EPISODE 48 ~ TOP TIP: Candy Kids Scam: Why You Should Not Buy From Them
here is a top tip about the Candy Kids. Summer’s coming, so soon you’ll see them downtown, on the subway, at your own front door. They claim to be selling chocolate bars or other candy for a cause. Sound familiar? The US Labor Department says 50-thousand children nationwide are involved and that they’re being exploited. Crooked adults with criminal records called candy crew leaders run these candy rings. They recruit near schools, in public housing complexes and homeless shelters and drop the kids off unsupervised for 12 hour shifts. The kids make a few cents for each candy bar they sell and often the adults dock that meager pay with various excuses. When I investigated one ring, I met kids on the street who were as young as seven. It’s painful to watch. So what to do? Call the police and your local labor deparment. And if you just can’t stand not to help these kids, you could consider giving them a “donation” instead. Tell them to keep it for themselves and not give it to their crooked boss.
EPISODE 48 ~ MAKE MORE: Craigslist Alternatives: 5 Websites Where You Can Get More For Your Furniture
Yes, there’s always Craig’s List or eBay, but you may be able to make more if you post your items on a smaller site where people look for nicer things and expect to pay a bit more. Here are a bunch of options that all had favorable ratings with the Better Business Bureau when I checked them out.
First, there’s Apartment Therapy Marketplace. You may recognize the name of this site that’s been providing decorating inspiration for years. But now the site also allows you to create your own furniture store and market it to the site’s apartment-dwelling audience. There’s no commission, but you can buy credits to move your postings higher on the site where they’re likely to be seen.
Next up, Chairish. That’s C-H-A-I-R-I-S-H. For this site, you take pictures and write descriptions of your furnishings and send them in. The site’s curators will give you a thumbs up or down within 24 hours. This site is meant for nicer stuff. Depending o the selling price, Chairish takes a 3 to 20 percent commission.
EBTH stands for Everything But the House. It’s more like a full-on estate sale company. In fact, EBTH even sends experts out to your house to organize, photograph and write descriptions of your available furniture. You’ll pay a 40% commission for this estate sale-style service or 15 to 50 percent for regular consignment service. The commission ranges depending how much you sell for.
Moving on, there’s The Real Real. I’ve mentioned this one for selling clothes before, but they also take high end furnishings in their “art and home” section, which gives you an idea of what they’re looking for. Customers will often pay more for items on this site because theRealReal is known for authenticating the merchandise, so people know it’s the real deal. Commission: 15-45 percent here.
And finally, allow me to introduce you to Viyet. This one is strictly for designer brands AND requires that your furniture or decor have a resale value of $1000 or more! This can also work for vintage and antique furniture. If that’s what you’ve got, Viyet will send a real live human out to your home to check out the goods. Commission: 40 to 50 percent.
There you have it, a few new-to-you options for selling furniture and other decor for more.
EPISODE 48 ~ SAVE MORE: More Over Mint Finance. There’s a New App For Financial Management
On Easy Money, we often talk about how to save money in the “how-to-buy-things-for less sense. But I also want to talk about how to save money in the “how-to-make-sure-you-have-enough-to pursue-your-dreams-and-eventually-retire sense! To that end, what if you could spend 10 to 20 minutes inputting a few key financial facts about yourself into a website and when you were done you’d know exactly where you stand and what you need to do? You can! With a new website and app called Fearless Finance. I LOVE that name and love my next guest, Lori Atwood, founder of Fearless FInance. Welcome to Easy Money, Lori! ……Listeners, you should know that I have long-admired Lori’s work in financial literacy and money management AND our daughters are also friends.
How did you get the idea to create Fearless Finance?
After working in the finance industry for over two decades, I discovered a need in the marketplace for a user-friendly financial tool that provides a whole financial wellness approach and that’s when Fearless Finance was born.
You’re not exactly the typical software developer. You don’t live in silicon valley. You’re not in your 20s or 30s. How did you have the courage to take this leap?
There are lots of personal finance apps out there. What makes Fearless Finance different?
Its like a doctor’s checkup for your finances and you only need to do it once a year.
No budgets
No time suck
No linking accounts unless you want to.
No confusion
No conflicts.
Walk us through the app. First, what information do people have to provide in order to use it?
your most recent paystub
2. balances on your savings accounts like retirement (IRAs, Rollover IRAs, Roths, 401ks), savings
and checking accounts, brokerage accounts (CDs, mutual funds, etc.)
3. balances on your debt accounts like car loans, student loans, mortgages, credit card balances
4. your current home value if you own your home (an online real estate estimator is fine)
5. an idea of what you spend each month on things like utilities, food, entertainment. You can
estimate or take a look at your recent spending
If you are self-employed or a freelancer/gig worker, have last year’s tax return handy.
And what information do they come away with, once they’re done?
Cash flow
Rainy day savings
Emergency savings
Retirement savings
Credit card debt
Fearless Finance users get a report that tells them a whole bunch of things. What are they and why are they important?
Total Take Home Income
Recurring Expenses – Yellow and Green
Full Discretionary – Blue Points
Remaining (Income minus expenses and blue points)
Monthly Saving for Annual Expenses
Monthly Amount Left in Checking – “Cushion”
Employable Monthly Cash Flow (before any retirement savings adjustments, if needed)
What I love about the website and app is that after 10 or 20 minutes, users know exactly how much money they have to save each month to pay for their essentials, called yellow and green points. And how much they have left over for what you call “blue points.”
Blue points are for what I like to call “booze and shoes.” Your discretionary expenses. The wants not needs.
“What’s holding people back from getting their financial health in order?”
Too many people are afraid of confronting their actual spending habits and expenses, and think that getting professional advice is not accessible to them. That its only for people with huge portfolios, so they avoid taking action. Shame, fear, expensive, aversion that they will be limited and feeling overwhelmed by it. We’ve created a platform and app that takes into account real life expenses, it offers easy to implement recommendations, and ultimately gives the user control of their own financial wellness.
Here’s a question I ask every business that comes on the show. How do YOU and Fearless Finance make money?
$6.99: Web Platform and Mobile Expense Tracking App (MONTHLY)
$59.99: Web Platform and Mobile Expense Tracking App (ANNUAL)
$32.99: One-time Fearless Finance Summary Report
You can find Lori’s beautifully clear, simple, yet powerful software at FearlessFinance.com and on iTunes and Google Play. Website: FearlessFinance.com
iTunes App: apple.co/2JNDQx4
Google Play App: bit.ly/2H3FQnb
EPISODE 48~ FIND YOURS: Finding Unclaimed Money When Your Bank Was Bought By Another Bank
When I was launching the Easy Money podcast, I searched for unclaimed money for everybody in my contacts list, and I found something for a friend named Lori Atwood who happens to be a certified financial planner. Here’s a summary of our interview about her unclaimed money.
Here you are a financial guru. Were you surprised there was unclaimed money out there for you?
Yes! It had been out there for years and I had no idea until you told me.
What was the money from?
It was escrow money left over from when I bought my first single gal condo.
At first you weren’t convinced it was actually, yours, right? Why was that?
When you search for unclaimed money, the bank or other business that the money came from is listed. But I had never banked at the company listed under my name, which was confusing.
But I pushed you to do a little fancy footwork to verify that the account was your, because your name and address and everything else matched. What did you do?
You suggested that I pull my credit report to see if the account appeared on there.
And what did that reveal?
Turns out the bank where I used to have a mortgage for my old condo had been bought by another bank.
So, once you knew the unclaimed money really was yours, what did you have to do to claim it?
I was able to submit a copy of my credit report to the government as proof that the account was mine.
?And, drum roll please, when you finally got your check, how much money was it?
About $500!
Thanks for sharing that unclaimed money story, Lori. Folks, I have been wanting to have Lori on for months to help make two really important points about unclaimed money.
One, these days it is VERY common for banks and other companies to merge or buy each other, so if you see an unfamiliar company name on your unclaimed money report, keep digging. It’s probably yours.
And, number two, your free credit report is a GREAT resource for figuring out a mystery like this. AND for proving it to the government so you can claim your money. Our credit reports list not only old accounts but old addresses going back years, so they’re a secret weapon in the quest for unclaimed money.
I will post the website where you can get your FREE credit reports AND the two main websites to search for unclaimed money like Lori did at EasyMoneyShow.com/48. Lori Atwood, thank you so much for telling us about FearlessFInance.com AND sharing your unclaimed money story.
EPISODE 48 FIND YOURS LINKS:
•Legitimate website to get your FREE credit reports: AnnualCreditReport.com
•FREE websites to search for unclaimed money:
MissingMoney.com and unclaimed.org.
EPISODE 48 ~ GUEST BLOG: How The Money App I Built Can Help You Be Fearless About Your Finances
By Lori Atwood, CFP®, Founder of FearlessFinance.com
Hopefully you have some money set aside for unplanned —but required— stuff that happens, like root canals, and car repairs, I call that Rainy Day Savings. You should also have enough savings to cover 3-6 months of expenses in case you experience a total loss of income. I call that Emergency Savings. One of the best reasons to run Fearless Finance, my new software, is to see if you are “Savings Secure” in both of these categories.
Here’s why. Let’s say it’s tax time and you are looking forward to a nice refund check. How do you decide how to best use the money? Vacations, debt pay off OR savings security?
Make sure you have $3k for Rainy Day Expenses ($1500 if you rent) and at least ONE MONTH of expenses for Emergencies
Save for large upcoming one-off or Annual expenses (e.g. CAMP! or braces), because if you don’t have money when these expenses come up, you will charge them and you’re back on the cycle of credit card debt
Pay down credit card debt when #1 and #2 are satisfied.
Here’s the key: you MUST have some liquid savings for stuff that happens and big upcoming expenses to KEEP YOU OUT OF CREDIT CARD DEBT. There’s no sense putting your tax refund toward credit card debt FIRST when you’re going to have to charge more stuff as it comes up. Having liquid funds is the only way to get off the credit card/debt dependence cycle and it usually means putting off paying down debt for a few months to amass some savings. It’s seems odd to hear a financial planner tell you to wait to pay off credit cards, but it’s okay to do if you are trying to amass some liquid savings first. How do you go about this?
Read More
Guest Contact: Lori Atwood
Website: FearlessFinance.com
Website: LoriAtwood.com
Twitter: twitter.com/LoriAtwoodsays
Facebook: www.facebook.com/fearlessfinance/
Guest Bio:
Lori Atwood, CFP®, is the Founder & CEO of Fearless Finance, a personal finance platform and app that gives users a complete 360 degree view of their financial situation with specific recommendations on how to improve their financial wellbeing. After working in the finance industry for over two decades, Lori discovered a need in the marketplace for a user-friendly financial tool that provides a whole financial wellness approach and that’s when Fearless Finance was born. Fearless Finance allows users to only track 2 expenses making it easy to implement and approachable for users that consider themselves not “budget” people.
Working with clients in her one-on-one financial planning consulting business, gave Lori first-hand experience and understanding of what people want in a financial tool. She saw that users want to understand and manage their finances better and know they are “okay” financially, which is what Fearless Finance does.
EPISODE 47 ~ EASY MONEY
EPISODE 47~ TOP TIP: Credit Card Debt: How To Put It On Ice
If you carry credit card debt, I want you to pull out your wallet -right now- while you’re listening and get out all of your credit cards. Now, grab a pair of scissors, and cut them up. (Make scissor noise here!) All but one. Are you feeling the withdrawal symptoms yet? Have you broken out in a cold sweat? You’re about to get even colder. Now, take the remaining card, stick it in a one-gallon plastic zipper bag, fill the bag with water, and freeze it. Yes, freeze your credit card in a block of ice. This is a creative way to put your excessive spending on ice. You can chip the card out of there if you have a true emergency, but the effort it takes should prevent impulse buys.
EPISODE 47~ MAKE MORE: Social Security: A Strategy To More Than Double Your Payments
I want to reveal a way to get 30-50 percent more Social Security money from the government? It’s real. And it’s legal!
[MUSIC: Fade music]
All you have to do is delay when you start taking Social Security. That’s it. We told my mother-in-law this when she retired, but she didn’t listen. Will you? Here’s how it works. We’re allowed to start taking Social Security as early as age 62. But if you take the benefit that early you get a seriously reduced benefit. That’s where that 30 percent figure comes from. You get 30 percent less.
By contrast, if you wait until full retirement age, or beyond, you get way more money. To truly understand the power of waiting, let me run a sample scenario for you. Let’s say your birth year was 1965 and your annual income was $40,000. Here’s what you would receive in Social Security, if you retired at different ages:
•If this person retired at Age 62 they would get a $1,607 monthly benefit.
•If they waited until the full retirement age of 67, they would get a $2,729 monthly benefit. A lot more.
•And if they waited just 3 more years to Age 70, their monthly benefit would go up to $3,780.
Those numbers came from the government’s own calculator and they are jaw-dropping differences. In this scenario, waiting until the full retirement age of 67 gets you an additional $1,122 a month. And holding off just 3 MORE years gets you an extra $2,173 a month!
And here’s the thing: delaying Social Security is a decision with a ripple effect that lasts for years. Now let’s see how much social security the same person would receive if they started taking the benefit it at age 62 versus 67 versus 70 and KEPT taking it until age 90. Here’s how that scenario looks:
•If you start at Age 62, they will receive social security for 28 years and get a total of $539,952.
•If they start taking it at Age 67, they’ll only be cashing in this benefit for 23 years, but they’ll get MORE money: $753,204.
•And if they wait all the way until Age 70, they’ll only receive social security for 20 years, a much shorter time, but a much bigger total pot of money: $907,200. That’s $367,000 more than if they started at age 62, even though it’s 8 less years! Keep in mind, this is simplified math that doesn’t even include cost-of-living adjustments over the decades.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking because it’s what my mother-in-law was thinking. You’re sick of your job and you don’t want to stay an extra second, let alone an extra five to eight years. Well, you may not have to. If you have other forms of retirement savings, you might be able to retire and live off of those first and then sign up for Social Security later. I simply want to encourage people to actively think this through and be strategic about taking social security. We are living longer, on average, which changes the math. Check with a trustworthy financial adviser who can help you weigh the pros and cons. I will link you to the Social Security Administration’s calculator from EasyMoneyShow.com/47. so you can plug in your own numbers and see if there’s a way for you to “make more” off of social security. ?
Link: Social Security Quick Benefit Calculator: www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/index.html
EPISODE 47 ~ SAVE MORE: Adjustable Rate Mortgages: How ARMs Can Save You Big Money Under Certain Circumstances
Here’s our save more topic for today: When and why an adjustable rate mortgage could save you thousands of dollars. Adjustable rate mortgages or “ARMs” got a bad rap during the real estate bubble years, because so many people signed up for them not realizing that if their interest rate adjusted upward they would no longer be able to afford their monthly payments.
But here’s the key: the initial interest rate on an ARM is lower than that of a fixed rate mortgage, so you can save big money if you know you are going to sell before your ARM adjusts. Maybe you know your job will be transferring you or that you’ll want to move to a better school district or bigger house. There are lots of reasons people plan, in advance to move and THAT is when an ARM can be a bonanza.
First some background: Most ARMs start at one interest rate and then adjust to another interest rate after a set period of time. When you see an adjustable rate mortgage described as a “7/1 ARM,” the first number means the interest rate is fixed for 7 years and the second number means that it adjusts every year after that. The most common ARMs are the 3/1 ARM, 5/1 ARM, 7/1 ARM and 10/1 ARM. Again, the introductory rate for those 3, 5, 7 or 10 years is lower than that of fixed rate mortgages.
Here’s an example of how well it can work: When I was at GMA, I did a savings makeover on a New Jersey family named the Shoblocks. Money was tight because the wife had quite her job and gone back to school in her 50s and the husband had lost his job in the recession. They needed some wiggle room in their monthly mortgage payment AND were hoping to save some money over the long term too.
When the Shoblocks told me they were planning to downsize into a smaller home when their teenagekids went to college, I saw my opening! They were planning to move in the next three to four years. So I found them a 10/1 adjustable rate mortgage, to give them plenty of cushion if they decided to stay a bit longer. Remember, with a 10/1 ARM, the interest rate is fixed for 10 years and THEN begins to adjust.
Their old fixed rate mortgage rate was 6.85 percent. The 10-year introductory rate on their new adjustable mortgage was just 4.75 percent. That new, lower rate saved them a nice $429 a month, loosening their tight purse strings. AND, even better, if they stayed in the house the full 10 years, it would save them $55,203 over that time! So don’t write off adjustable rate mortgages. Think about whether you know you will be moving out at a certain point. Leave yourself plenty of time cushion, just as I did for the Shoblock’s. And then, see what kind of introductory rate you can get! It’s not often that you can take such a simple step that saves you five figures!