5 Common Emergency Expenses — And How Much They Cost on Average

5 Common Emergency Expenses — And How Much They Cost on Average

Cindy Lamothe    GoBanking Rates  Fri, June 7, 2024

One thing in life is certain: things are unpredictable unimaginable ways. While you can’t know what the future holds, you can plan for it. Because being unprepared can drain your emergency fund empty and leave you in the poor house.

“If your car breaks down, the cost to fix it can vary greatly,” said Melanie Musson, a finance expert with Clearsurance. “If you have a flat tire, you may need to replace all your tires, which will cost about $600 or more. However, you can expect to pay $2,000 or more for a replacement if your transmission goes. A new radiator will cost around $1,000. If you need a new battery, you have an easy fix for about $100.”

Justin Godur, financial expert and CEO of Capital Max, says understanding these common emergency expenses and their potential impact on your finances is essential for effective financial planning.

“By anticipating these costs and preparing accordingly, you can protect your financial well-being and avoid significant stress during emergencies.”

Below, experts outline exactly how much some of these common emergency expenses will cost you on average.

Car Breakdown

“A car breakdown is one of the most frequent and costly emergency expenses,” Godur said. “The average cost for a major car repair, such as a transmission or engine replacement, can range from $3,000 to $7,000.”

He says even minor repairs, like fixing a brake system or replacing a fuel pump, can cost between $300 to $1,000.

“Regular maintenance and an emergency savings fund can help mitigate these unexpected costs,” Godur said.

Job Loss

According to experts, losing a job is a significant financial shock.

“The average duration of unemployment in the U.S. is about 22 weeks, during which time individuals need to cover living expenses without a steady income,” Godur said.

Musson notes the same.

“If you lose your job and are eligible for unemployment, you can expect to lose half of what you were making,” Musson said. “Unemployment services are a nightmare to work through in many parts of the country, so you can expect to have a lag time of several months, during which time you’ll have no income. So, if you were making $5,000 a month, in a best-case scenario, you’d lose $2,500 a month, and in a worst-case scenario, you’d lose $5,000 a month.”

Godur says that depending on your lifestyle and location, this could mean needing between $10,000 to $20,000 to stay afloat.

“Building an emergency fund with three to six months’ worth of expenses is crucial to weather such storms.”

To Read  More:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/5-common-emergency-expenses-much-140111547.html

9 Times To Always Have $1 and $5 Bills on Hand While Traveling

9 Times To Always Have $1 and $5 Bills on Hand While Traveling

Dawn Allcot  Thu, June 6, 2024  GoBankingRates

As we shift toward a cashless economy, there are still times you want cash on hand. For instance, when you fuel up at the gas pump, you can save as much as 10 cents per gallon — that’s more than $1 if you have a 12-gallon tank and take it down close to empty. There are other times, especially on vacation, when you’ll want a stash of $1 or $5 bills.

Before you leave for a trip, it’s wise to withdraw some $1 and $5 bills from the ATM and keep them in your pocket, a change purse, or your wallet for easy access.

In fact, you might find yourself reaching for your wallet more than you might imagine on vacation in the U.S. Just getting from the airport into your hotel room often requires contact with multiple service providers who all supplement their income with tips.

1. Restaurant Servers

Most restaurants allow you to leave a tip for the server on your credit card when you pay the bill. But tipping in cash, instead, puts money in the server’s pocket that evening. And for many people living paycheck to paycheck, that extra money can make a difference. That’s why it’s a good idea to carry cash for tipping.

The standard rule is to tip 20%. Restaurants often publish suggested tip amounts at the bottom of the receipt, saving you the trouble of pulling out your phone to do the math.

You may also want to carry cash to pay for your restaurant meal. According to LawPay.com, in all but a handful of states, restaurants are permitted to add credit card surcharges to your bill — and many do.

Businesses in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York are prohibited from adding credit card surcharges, although New York allows a “cash discount” that’s essentially the same thing as a surcharge.

If you want to save money on vacation, read your restaurant bill carefully and avoid surcharges by paying in cash.

2. Housekeeping at the Hotel

If you’re staying in a hotel that cleans rooms daily, try to leave between $1 and $5 per day, according to Southern Living. There might be a new housekeeper each day. If the hotel only provides service every few days, it’s fine to leave a tip at the end of your stay. If you’re in a large suite or a luxury hotel, you might increase that amount to $10 per night or more.

Make sure to leave the tip in a visible spot, such as on the nightstand. If the hotel has stationery and a pen in the room, it’s a nice touch to leave a quick thank you note.

3. Room Service

If you order food from the hotel restaurant, it’s easy to put the charge on your room bill. But it’s a good idea to have money to tip the person delivering the food. Just as you would in a sit-down restaurant, 15% to 20% of your bill is the norm, according to Travel + Leisure.

4. Hotel Bellhop

Justin Nels, managing director of Isla Bella Beach Resort in Marathon, Florida, told travel site AFAR.com that it’s a good idea to tip your bellhop between $2 and $5 per bag, depending on the size and weight of your luggage.

To Read More:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/9-times-always-1-5-183141249.html   

6 Great Money Lessons From the 1950s You Should Use Today

6 Great Money Lessons From the 1950s You Should Use Today

Angela Mae  Thu, Jun 6, 2024,

America in the 1950s was a vastly different place than it is today. Unemployment rates were low, individual purchasing power was high, and mass production and new technologies were making everyday goods and services readily available and cheaper.

Many young adults in the 1950s grew up during the Great Depression — 1929 to 1941. As they went on to launch their own careers, start their own families and pursue the American dream, they did so with the financial lessons they learned along the way.

And those lessons? They were passed down to their children and their children’s children.

While the 1950s might seem ever so distant, many of the lessons that came about back then are still significant today. Living within your means, owning what you have, saving up for the future — these are just some of the great money lessons from back then that you should use today.

Wealthy people know the best money secrets. Learn how to copy them.

Live Within Your Means

Learning to live within your means is just as important now as it was 20, 50 or even 100 years ago.

“In the 1950s, most families stuck to pretty much the same budget from year to year, with people spending only what they earned and never going into debt when they [could avoid it],” said Erika Kullberg, a personal finance expert, attorney and founder of Erika.com.

It helped that the first consumer credit card didn’t come about until 1958, when Bank of America launched BankAmericard. Credit simply wasn’t as readily accessible as it is today.

“In a world where credit is easy, it’s more important now than ever to shop around, practice self-discipline and save rather than borrow,” said Kullberg.

If you must use credit or loans for something, like a house or school, do so with extreme caution so that you don’t end up taking on debt you can’t afford.

Live Like Your Money’s Going To Disappear

Living like your money will disappear doesn’t mean spending everything immediately. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“In the ’50s, many adults remembered struggling through the Great Depression,” said Todd Stearn, founder and CEO of The Money Manual. “With low inflation and unemployment and high wages, the middle class had more spending money than ever in the ’50s, but many were so impacted by the things they and their parents had been through financially that they often saved carefully despite the good fortune many had found. That caution with money is just as valuable today.”

Save as Much as You Can, But Use Your Savings as Intended

To Read More:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-great-money-lessons-1950s-150010941.html

It’s Vital That You Keep These 7 Financial Documents Forever

It’s Vital That You Keep These 7 Financial Documents Forever — Here’s Why

Vawn Himmelsbach  Mon, June 3, 2024

Many of us have piles of papers we’re saving "just in case,” probably gathering dust somewhere.

While some of those documents could probably head straight to the shredder, there are others that you should keep forever — and preferably not in a cardboard box in the basement.

But sometimes we just don’t know what we need to keep (and for how long), and what we can safely get rid of.

Here are seven financial documents you shouldn’t get rid of (ever) — and why.

7 Documents You Should Never Lose

1. Birth certificate. Your original birth certificate (or adoption papers) is used to prove your age at various life stages, such as obtaining a driver’s license or applying for Social Security benefits. It will also help your family obtain a death certificate when the time comes.

2. Social Security card. You need the nine-digit number on this card to get a job, rent an apartment and collect government benefits, and you may need it to open a bank account or apply for a credit card. The Social Security Administration (SSA) recommends keeping your card in a safe place and only sharing your number when required.

3. Marriage license. Your marriage license affirms that you and your spouse did, indeed, get married. This can come in handy if you want to claim a Social Security spousal benefit in retirement.

4. Divorce records. Your settlement agreement includes the division of marital property and the terms for child and/or spousal support, so you’ll want to hang onto that. Plus, if you were married for 10 years or more (and aren’t remarried), you may be able to claim Social Security benefits based on your ex’s record.

5. Loan payoff statements. This is important if you’ve negotiated a settlement that’s less than the original debt. That’s because if the debt is sold to a debt collector, the new debt collector may not have a copy of the documentation proving that you settled under those terms.

To Read More:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/vital-keep-7-financial-documents-110000136.html

Gold Will Soon Displace The US Dollar, And Americans Are Missing Out

Gold Will Soon Displace The US Dollar, And Americans Are Missing Out

Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black) June 3 2024

Next month will mark 80 years since the US dollar was formally anointed as the world’s reserve currency.

It was July 1944. And with the war in Europe near its denouement, governments were already trying to plan what the postwar world would look like. Most urgently, they needed to figure out how to rebuild their devastated economies.

Just think about the mess they were in: nearly every industrialized country in Europe had been destroyed by war. Manufacturing and farming were both in the dumps, and they had very little savings to invest in economic revival.

They also had a gigantic mess when it came to international trade. Dozens of countries each had their own currencies, so commercial trade meant each government keeping 20-30 currencies in reserve.

France, for example, would have to hold Austrian schillings, British pounds, Spanish pesetas, Italian lira, Dutch guilders, Soviet rubles, etc. in reserve, just to be able to trade.

A much, much simpler solution was for every country to use the same currency to trade with each other. And there was no question about which currency would be the right choice: the US dollar.

In 1944, the United States still had a strong and powerful economy. It had robust capital markets and a well-developed financial system. It was the only country left standing.

So, representatives from more than 40 nations gathered that summer in picturesque Bretton Woods, New Hampshire and formally agreed to use the US dollar for international trade and commerce.

More specifically, each country fixed its exchange rate to the US dollar, while the US dollar was fixed to gold.

It only lasted about thirty years. By the early 1970s, the original Bretton Woods deal had been completely undone. Currencies floated freely against each other (including the dollar), and the US dollar terminated its link with gold.

And yet (thanks in part to Saudi Arabia agreeing to sell oil in dollars), the US dollar has continued to remain the dominant reserve currency through today.

For the most part that was still a sensible bet; the US has been the world’s #1 economy for the past five decades. But the cracks are obvious.

The US federal debt is a national embarrassment. At $35 trillion, the debt is far larger than the entire US economy… and it gets worse every year.

The US government is also completely dysfunctional. The vitriol and enmity, among the parties and within the parties, is so extreme that virtually nothing productive or beneficial ever takes place. The business of government now is merely two sides screaming that the other is a threat to democracy.

The President barely knows where he is half the time, and the other half he spends shredding the Constitution to engage in some anti-capitalist, inflationary, fanatical woke climate agenda.

Sadly, this isn’t a one-time blip. America’s governance and finances have been deteriorating for most of this century-- starting with the endlessly expensive War on Terror, through the free-spending Obama years, to the pandemic… and now the very real prospect that the next four years could look very similar to the previous four years.

America is supposed to be a reliable, stabilizing force in the world. But today’s America has lost its grip. And foreign nations have noticed.

Most people alive today don’t remember a world in which the dollar wasn’t #1 and therefore cannot fathom a world in which this is no longer the case. But it’s irrational to assume that something will continue indefinitely, forever, simply because of the status quo today.

It’s not 1944 anymore. Back then there were no other options… and no one who even came close to rivaling the military and economic superiority of the United States.

Today both of those are in decline. It’s not to say the military can no longer fight or that the economy is in complete shambles. But America no longer has the unrivaled position it enjoyed for so long.

More importantly, the trend isn’t looking good. From an economic perspective, the national debt is set to increase by another $20 trillion over the next decade… likely triggering a nasty run of stagflation like the US experienced in the 1970s.

The US military, meanwhile, continues its downward slide. Recruitment is absolutely abysmal. Key weapons systems, fighter jets, tanks, and naval vessels are borderline obsolete.

The US Navy’s fleet of ships and submarines (which would be critical in any conflict against China) is the oldest and smallest it’s been since the end of World War II. Nearly 1,000 military aircraft will be retired from service in the next five years alone, and there is no concrete plan to replace them.

Nor is there any money to do so.

Frankly it is exceedingly difficult to believe that, in light of America’s declining power and prestige, the rest of the world will continue accepting the US dollar as the global reserve currency for much longer.

We’re already seeing signs of this change; plenty of countries are starting to trade with one another in different currencies, including Chinese renminbi and Indian rupee, and this trend will likely accelerate over the next several years.

I think it’s even possible there could be an event of some sort-- perhaps the US government defaults on its debt, or there’s even a shooting war or cyberattack-- which triggers a new Bretton Woods style conference.

The key difference between now and 1944 is that there was only one option back then-- the US. And pretty much everyone had confidence in America.

That’s not the case today. Few rational people have the same level of confidence in the US government. Yet almost no one trusts the Chinese either.

But just like 1944, there is an obvious solution… and one that everyone already trusts: gold.

Nearly every country already holds gold as a reserve asset, so there would be very little change to the way they currently do business.

I’ve written about this before-- I believe this is why so many central banks around the world have been on a gold-buying spree. In fact, this is THE reason why gold is near its all-time high: central banks have been buying it by the metric ton.

You have to understand that central banks aren’t speculators. They don’t care about price. They buy for strategic reasons… and I believe that the central bank gold purchases that have been occurring over the past few years are a key sign that the global financial regime will be changing.

Individual investors, meanwhile, have been selling gold.

North American investors have sold off more than $4 billion worth of gold ETFs in the first four months of this year, with $2 billion of that just in the month of April. And gold ETF holdings are now at their lowest level in four years.

Central banks are buying. Individual investors are selling. It seems pretty clear that people aren’t paying attention to the warning signs.

Yes, gold is near its all-time high. But that doesn’t mean it can’t go much higher… especially if there’s a catalyst. And there absolutely is.

As a final point, I would point out again that even while gold is near its all-time high, shares of high quality, profitable, dividend-paying gold miners are laughably cheap.

That’s because central banks only buy physical gold bullion (which has pushed up the price of gold). They do not buy gold stocks… hence many of these businesses are available for outrageous bargains.

To your freedom,   James Hickman  Co-Founder, Schiff Sovereign LLC

https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/gold-will-soon-displace-the-us-dollar-and-americans-are-missing-out-151007/

4 Purchases Financial Experts Regret and What They Wish They Had Spent Money On

4 Purchases Financial Experts Regret and What They Wish They Had Spent Money On

Laura Bogart  Thu, May 30, 2024

Financial advisors may know a lot of things about wisely spending money, but they don’t know everything. Even the best educated, most experienced and all around savviest financial expert is still, at the end of the day, a human being trying to make the best decisions based on the information they have on hand.

Sometimes, these advisors regret their decisions in hindsight. And sometimes, looking back on the purchases they regret the most will teach the experts in a more intimate way than they’d get in their studies or on the job.

GOBankingRates talked to some financial experts about the purchases they most regret and what they now wish they’d purchased instead.

Investing In a Startup

As the co-founder and CEO of Reliant Insurance Group and Helping Hand Financial, Ben Klesinger is a seasoned financial professional. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t have to acquire some of his expertise the hard way by making investments he would come to regret.

Early in his career, Klesinger invested heavily in what he called “a promising but unproven fintech startup.” Citing generally high levels of enthusiasm for technology, he put in about $200,000 of his own capital. Though he expected to see quick returns, what he got was a whole lot of headaches.

“The startup struggled with regulatory issues and market competition. In the end, we lost nearly the entire investment,” he said. “I learned the hard way that even if a business idea sounds revolutionary, proper due diligence is indispensable.”

In hindsight, Klesinger wishes he’d applied a more balanced approach, like investing in a diversified portfolio of mutual funds or even tech-focused ETFs, which would have allowed him to get exposure to the tech sector without taking on such a high risk.

A Fancy Car

Like many people who have worked hard and want to show off their success, Klesinger once purchased “an extravagant car” that he also hoped would serve as a solid investment. Unfortunately, that car which cost him $150,000, ultimately proved more trouble than fun by depreciating much faster than he anticipated.

“The maintenance costs also piled up, diminishing the overall value,” he said. “I realized afterward that investing the same amount in rental properties or a mix of dividend-yielding stocks would have generated consistent income and appreciated over time.”

To Read More:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/4-purchases-financial-experts-regret-180011958.html