The average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is now around $20,000 — the price of a new car. It seems wrong to handicap a young couple’s family just when they are starting out with such huge expenses. We were able to cut our wedding costs signficantly with a few simple steps:
Like door-to-door salespeople, junk mail, email, and telemarketing can be unwelcome daily visitors. Even 1 minute of day wasted on things you’d rather not bother with works out to 6 hours a year. Here are some quick tips on how to save loads of time each year that you can spend on your family, relaxing, or writing blogs:
There are many spreadsheets and formulas on the web that claim to give you an idea of how much life insurance you need. Life insurance, like life, can be very complicated and some insurance companies take advantage of this, so keep it simple. The real answer is that it depends — do you have people who depend on your income? If not, you may not need a cent of life insurance. To give an example, if you are single, childless and without dependents, you probably don’t need to buy any life insurance, even if you make a million dollars a year. Similarly, if your kids have gone through college and your spouse’s retirement is taken care of, there is no need to hand your money over to the insurance company.
What if someone does depend on you?
In general, yes, if you have at least 18 months of service and are married at least 9 months. The 9 month rule doesn’t apply if there was a child born of the marriage or your death was accidental.
Today, I saw an advertisement on the side of a bus shelter that said “Move your old TSP or 401k account to [Major investment firm]“. I’m not sure what an “old” TSP account is, but the advertised move is almost guaranteed to move your money into someone else’s pocket. Why is this?
Many people are eligible for the Roth IRA, which is a retirement account that you fund with after-tax money and whose earnings and payouts are entirely tax free. In comparison, the Thrift Savings Plan, a 401k, 403b or a regular IRA are funded with before-tax money, earnings are tax free, but payouts are taxed as income. Which is better?
When your child turns 22 or gets married before that age, they will be automatically dropped from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHB), even if they are in school. If they don’t have a job with health benefits, they will either have to obtain their own insurance or you can enroll them under Temporary Continuation of Coverage (TCC).
We all know gas prices are at historical highs, but is there anything one can do about it? Conventional wisdom says that you can save money by using premium fuel, filling up in the morning, or using additives, but unfortunately all of them are largely untrue. However, there are a few things you can do to save some money when topping off.
It’s not a new form of applied science, rather a new name for an old profession - conning people out of their hard earned money. From hard experience, understanding scams is part of careful financial planning — both my wife and I were both taken at a young age. The lastest scams are ingenious in their use of modern technology.
FEDERALDaily reports that on May 7th, the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee recommended a 3.9% raise (cost of living adjustment) for members of the armed services. In most years, civilian federal worker salary increases follow the same formula, although not without a fight.
Curiously, the most recent measurement of year to year inflation by the Labor Department is also 3.9%.
