as much time looking at retirement as they do deciding what to order for dinner from Grubhub? That may be a small exaggeration, but you get my point. We tend to worry about retirement tomorrow a la Scarlet O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”. So, why are Americans so unprepared for retirement?

Continue reading“Why Most Americans Do Not Prepare For Retirement”
Health, Shopping

Drugstore Savings: Best Ways to Save at the Pharmacy

Please note this post contains affiliate links which help to fund this blog at no cost to you. Thanks for your support!

Even though I have written so much in this blog about “saving at the supermarket” over the past 7 years, saving money at the drugstore has become just as big a deal. So today, let’s take a look at what savings at your pharmacy can really mean to you and how much it affects your budget and life!

Drugstores offer all kinds of merchandise these days and so it's important to know how to save at the pharmacy. Check out these 5 tips to save money.

Pharmacy Sticker Shock

Drugstore sticker shock seems as if it is on everything from prescriptions to toilet paper. If you look around the store, it seems like it is a very real thing if we even attempt to shop for convenience when we are already there for actual prescriptions or other medical necessities. We have all been in that position, haven’t we? But there are plenty of ways you can actually save big at your favorite drugstore. Here are a few important things to know and do when it comes to you and your pharmacy right now!

Continue reading“Drugstore Savings: Best Ways to Save at the Pharmacy”
Taxes

Cheating on Your Taxes: Why It’s a Bad Idea

Please note this post contains affiliate links which help to fund this blog at no cost to you. Thanks for your support!

It’s income tax season and I don’t have to remind most of you that it is. But for some of you, it may never actually be “tax season” because you’re cheating on your taxes. If that sounds weird to you, take a minute to think about it.

Cheating on your taxes may be tempting, but it's a bad idea. If you're self-employed, it's easier to do, but you're also more likely to get caught.

Paying taxes are one of our least favorite things to do and our usual goal is to minimize and even avoid paying them in every possible way we can. In fact, I’m going to say this right now, if you thought you could get away with it, you’d probably not pay a penny in income taxes at all! But if that even crosses your mind for a second, let me give you some sage advice: Don’t ever cheat on your income taxes!

Continue reading“Cheating on Your Taxes: Why It’s a Bad Idea”
Travel

Planning Travel for 2021 the Smart Way

Does booking a vacation and planning travel for 2021 seem like a gamble to you? If you are like most people, you can’t not think about a vacation for you and/or your family after what we all have been going through now for the past year plus. Like most sensible people have been doing, being locked down and staying put, winter, summer, fall, and spring has been really difficult. Just how many movies and videos can you watch each week before your head explodes?

Despite (and because of) the pandemic, many people are ready for a vacation. Planning travel for 2021 may be tricky, so be sure to do it the smart way.

So now, the weather is starting to warm up and you are venturing a little bit more outside. That is especially true since the pandemic is at least starting to feel like we’ve made a bit of a dent in it—there’s a vaccine being administered, workplaces are gearing back up, and even such things as sports and entertainment seem to be moving forward, albeit just a bit too fast for some and definitely for me.

So here’s the really big question for 2021: “Can you plan a vacation this year?”

Continue reading“Planning Travel for 2021 the Smart Way”
Health

What You Need To Know About a Lump Sum Disability Buyout Offer

For those receiving long term disability benefits from a private insurer, at some point you may receive a lump sum buyout offer. Whether or not to accept the offer is a big decision with lasting consequences. Because so many factors can affect the decision, it is wise to involve professionals such as an attorney, accountant, and/or financial advisor to help you decide about your particular circumstances. But here are the basics you need to know.

If you receive a lump sum disability buyout offer, there are a few things you should know. Check out these pros and cons before making a decision.

What Is a Lump Sum Disability Buyout Offer

If you are receiving private long term disability benefits, the insurer pays you a set benefit amount each month for as long as you remain disabled, until the end of your policy. A lump sum buyout offer is a one-time sum of money that the insurer is willing to pay you at once to end the policy now. If you accept the offer, you relinquish your rights to your monthly benefits.

Continue reading“What You Need To Know About a Lump Sum Disability Buyout Offer”
Retirement

When You’re Playing Catch Up: Rules for Retirement Planning in Your 40s

So you’re now a forty-something. It kind of sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? Yesterday you were more concerned with what you’ll be doing on Saturday night and who you’d be doing it with, and today there’s the spouse, the kids, the bills, and all of the other stuff that being a grown-up entails. Yes, it sneaks up on you in a hurry and suddenly you’re worried about retirement planning in your 40s. Am I kidding?

If you're a 40-something and haven't saved much for retirement yet, it's time to focus. Retirement planning in your 40s isn't easy, but it can be done.

Believe it or not, the answer to that question is a resounding no, it’s no joke! That planning of your grown-up life after you stop working has to be done and focused on retirement now, if not even sooner than age forty. The sooner, the better!

Continue reading“When You’re Playing Catch Up: Rules for Retirement Planning in Your 40s”