only backgroundI'm a wife, mother and grandmother. I'm opinionated. I contradict myself frequently. Most of all, I love my kids. I believe in them. I fight for them. They're weird and wonderful. If you want to know more, here's a bunch of other stuff from my old site.
Archive for the ‘Finance’ Category
I think one of the things I worried about when Jesse came home from Hawaii was whether he’d be able to find work soon enough. I’d hate for him to go through his savings before he found work. I shouldn’t have worried. Jesse still has money from his job in Hawaii and is working here, too.
The problem he’s having is that his debit card from the bank in Hawaii isn’t working so getting to his money has been a challenge. We’ve been using PayPal to make balance transfers from his account to mine but I think it’s time for him to open an account locally. It sure will make life much easier.
It’s one of those double-edged swords, though. He’s working so he has no time to get to the bank to set up a new account. If he wasn’t working, he’d have time but no money to put into the account.
I guess it’s a good kind of dilemma so I’ll just stop complaining and be grateful that things are going well for him.
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I’m not terribly bright about finances. I have a nephew who is very interested in this type of thing so someday I’ll have to ask him about the stuff I don’t understand, like what the heck is a futures broker or what’s the difference between a bear market and a bull market. If I remember to ask him.
Anyway, my husband and I own a little bit of stock. Not enough to make us wealthy but a little. We own stock in Anheuser-Busch because my husband likes Budweiser.
Right now, the CEO of A-B, August Busch IV, is trying to dodge a hostile takeover of the company that his family has run for five generations. The company leveraging the takeover, InBev SA, is based in Belgium while Anheuser-Busch is based in St. Louis.
Maybe my opinion doesn’t matter to some business folk since we’re such small players. Nevertheless, we do own stock in this company and we do have an opinion. We want Anheuser-Busch to remain a US owned company. We want it to remain in St. Louis.
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That’s what we were and it looks like that’s how it is for most young people. Fifteen years ago we were paying off two vehicles and two mortgages. It was such a challenge to make those payments every month. The worst part was that the interest we were paying on the vehicles wasn’t even tax deductible. That’s when we decided to take control of our debt, consolidate as much as possible and work toward paying everything off. We spend days researching, making phone calls and trying to find the best way to get out of debt. What we really needed was reliable debt consolidation help but we had no internet back then; we were on our own.
Nick and Brit are looking into consolidating now so being able to get advice at DebtHelp.com has been wonderful. Let’s face it, young adults are not always willing to take advice from the old folks (aka parents) so finding a site that leads them toward credit counseling is a real blessing.
While looking over the site I also noticed that they offer assistance to those needing a student loan consolidation program. My son, Jesse, is trying to pay off his student loan now but also trying to get his finances in order so that he start his own business. I’m sending him the link to DebtHelp.com so that he can look into getting that student loan taken care of as quickly and painlessly as possible.
It sure would have been nice to have this kind of resource around when we were young and trying to keep our finances in line. I still don’t know how we made it through those years. At least with DebtHelp.com I have a reference to pass on to my kids so they can get through the financial maze a little easier than their father and I did.
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I’m ashamed to admit that the only stock we’ve ever purchased is Anheuser-Busch. Almost twenty year ago Brian decided that he no longer wanted to exchange Christmas presents because he wanted to save money. Since I really wanted to get him a gift for Christmas that he’d like and since Brian drinks Budweiser, I got the idea to give him stock in Anheuser-Busch. He loved it!
Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about investing or the stock market to feel comfortable purchasing other individual stocks. I’d like to do that but I’m just not sure how to pick the good ones. I’ve looked around online but never could find a resource that was easy enough. Until now.
I’ve been looking around at TheBuyList.com and I think I’ve finally found the resource I need to invest confidently. The information here has been extracted from the top mutual funds so that you can see which stocks those fund managers are choosing. 80% of trading is done by mutual fund managers so knowing what stocks they’re trading is a great indicator of where your own money should go. I love that all of that information is there, already extracted from the mutual funds SEC filings and presented in an easy to search database. TheBuyList.com does the legwork for you!
We’ve been really happy with the stock we have but I do think it’s time to diversify. I’m ready to take the plunge, especially now that I’ve found such a great resource. And when you register, you get a 14-day, free trial. I always figure that companies that believe in their product or service do the free trial because they know you’ll love it enough to continue the service. And if this works out as well as I think it will, I’ll earn back the cost of membership many times over. Now that’s a wise investment!
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I love prizes, don’t you? I especially love prizes that are tech related. After all, I love all things tech and I’m always willing to try out some new gadget. And the Teen Credit Card design competition over at PayJR is offering some really great tech toys!
First of all, you may remember that when I discovered PayJr I wrote not one, but two separate posts about their worthwhile service. If you missed my reviews, then be sure to read them now. I can’t imagine any parent not loving everything they have to offer.
Oh, but that isn’t what this post is about. Now, PayJr is running a design contest. All you have to do is submit a custom visa design and get your friends and family to vote on it. Not only will your design be available as a PayJr VisaBuxx card but you could also win (are you ready for this?) an Apple laptop! No kidding! That’s got to be one of the most awesome prizes I’ve seen offered in a very long time. Even the second place prize, an Apple Video iPod, or the third place Apple Nano are pretty cool to win.
You don’t have to sign up for an account to win but I’d recommend that if you have kids, sign up anyway. I just can’t say enough good things about their services. So put on your creative hat, come up with a winning design, submit it and then take a look around the site. I’ll bet you’re as impressed as I am!
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It’s been almost 14 years since we took out our loan to build (or rather, rebuild) our house. Back then, the only computer I’d ever used was a Commodore64. I’d heard of the internet, mostly CompuServe, but there were no service providers here in West Virginia. I could only dream of how wonderful life would be some day, when the internet finally arrived here.
I never dreamed that computers and the internet could assist people in saving money, though. How I would have loved to have the financial tools available to me then, that I have now. I can’t help but wonder how much money I could have saved or what kind of better deal I could have gotten on my mortgage if only I’d had an online loan calculator. I did use one when we bought one of our cars and it really helped us to find the best deal. But a house is a much bigger investment and we could have saved so much more, I’m sure.
I was just talking to Brit today about Jesse in Hawaii. I’m really hoping he starts looking at homes and property there. When he does, I’ll be here to research his loan options and help him to make the right choices. Hey, that’s what mothers are for, right?
Looking for a home loan in West Virginia? Get great mortgage rates on an array of different West Virginia mortgages to choose from. So next time you need a mortgage check us out for all of your home financing needs and get a great rate.
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I’ve been trying to so hard these past months to get out of debt and I think I’m finally seeing some progress. We’ve paid off Brian’s truck, the Honda and the shop. We still have the house and my car but that’s manageable. Once those are paid off, it’s just he utilities.
I’ve been thinking about cars lately, too. It was nice getting a brand new car but I’m not sure it’s worth it. I put so many miles on my Malibu that it was out of warranty two years ago - and I still have another year to pay on it! So I was thinking that maybe it would be more financially sound to buy a used car from a private individual for around $3000 - $4000. If it lasts 2 years, that’s still a lot less than my monthly payments for two years on the Malibu. In fact, if I put away an amount equal to a car payment each month, at the end of two years I’ll have enough for another used car and some left over for the car insurance.
You know, if I keep thinking like this, I’ll be debt-free in no time!
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I’ve noticed that there are quite a few interesting ways to raise funds for special projects or financial emergencies. I’ve heard about reverse mortgages and knew someone who looked into a buyer of structured settlements. In fact, I heard there are companies that advertise for this.
My good friend is a successful financial adviser. My nephew is currently working an internship in this same field. Before I make a move on anything like this, I’ll definitely get advice from one of these trusted people. I guess I’m lucky to have experts available to advise me.
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Another house just went up for sale in my neighborhood. I can’t believe how many houses are available. Even more amazing is how much people are asking for these homes. I can understand a remodeled or renovated home being at the high end of the scale but the real estate market around here is really a buyer’s market right now. High prices just aren’t going to fly.
Maybe by the time I’m ready to sell our house, it will be a seller’s market. Wouldn’t that be great?
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One of the most difficult lessons to teach our kids is the value of money. We start out providing everything for our children, naturally, and often find it very difficult to smoothly transition to expecting them to provide for themselves. After all, we parents love to make our kids happy; if we could, we’d give them everything their hearts desire. That would be a parenting mistake, of course, but it sure would feel good to see our children so happy.
I think we all struggle with wanting to meet our children’s needs and wants while also teachng them the value of a dollar. We all know it does no good to just hand a child anything he or she wants; a child will not learn to appreciate what they have or the hard work that goes into earning money for the things they want. And they’ll never know the satisfaction of having worked and saved for that special item.
By giving our children everything they want, we deprive them of the good feelings that come from earning on their own.
How do we teach our children about money and work and saving? Well, there are many ways, of course, and technology has created a few more solutions. PayJr.com is a new site with some great features whether your kids are under 12 or over 13. The site has been built with both kids and parents in mind.
PayJr.com has two distinct but integral programs. The PAYjr Chore & Allowance System is a free educational tool geared toward those 12 and under, although I’ve found that it can be adapted to older children as well. This system allows parents and children to work together toward creating a chore list and a fair reward. Both parents and children have access to the online list; the web site also provides printable chore charts and online calendars for managing chores an rewards. Payjr.com even tracks the “Balanced Owed” so kids can see their money adding up.
An additional note: After parents sign up and add one child, you can go back into your account and add additoinal children. I started with my 10 year old then added my two teens.
I love this system because it give a child a visual connection between work and reward. It allows kids to watch their money grow and drives home the lesson of saving and sacrificing today for a greater reward tomorrow. This is such an important lesson in today’s world of instant gratification.
When a child is ready to have more control over their own money, at around age 13, PayJr has a next-step program just right for the older child. Stay tuned for Part II and the real gem of this program.
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