I am so glad today is Friday. It has been a long week and I am greatly looking forward to the weekend. Here are some interesting articles I found this week in the personal finance area:

What Debit Card Companies Don’t Tell You at Yahoo Finance. We are very careful when using our debit card. I’ve stopped using my debit card when paying for gas at the pump. Last year in our area quite a few people had their debit cards skimmed when they filled up at a local station. As far as I know, they still haven’t caught the culprits.

My Two Dollars discusses the best places to put that tax refund you are getting.

Blunt Money talks about the things we forget - those lovely once or twice a year expenses we can easily forget to budget for.

If you liked this article, please
Subscribe

Share This

A reader writes:

We have been doing online transfers for a while now and feel pretty secure in the method. We are currently saving for the eventual purchase of a new or slightly used vehicle and have a money market mutual fund with Vanguard Investments. We regularly use electronic transfers to put money into this mutual fund.

Vanguard takes great care to have a secure web site (look for the gold lock box in the bottom of the right hand corner of your computer screen) and to have secure electronic transfers. There are three ways to purchase additional shares or to sell shares (it works both ways). You can write a check and mail it in. You can do a wire transfer which takes less time but usually you are charged by your bank. Lastly, you can do an electronic transfer which is what we usually opt for.

Here are the steps I take to transfer our money into the Vanguard money market:

1. Go online to Vanguard.com and log in. Make sure that the lock symbol shows in the bottom right corner of the screen.

2. Click on the Buy/Sell tab.

3. Click on buy more shares using electronic transfer. I am asked if they have the correct bank information. It lists our bank’s name, the routing number, and our account number. I always double check each of these to make sure it is correct. Then I click the ok button.

4. I put in the dollar amount I want to buy.

5. Then I click buy shares.

6. A confirmation screen comes up asking me to verify everything. I read and verify all the information. Then, I click ok.

7. Then I print out the confirmation page that shows the transaction confirmation number.

8. Done! The whole process takes less than 5 minutes.

It usually takes a day or two for the bank to release the funds and place them in our Vanguard Money Market Fund. I keep going back to both my bank account and my Vanguard Account to confirm the transaction was successful, just to be sure.

If you liked this article, please
Subscribe

Share This

I borrowed this book from the library not because we are having to downsize, but rather to get a perspective from someone who had downsized. I was curious as to their experience and advice in coping with having to downsize versus choosing to.

The book begins with an introduction where the husband of one of the authors comes home and announces that they are going to need to “cancel Christmas”. He had just lost his job and Christmas was just a few weeks away. The chapters follow in a logical order, with the first one being dedicated to dealing with the grief of the job loss.

After reviewing the steps in the grieving process, the authors discuss the importance of taking stock of where you are financially. How much money do you have and how long will it last? Next begins the cuts in discretionary spending with the goal to stop the flow of money leaving the household. The topics including cutting back on eating out, renting movies instead of buying, and canceling cable TV. We’ve done these things by choice, not because of necessity. This method will work for those who want to downsize not because they are being forced to.

Other chapters including getting control of the food budget, saving money on child care expenses, and methods of funding college expenses, and preparing for downsizing if you see it coming. The book is an easy read and presents the financial topics in a well organized manner. I think it is very comprehensive and would make a great read if you are needing to downsize or would simply like to explore your options.

The authors of this book are Hope Stanley Quinn and Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Since it is an older book (published in 1997) it can easily be found at your local library.

If you liked this article, please
Subscribe

Share This