An estimated 12 million Americans have hidden a credit card or bank account from their romantic partners or spouse, according to a new CreditCards.com survey. Relationship experts warn, though, that keeping a hidden bank account or credit card is a risky move with potentially explosive consequences. Electronic snooping can reveal the truth and lead to a lack of trust that imperils the relationship. “Any time you get into these kinds of things where you are operating behind the scenes, it usually comes out at some point,” says Corey Allan, a marriage and family therapist in the Dallas area. “We can’t keep things hidden, especially in today’s technological world. Any spouse who has any kind of suspicion can become a detective and find it.” The survey also found that older folks are more likely than younger ones to have maintained a secret account. (creditcards.com)
Personal Finance
Take control of your personal finance to be wealthier and happier in life.
NFL Standout Failed at Personal Finance and Jailed for Not Paying Child Support
Former NFL wide receiver Robert Meachem is behind bars after failing to pay nearly $400,000 in child support and alimony. Meachem, 32, can be released once he paid his ex-wife, Andrea Rhodes. The couple divorced in 2014 and agreed to split custody of their two children. Over his eight-year career in the NFL playing for the Saints and the Chargers, Meachem made more than $20 million. In 2012, Meachem also signed a lucrative long-term deal with the Chargers that included $14 million in guaranteed money. By failing to manage his personal finance, Meachem doesn’t have enough money to pay the child support and alimony. In fact he had to borrow money from former NFL associates to get by. According to the Advocate and NOLA.com, Meachem testified that he believed much of his money had been taken by a former officer of one of his charitable foundations and another assistant, since he didn’t pay enough attention to his bank balances. (espn.com)
How to Achieve High Credit Score
How good your credit score determines what loans you will qualify for and the interest rate you will pay. A high credit score means that you will pay a much lower interest rate over a lifetime. Hence, with a high credit score you will save more money by keeping more cash in your wallet. Here are 7 steps to achieve high credit score by Bankrate:
- Watch those credit card balances. One major factor in your credit score is how much revolving credit you have versus how much you’re actually using. The smaller that percentage is, the better it is for your credit rating.
- Eliminate credit card balances. “A good way to improve your credit score is to eliminate nuisance balances,” says John Ulzheimer, a nationally recognized credit expert formerly of FICO and Equifax. Those are the small balances you have on a number of credit cards.
- Leave old debt on your report. One of the ways to improve your credit score: Leave old debt and good accounts on as long as possible, says Ulzheimer. This is also a good reason not to close old accounts where you’ve had a solid repayment record.
- Use your calendar. If you’re shopping for a home, car or student loan, it pays to do your rate shopping within a short time period.
- Pay bills on time. One of the biggest ingredients in a good credit score is simply month after month of plain-vanilla, on-time payments.
- Don’t hint at risk. Sometimes, one of the best ways to improve your credit score is to not do something that could sink it. Two of the biggies are missing payments and suddenly paying less (or charging more) than you normally do, says Dave Jones, retired president of the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies.
- Don’t obsess. You should be laser-focused on your credit score when you know you’ll soon need credit. In the interim, pay your bills and use credit responsibly. Your score will reflect these smart spending behaviors.
Fight Tax-Refund Fraud and Identity Theft by Using This IRS Form
According to the Internal Revenue Service, tax-refund fraud jumped to $21 billion by 2016, from just $6.5 billion two years ago. Criminals can use your personal information such as your name, date of birth and Social Security number without your permission to commit fraud. With so many online filings available, it takes so little time to file a false return. Use Tax Form 8821, Tax Information Authorization, to fight identity theft. Form 8821 authorize any individual, corporation, firm, organization, or partnership you designate to inspect and/or receive your confidential information verbally or in writing for the type of tax and the years or periods listed on the form, and it also delete or revoke prior tax information authorizations. So by using Form 8821 and appoint yourself to receive communications and then if someone files a false tax return using your identity you would receive the information and take action to stop the tax-refund fraud and identity theft. You can avoid the fraud or recoup the money by letting IRS know that your tax refund has been issued improperly.
Google Engineers on Self-Driving Car Project Quit Working After Reaching Financial Independence
Engineers on Google’s self-driving car project were paid so much that they quit. With so much money and bonus throwing at these engineers to help retain dedicated workers in the short run, it has resulted in many employees leaving the company in the long run after they reach financial independence. The Verge reports: “Google has spent a lot of money on its self-driving car project, now spun off into a new entity called Waymo. Much of that money has gone to engineers and other staff, according a new report from Bloomberg. In order to keep self-driving staffers happy — and, presumably, from leaving the company for other firms doing similar work — Google backed the proverbial Brinks truck up to the self-driving department and unloaded. Bloomberg says that early staffers “had an unusual compensation system” that multiplied staffers salaries and bonuses based on the performance of the self-driving project. The payments accumulated as milestones were reached, even though Waymo remains years away from generating revenue. One staffer eventually ‘had a multiplier of 16 applied to bonuses and equity amassed over four years.’ The huge amounts of compensation worked — for a while. But eventually, it gave many staffers such financial security that they were willing to leave the cuddly confines of Google.”
The Debts That You Can’t Discharge in Bankruptcy
Many people think that once discharge is granted by the Bankruptcy Court, the debtors are released from the liability of paying all debts. Think again! Not all your debts can be discharged in bankruptcy. Super Saving Tips lists several types of debts you can’t kick out in bankruptcy.
- Debts you owe the government: “Have you been penalized or fined by the government? If so, I’m afraid bankruptcy can’t give you any relief. No one can give you any relief. You have to pay the fines and penalties or they will stay with you till your last breath. If you have more questions regarding government debt and how it will be treated in bankruptcy, then consult an attorney.”
- Child support and alimony: “Child support payments and alimony aren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy. These two basically comprise the amount your child or ex-spouse needs for covering basic living expenses. Debts you owe due to marital property division don’t come under this kind of support. In a few states, these debts are dischargeable in bankruptcy.”
- Student loans: “Millions of students and parents would have given a sigh of relief if student loan debts could be eliminated through bankruptcy. Unfortunately, in most cases, they can’t be discharged in bankruptcy proceedings. Private student loans, federal student loans, loans taken out from a school or university all can’t be kicked out by filing bankruptcy.”
- Income tax: “Most people think about bankruptcy to discharge unpaid income tax. It isn’t impossible to discharge income tax in bankruptcy.”
Finland’s Universal Basic Income Is Useless and Unworkable
According to Finnish Trade Union Economist as reported on Bloomberg, “Finland’s basic income experiment is unworkable, uneconomical and ultimately useless. Plus, it will only encourage some people to work less.” The trade union argues this Universal Basic Income program would cost 5% of Finland’s entire gross domestic product, making it impossibly expensive. “The labor group says the results of the two-year pilot program will fail to sway its opposition to a welfare-policy idea that’s gaining traction among those looking for an alternative in the post-industrial age. ‘We think it takes social policy in the wrong direction,’ said Ilkka Kaukoranta, chief economist of the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions, which has nearly one million members. Since January, a group of unemployed Finns aged between 25 and 58 have been receiving a stipend of 560 euros ($600) per month. The amount isn’t means-tested and is paid regardless of whether the recipient finds a job, starts a business or returns to school… Advocates say it eliminates poverty traps and redistributes income while empowering the individual and reducing paperwork… While limited in scope (it’s conditional on the beneficiary having received some form of unemployment support in November 2016) and size (it’s based on a randomly-selected sample of 2,000 jobless people), the Finnish trial may help answer questions like: Does it work? Is it worth it? And the most fundamental of all: Does it incite laboriousness or laziness?” (bloomberg.com)
Top 5 Personal Finance Apps for Windows 10
Managing your personal finance can be a pain sometimes. Luckily, there are many useful personal finance apps out there. Here are the top 5 personal finance apps for Windows 10 to help you plan your spending and manage your finances efficiently. These Finance apps which are available in the Windows Store, help you to track its flow and limit your spending and create budgets.
- Money Keeper: “An amazing application with all the required features that lets you maintain accounts, keep track of your income and your expenses. You can generate reports, see summaries and also forecast your expense. You can even create budgets to limit your spending and save some amount of money.”
- Money Lover: “A fluid, easy to use expense tracker available in both free and premium variants and comes with great tracking and budgeting features. You can manage loans and debts using this application.”
- Homeasy: “A financial application designed to track the spending in normal households. You can create your own monthly billing calendar which would include recurring bill payments, rents and all those monthly expenditures of your household.
- MoneyPoint: “A complete offline application and does not synchronize any data to other devices. All data is stored locally in the device and you can export data in form of reports and expense summaries. All other major features like expense management, budgeting, goals, and performances are offered by this tool.”
- Spending Tracker: “Another great personal finance app that tracks your monthly expenditure and generates category wise reports and summaries. With not many advanced features, Spending Tracker is quite simple to use. It can generate all sort of reports including weekly, monthly, annually, categorized and cash flow reports as well.”
6 Greatest Sins of Insurance Agents
Insurance agents are not fiduciaries in most cases. They have no obligation to place your interests above their own or above those of the insurance companies they represent. The White Coat Investor describes 6 greatest sins of insurance agents trying to disguise selling as advising:
- Underselling Term Life Insurance: “I see doctors who are sold a 5 year term policy at age 30. That’s dumb. Your term ought to be long enough to get you to your likely date of financial independence.”
- Selling Whole Life Insurance: “Whole life insurance (and its cousins universal life, variable life, variable universal life, and index universal life) is one of the most oversold products in the entire financial services industry.”
- Selling Insurance On Children: “There is simply little excuse to sell someone a life insurance policy on their children.”
- Trying To Be A Financial Advisor: “In fact, in order to get sold, the WORST investments pay the HIGHEST commissions. I don’t care how good of a person you are, that’s a tough conflict of interest to fight against every day for your entire career.”
- Selling Long Term Care Insurance to the Wrong Crowd: “Everybody doesn’t need long term care insurance. Stop trying to sell it to everyone.”
- Not Being An Independent Agent: “Why would any one company be the best company for every type of insurance for every person? It doesn’t make any sense. Yet many agents are ‘captive’ and sell insurance from only one company.”
Here Are More Ways to File Your Tax for Free. Yes, Absolutely Free!
Ann Carrns writes on The New York Times: “This year, there are numerous ways to prepare and file income tax returns free of charge — but the variety of features and qualifying criteria is dizzying. So it is important for filers to slow down and make sure the programs they choose are really the ones they want. The Internal Revenue Service continues to offer the Free File program — online, do-it-yourself tax preparation software from a dozen commercial vendors — to low- and moderate-income filers. (Generally, this refers to people who earn less than $64,000, although some companies set lower limits.) The online software is made available free to eligible tax filers under an agreement between the I.R.S. and the Free File Alliance, a group of major tax preparation providers that includes Intuit, the maker of TurboTax; H&R Block; and TaxAct. About 100 million people are eligible to use Free File, but only about three million do each year, said Tim Hugo, the alliance’s executive director. The disparity, he said, may be a result of the I.R.S.’s lack of an advertising budget.” (nytimes.com)
Financial Lessons from Johnny Depp’s Undoing
“Depp’s earnings are massive any way you cut it, whether he is getting paid $20 million per film — purportedly his going rate in 2014 — or $1 million per week on any project. But his spending problems are relative to those earnings,” writes Chuck Jaffe. Johnny Depp’s issues with personal finance have been fodder recently for the tabloids. It’s a classic story of spending more than earning. Despite earning way above ordinary person, Johnny Depp ran into personal finance trouble due to the fact that he owned a 45-acre village in France, spent $18 million to renovate a 150-foot yacht, owned 14 residences, plus a collection of islands in the Bahamas, paid more than $3.5 million a year to pay for a staff of 40 people, and spent a purported $30,000 per month on wine. “The first secret to financial planning — which shocks people — is spend less than you earn,” explained Michael S. Falk of Focus Consulting Group in Chicago. “You start by living within your means, no matter how much you are making. If you always spend less than you earn, the question is did you save the difference, and how have you invested it.” (richmond.com)
The U.S. Mint to Release New $100 Gold Coin
The U.S. Mint will release a $100 gold coin on April 6th, 2017 depicting an allegorical liberty as an African-American woman to commemorate the agency’s 225th anniversary. The coin was unveiled during a ceremony earlier this year involving the U.S. Mint and Department of Treasury. The new $100 gold coin is the first in a series of coins that will be released biennially. Later coins will portray Liberty as Asian-American, Hispanic-American, Indian-American, and more. “We are very proud of the fact that the United States Mint is rooted in the Constitution,” said Principal Deputy Director Jeppson. “Our founding fathers realized the critical need for our fledgling nation to have a respected monetary system, and over the last 225 years, the Mint has never failed in its mission.” (usmint.gov)
Stop Wasting Money! Here’s How to Do Your Taxes for Free
Every year complying with tax regulations cost Americans at least $107 billion, according an estimate by the General Accountability Office. As many as 57% of all people used a brick-and-mortar tax business to file their taxes with an average of $176 for a federal return with just the standard deduction plus a state return. Unless your tax situations are complex, The Finance Buff elaborates 6 ways to do your taxes for free:
Killer Debt: Too Much Debt Could Kill You
Exercise regularly, be mindful of your diet, and pay off your credit card bills? That very well may be the new mantra for a long life, as a new study finds high debt could lead to an early death. Conversely, those who owe very little are less likely to die at a younger age. Researchers looked at approximately 170,000 credit reports from the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Credit Panel, a nationally representative sample of U.S. consumers and their household members with information in the consumer credit data system. “It seems clear that debt resulting from a financial crisis has lasting effects on health that are substantial enough to increase mortality rates,” the authors write. The authors found a negative association between delinquent debt and health, when measured by mortality, and a positive association between credit-worthiness and health. (studyfinds.org)
How This 27-Year-Old Made $1 Million Last Year
Last year Michelle Schroeder-Gardner made almost $1 million — $979,000, to be exact. Guess how this 27 year-old made $1 million in a year. That’s right, blogging. From an article in Forbes, her ticket out of debt and into financial freedom has been her blog, Making Sense of Cents, where she offers tips on saving and making money — and publishes income reports. Schroeder-Gardner said: “I had actually started my blog in August 2011, before I graduated with my finance MBA. I got the idea one day when I was reading Cosmo and they had an article featuring the personal finance site Daily Worth. I started reading that website and I became super-interested in personal finance blogs. I started my blog as a hobby. I didn’t start it thinking I’d make an income from it. Six months later, I made my first $100 from my blog when a blogger friend who was already profiting from her blog connected me with an advertiser. I didn’t even know blogs could make money.” She keeps developing her blogging hobby into a career and her earning keeps going up: In 2013, she earned $117,000. In 2014, that increased to $164,000. In 2015, her earnings jumped to $321,000. And finally he made close to $1 million last year. (forbes.com)
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