Personal Finance

5 Key Financial Planning Questions (and Answers) to Better Your Financial Future

For today’s guest post, please welcome Kyle from Financial Wolves, a blog about making money with side hustles to help you achieve financial freedom.

Let’s be honest—money decides how we live our lives most of the time. The kind of house you live in, the model of the car you drive, and the colleges your children will go to, all depend on money. To make our future better, we need to ask ourselves the right financial planning questions.

To insure your financial future, careful planning is key. Here are 5 financial planning questions and answers to help guide you.

Not all of us can afford a financial advisor to answer such questions. According to a CNBC study, 75% of Americans manage their finances on their own. Whether you are living on a paycheck to paycheck basis or have a healthy portfolio of financial assets, planning your finances can go a long way in delivering your future goals.

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Family & Relationships

What Do School Kids Know About Money?

You can’t have lived on planet Earth and not have heard or seen anything about the hit TV show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” It was a game show in which adult contestants answer questions as if they came from an elementary grade school quiz, and actual 5th graders helped them and usually outdid the adults with more correct answers. The host, comedian Jeff Foxworthy, starred on the show beginning back in 2007 and after 2009 it ran in syndication and still appears on TV to this day.

It's our responsibility to teach kids about money, but they often aren't learning about it in school. Here are some money questions to ask your kids.

That whole thing got me to thinking. If 5th graders can answer some pretty basic questions about science, math, history, and the like better than adults, what can they do when the questions turn to money and finance? It just may be that they may know a lot, and forgive me for saying it, but they forget most of it by the time they turn into adults.

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Retirement

“Will I Ever Be Able to Retire?”

Most people just took it for granted. What was it? The fact that when you’re young, you’ll go to college and get a great quality education that lands you a good job and starts a great working career. Or, perhaps you will take up some kind of trade after high school or even join the military and that will be your career path. The choices you make, they may eventually lead to—over the course of forty or so years (if you’re smart, frugal and make good money at your work)—your accumulation of enough money to retire comfortably at the age of 65 or so. That was then and this is now. Is it still true? You may wonder, “Will I ever be able to retire in the 21st century?”

If you're wondering, "Will I ever be able to retire?", you're not alone. But it's important to face where you're at and get started planning and saving!

A Cold, Hard Look at My Retirement – When It Happened

I made it. I am retired, albeit I didn’t do it with the full intention of retiring when I was forced to because of my health at the age of 62, eight years ago. A not-so-funny thing happened to me on my way to retirement and it’s called a heart attack, type 2 diabetes and CHF (congestive heart failure). Believe me when I tell you it wasn’t then—nor is it now—any fun.

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Shopping

Black Friday Sales and Smart Money Prep

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The biggest shopping event of the year is fast approaching: Thanksgiving weekend. Whether it’s Black Friday sales, the Saturday and Sunday afterwards, or the “Cyber Monday” sales that are the big internet shopping days, they are the markers for most retailers that take them from being in the “red” each year to being into the “black” and profitable!

To get ready for Black Friday sales, you need to do a little preparation to get the best deals. Here's my advice on how to score the best bargains.

Actually, they should call the entire weekend “green weekend” for that very reason!

Black Friday weekend kicks off the first of the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas that will determine a retailer’s fate for a successful holiday season. One thing for sure is that saving money and getting a really great deal is totally possible. But also possible is that you can get caught up in the whole crazy shopping experience and make some purchases you regret or even worse, purchases that you just can’t really afford! That’s the reason the phrase “buyer beware” is so appropriate even during this, the time when you are most involved with shopping and saving’s glee!

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Retirement, Saving & Investing

Everything You Need to Know About 401(k) Contribution Limits for 2020

When it comes to preparing for retirement, it’s very important to stay right up to speed with all the rules, regulations, and changes made by the IRS from year to year. With the next year looming just two months away, the IRS has made some 401(k) contribution limit changes for 2020 but still has left both Roth and traditional IRA contribution limits for 2020 flat.

The IRS has changed 401(k) contribution limits for 2020 and here's what you need to know about them to maximize your retirement savings.

The IRA limits are again unchanged from 2019’s $6,000, or $7,000 combined if you’re age 50 or older. This is the second straight year at those caps. The caps are the maximum amounts you can kick into those retirement accounts, whether you use just one type or in any combination. Before 2019, the IRA contribution limits stayed the same for six years in a row. So just in case you needed a refresher, today I thought I’d go over some of the things that you really need to know when you are saving in these accounts for your retirement!

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More, Personal Finance

Why Being a Super Saver Is So Important

Some people may think that reading (or writing) a blog about saving money is just something to scan through every once in a while as they cruise along the internet on their way to YouTube or their Facebook page. And perhaps they are justified in thinking a money blog like this one is mostly fluff and no substance. After all, the title Super Saving Tips sounds a little bit like a place just to talk about couponing or discounts that get you to save a nickel or dime on something, and who really needs to bothered with that, right?

While too many people in the U.S. are living in poverty, being a super saver is an important way to maintain your financial security.

Well, I am here today to say that in spite of the title, this blog isn’t all fluff and no substance, Yes, that’s my biased opinion and you are ultimately the judge here, not me. But I truly believe that every once in a blue moon I actually write something here that is more than just a way to save nickels and dimes. And even if it was only just that, being a super saver would still be relevant and important today, in the 2019 war on poverty!

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Family & Relationships, Personal Finance

How Important Is a Financial Mentor?

Wouldn’t it be nice of your money came with an instruction book on how to make it grow? What you know about money and the world of personal finance you probably had to learn on your own. Few are taught how to build, manage, and preserve their own wealth in any formal way like in a high school or college classroom, although that number is finally starting to increase.

One of the best ways to learn about money is to seek the guidance of a financial mentor. Here's how different financial mentors have helped me.

Offering a course called Financial Freedom 101 would be a great way to get that knowledge, but that’s not a reality in most places yet. Most schools just don’t teach money skills. And yet, personal finance and wealth building principles are two of the most important educational lessons you can ever learn. It can make the difference between a life full of purpose and security, and a life of pain, frustration, and unhappiness. So how can one learn about the world of finance and money?

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Budgeting, Personal Finance

Building Your Financial Plan to Afford the “Candy”

How can you do smart things with your money? Everybody wants to have a solid financial plan, but over 40% of Americans don’t have one. And if you don’t have a plan to cover the basics, how will you ever be able to afford the frills?

Everyone needs a good financial plan to cover the basics as well as the "candy". If you don't think you need one, you may be striking out financially.

They say “the Candy Man can” and the Candy Man (the original, of course!) can sure bring back memories, especially this week. First of all, candy. It’s Halloween time and so you just can’t get away from it because it’s being promoted everywhere. Save money and buy, buy, buy in anticipation of all the costumed kids knocking at your front door this week. Yes, if you’re like most of us, you’ll be shopping and stocking up on candy and probably munching and stealing a few or more than a few for yourself, too. Guilty as charged here. I think it’s fortunate that this thing happens only once a year or I’d be perfectly costumed as one of those “walking dead” thingies myself. Candy may be nicer than a “rainbow” or sweeter than “sunshine” but for me, a diabetic, it’s not so much!

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