Financial Symmetry News & Views

Archive for ‘Take Charge of your Finances’

There’s no better time than the beginning of a new year to implement a new budget in order to gain control of your spending.  In the final installment of our series on Quicken, we provide a few pointers to make using Quicken more meaningful so that you can better track where your money goes.

Should I be trying to hit the same number every month?

Comparing expenses on a monthly basis can be another source of frustration. There are many fluctuations that occur throughout the year, like holidays, summer vacation, and surprise home/car maintenance issues.

This is why it’s most helpful to measure your progress against a rolling year period. For example: You’ve just finished November, so you will want to measure December 1st of last year to November 30th of this year against the calendar year amount of your budget. If the amount is more, then you know you are a little ahead of pace and you should scale back.

If you’ve been diligent enough to hang in there for a year of budgeting, then you are fortunate enough to have a full year of meaningful comparison points.  So for this month, it would be best to investigate how January 2010 is comparing to January 2009’s data.  Barring any unusual spending activities in Jan. 2009, you should have some useful targets to compare to this year’s spending.

Performing this exercise monthly can greatly improve your overall financial picture as it allows you to have greater control over your regular expenditures.

How many categories should I be using?

Trying to determine which category your expense should go can be very confusing when you have forty to choose from.  Add in multiple subcategories for each of the main categories and you’re about ready to pull your hair out.

Luckily, Quicken allows you to edit the category list which should be your first action step when loading the software.  We recommend using 8-10 categories that will capture all of your spending.  This list includes:

• Clothing
• Communication (Phone, TV, Internet)
• Discretionary (Cash, Travel, Fun, Church/Charity Contributions)
• Food (Dining Out, Alcohol, Groceries)
• Debts (Mortgage, Equity Line, Car Payments, Credit Card or Student Loan Payments)
• Education (Books, Private School, College Tuition)
• Health & Hygiene (Gym Membership, Doctor Visits, Prescriptions)
• Household (Maintenance, Home Improvements)
• Investments (Roth/IRA Contributions)
• Risk Management & Financial Services (Bank Charges, Insurance)
• Taxes
• Transportation (Gas, Repairs, Car Insurance)

By practicing these two steps you should be well on your way to becoming a successful budgeter.

Even though 2010 is almost here, you still have time to take advantage of some 2009 tax planning strategies.  Here are some suggestions to consider before ringing in the New Year.

• Should you take losses or pull in capital gains?  It depends on your likely tax bracket…Take a look at your 2008 tax return. The IRS will allow taxpayers to deduct a maximum of $3000 in investment losses against ordinary income.  Many investors had a lot more than $3000 in realized losses in 2008 and, as a result, have a carry forward of the unused losses to 2009.  The opportunity now is that the IRS allows an unlimited amount of realized investment gains to be offset by realized investment losses.  So if you held on to an investment that has recovered much of its value this year, now may be a good time to sell.  If you don’t have any losses from 2008 to use consider selling something at a loss now.  Like we said above, the IRS allows $3000 of realized investment losses to be used as a deduction against ordinary income.  If you are in a higher tax bracket, that can be a valuable tax savings.

• If you are in the 10 and 15 percent tax brackets you can realize capital gains on investments held for more than a year at a zero percent tax rate in 2009.

• Watch out for the social security bubble – Up to 85% of your benefits could be subject to income taxation depending on other sources of income.

• Taxpayers normally subject to required minimum distributions from tax deferred accounts have been granted a waiver for 2009. It may make sense, however, to take some amount from those accounts depending on tax bracket.  Also, remember that you have sixty days from the distribution date to rollover into an IRA if you change your mind.

• Look at making a Roth conversion.  Because of the tax-free nature of the withdrawals, you need to consider your current tax bracket vs. your future tax bracket.

• Consider donating appreciated stock rather than writing a check.

• Make your property tax and estimated state income tax payments by December 31 if you want the write off for federal tax purposes.  Make sure that you consider the implications for alternative minimum tax.

• Weigh 2009 and 2010 together.  For example, you might want to wait until January to make property tax and state estimated tax payments if you think you will be in a higher tax bracket in 2010.

• If you are in the position to do so, you can gift to as many individuals as you wish up to $13,000 as the allowed gift tax exclusion.  If you are married, your spouse can gift $13,000 to those same individuals.

• The Hope Education Credit was renamed the “American Opportunity Tax Credit” for 2009.  This maximum credit for the first four years of postsecondary education is now increased to $2500.  This includes course materials costs in addition to tuition and fees.

Not ready to make the jump to an online budgeting tool? Quicken software may be what you are looking for.   The following is a brief overview of Quicken software.  Check back next week for tips on establishing categories in Quicken.

As many of you know, it can be hard to create a budget and even harder to stick to it.  The key to sticking to your planning is continuous monitoring.  To do so, we generally recommend using software like Quicken that is designed specifically for expense tracking.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is offering as much as 330% of a brokers annual production to join the firm.

Protecting What You Have

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm ET

Instructor Roseann Bove, CFP, CLU

NAPFA-Registered Financial Advisor

Your health, family, and home are important and need to be kept safe. Roseann will provide information on how you can protect the things you have through life, health and medical insurance.

Click here to register for this Webinar.

Click here to view archived Webinar sessions.

Elderly fraud continues to be a major obstacle for today’s senior citizens.  This is why we feel it’s essential to do our best to spread awareness about this topic and provide tips of how to avoid these scams in the future.  One of our partners, Chad Smith, CFP®, recently spoke, for the second time, to seniors at the Cary Senior Center.  He described specific techniques and characteristics of scammers, and gave several examples of actual cases, such as fake checks & “sucker lists” that are being used by scammers to lure senior citizens in.

This issue is actually gaining more momentum in the media and in Congress of late.  We’ve provided some information below on recent progress in the efforts being taken to fight this predatory fraud. The following article, published in the Wall Street Journal, provides a real example of elderly fraud and tips of how best to avoid incidents in the future.

A Family’s Fight to Save an Elder From Scammers

Tips for Avoiding Telemarketing Criminals

Some telemarketing pitches are blatantly fraudulent, and you should know the signs, which include:

• Asking you to pay for a prize you’ve won. It’s illegal for any company to ask you to pay or buy something to win a prize, or to claim that paying will increase your chances of winning.
• Asking for upfront fees. It’s illegal for telemarketers to ask for a fee upfront if they claim it’s likely they’ll get you a credit card, loan, or to “repair” your credit.
• Pressure to act immediately.
• Refusal to send written info. Legitimate agencies, charitable or otherwise, should not be reluctant to send you written information about their program or organization.
• Requests for personal financial information. Requests for your personal bank account numbers, or other private information, is a huge warning sign. Never give out your information to an unknown caller.

Ways to fight Elderly Fraud

NC Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Office 1-877-5-NO-SCAM

Fraud Fighter Line 1-800-646-2283

NC Task Force Chair 919-716-6000

Website that compiles recent scams:

The NC Division of Aging and Adult Services Senior Consumer Fraud Task Force

New legislation has also been introduced recently in Congress that would accomplish the following objectives to fight elderly fraud…

• Charge an additional $50,000 civil fine for each violation that is targeted or is committed against a senior.
• Create a national grant program for states to protect seniors from misleading financial advisors claiming to specialize in seniors
• Direct the FTC to establish a one-stop-shop for consumer education on mail, telemarketing and Internet fraud against seniors.
• Establish a grant program to give states and local organizations the resources they need to initiate local mail, telemarketing and Internet fraud prevention and education programs for seniors.
• Declare a “National Senior Fraud Awareness Week” in May – coordinated with Elder Abuse Awareness Month – to increase public awareness of the enormous impact that mail, telemarketing and Internet fraud have on senior citizens in the U.S.
• Initial workshops to educate seniors on how to recognize risk factors and learn about who can help them if they are exploited.

Remember if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

“Seniors should be aware that the issue is not if, but when they will be targeted by sophisticated scam artists. Sharing information about how best to prevent these communications and where to report it when they occur, empowers seniors with the tools to fight back.” Chad Smith, CFP®

To request Chad as a speaker at your event, contact him at csmith@finsym.com.

Looking for a way to better track your budget? Throughout the upcoming weeks, we will be bringing you personal reviews of some of the budgeting software available. Some will be free, online websites, while others will be computer software programs available for purchase or download.

Our first review comes from Heather Zaczek, our Operations Specialist, who has been using Mint.com for a little over a year.

What is Mint.com?

Mint.com is a free, online account aggregation tool that can help you plan, manage and stick to your budget. Setup is quick and easy—you can expect to have your accounts linked to Mint within a couple of minutes. Security is good, being at or above most institutional banking websites. Mint never asks for your account numbers, name or other personal identification information. Money cannot be accessed, moved or transferred within Mint, and all data stored at Mint is backed by bank-level data security protections.

How Do I Set Up an Account with Mint.com?

Setting up an account with Mint is simple. To get started, you will create a user ID, which is normally your email address, and create a password. Once logged in, adding accounts is simply. Your asset and debt accounts are aggregated by providing your institution’s user ID and password for the particular site and Mint does the rest. Mint has a search feature to find the correct login website for a particular institution, although some smaller, hometown banks and credit unions may not be available for connection yet. Once you have your accounts linked with Mint, simple, easy to read charts and graphs are available to create a budget and track spending. Budgets are set up monthly, and you are able to quickly view past months to estimate for the current month’s expenses. Your monthly budget appears on the homepage to show where your money has been spent so far, and how close (or away) you are from estimates through a color-coded bar graph.

What are Some Features of Mint.com?

Overall, the website is fairly easy to navigate, with tabs for transactions, spending trends, investments and ways to save on the homepage. For a better sense of security, Mint has established an alert system that you can customize for each linked account. These alert settings can increase your financial protection and awareness of suspicious activity within your accounts, a great feature that takes minutes to set up. Alerts can be created to notify you if large purchases are made, credit limits have been reached, or low balances exist within accounts.

Mint also tracks your interest rates, credit card reward programs and your credit payment habits to look for ways to save money. If your ABC card is costing you more money than say XYZ card, Mint will suggest switching your cards while estimating your savings on an annual basis. The great thing about Mint’s suggestions is that they are running in the background rather than popping up on your homepage. Saving strategies are located on a separate page and can include customized views for checking, savings and investment accounts.

Are There Drawbacks to Mint.com?

Since Mint.com is free, you can expect a few areas to be less than perfect. There is not a feature to download transactions from institutional websites directly to Mint, and transactions cannot be manually added. Cash transactions can be split into different categories if you have a linked ATM transaction, which enables you to track each cent spent from the cash withdrawal. Another drawback is associated with linking transactions between accounts. For instance, Mint has a little trouble sometimes tagging transfers between checking and credit card accounts, making it difficult to match payment transactions in relation to specific dates. Mint’s reports are simple and informative, without elaborate graphics. Time lines can also become an issue when comparing data over long periods of time; Mint’s standard time frames range only from the time you linked your accounts forward, so older transactions may not be reflected. This may work out as a benefit of Mint if you are just starting with a budget and are not too concerned with past expenses.

Are There Any Additional Features of Mint.com that Make Budgeting More Interesting?

There are a few neat features of Mint that can make budgeting a little more interesting. Mint compiles data from users’ spending patterns so that you can compare your spending habits to those in your location—either state or large city. Mint also has a regularly updated blog with easy to understand financial concepts in every day language. A few recent posts include “The Pros and Cons of Online Banks” and “15 Ways to Eat Out More Spend Less.” Most blog posts include “Mint’s TakeAway” to provide suggestions on how ideas presented effect spending. Overall, Mint.com is a great, easy to use, free budgeting tool, that beats will outperform spreadsheets most of the time.

If you have any questions about Mint.com, feel free to contact Heather at hzaczek@financialsymmetry.com or 919-851-8200 ext. 205.

A key aspect of financial planning is managing expenses.  However, setting a budget and consistently monitoring it is easier said than done.  That is why we recommend using an expense tracking software to keep track of your spending.  Mint.com is a relatively new personal finance website that takes a lot of the work out of expense tracking.  Click the link below to watch an instructional video about how to use mint.com and learn the benefits and security features.

With unemployment high, requests for loans from friends and family members are on the rise.  This can put a potential lender in a difficult position.  They do not like to see someone they care about having financial difficulties, but they also know that personal loans can become gifts as default rates are high.

There is also a risk of bruised feelings due to misunderstandings about repayment expectations.

To reduce the risks and potential damage to an important relationship, clearly spelling out terms and expectations up front is vital.

Virgin Money can help you document a personal loan with their Handshake Basic service.  And their Handshake Plus service can even handle payment processing.  Review their Personal Loan Guide, and pass it along to whomever you are considering loaning to or borrowing from.

New research has found that men are more likely to take larger risks in their financial decision making than women. Using a sample set of a group of MBA students the researchers looked for a correlation between higher levels of testosterone and a willingness to take a chance on a less likely outcome if the potential payout was greater. After graduation, more male students will follow a career path into investment banking or trading on Wall Street where the stakes are always high.

http://www.fa-mag.com/fa-news/4408-testosterone-may-affect-financial-risk-aversion.html