.Preparing For A Snowbird Lifestyle
.Preparing For A Snowbird Lifestyle
By Harriet Edleson, AARP
Before you migrate to a warmer climate for the winter, take these steps:
Visual: Couple in beach chairs, holding hands, smiling
When Richard and Betty Ann Smith retired 15 years ago, they moved from East Brunswick, N.J., to Easton, Pa., and decided to start spending the winter months along the Gulf Coast of Alabama.
From January through March, temperatures there are in the 60s and 70s — a climate the Smiths find much better for staying active than the winter weather in Pennsylvania.
“We go for golf, we go for fishing and we go for socializing with our winter friends,” says Richard Smith, 79, a retired Presbyterian pastor. “All along the coast, the snowbirds migrate, and they fill up the coast area in the winter.”
Preparing For A Snowbird Lifestyle
By Harriet Edleson, AARP
Before you migrate to a warmer climate for the winter, take these steps:
Visual: Couple in beach chairs, holding hands, smiling
When Richard and Betty Ann Smith retired 15 years ago, they moved from East Brunswick, N.J., to Easton, Pa., and decided to start spending the winter months along the Gulf Coast of Alabama.
From January through March, temperatures there are in the 60s and 70s — a climate the Smiths find much better for staying active than the winter weather in Pennsylvania.
“We go for golf, we go for fishing and we go for socializing with our winter friends,” says Richard Smith, 79, a retired Presbyterian pastor. “All along the coast, the snowbirds migrate, and they fill up the coast area in the winter.”
The Smiths, like others who have retired, found a new freedom as snowbirds — people who migrate to warmer climates each year usually sometime between December and January. As temperatures dip throughout the U.S., snowbirds head south to escape the winter wind, ice and snow of northern states.
Health reasons such as pulmonary issues motivate some, while others simply prefer warm weather. And according to yearlong residents of those sunnier climates, the snowbirds who used to come just for winter are now starting to stick around longer.
Along Alabama’s Gulf Coast, for example, the unofficial snowbird season used to be mostly January and February but now has extended from early November until March, says Kay Maghan, a spokesperson for Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism. “We are seeing a much longer stay from our snowbirds in the last four years,” she says.
“There is a growing number of people who are becoming snowbirds and who are staying longer,” says John F. Brady, founder of TopRetirements.com, a website that focuses on retirement issues. “Boomers – a large segment – are tired of winter and the hassles that come with it.”
In addition to Alabama, other states that have been popular snowbird destinations are Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina and Texas, according to Homeaway.
Picking a snowbird destination — and deciding how long to stay there each year — depends largely on finances and tastes. Brady and his wife, Roberta, 65, who is a mystery writer, split their time between Madison, Conn., and Key West, Fla., which has become their primary residence.
Others, like Washington, D.C., attorney Alan Tawshunsky, 64, continue to live most of the year in their home in the colder climate. Tawshunsky has spent the past three winters in South Florida, where he works remotely in his own law practice. “I prefer the milder weather in Florida to D.C. in the winter,” he says.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
.10 Habits Of Financially Successful People
.10 Habits of Financially Successful People
By: Beverly Bird
Can You Get Ahead Just By Changing Your Habits?
We’ve all done it: ogling massive homes and estates while we’re driving, wondering how the owners achieved all that success and wishing for a little of it ourselves. Or maybe your neighbor just bought a brand new Ferrari. How did he become so financially successful?
Here’s a hint: He might not be. He might just appear to be successful. In fact, the world’s most successful people generally don’t spend wildly. They’ve developed good fiscal habits and they’re exactly that – habits. They’re consistent.
A Penny Saved…
Successful people routinely save. This doesn’t necessarily mean dropping their change into a jar every night before bed, although this is certainly beneficial, too. It means never spending more than they have to.
10 Habits of Financially Successful People
By: Beverly Bird
Can You Get Ahead Just By Changing Your Habits?
We’ve all done it: ogling massive homes and estates while we’re driving, wondering how the owners achieved all that success and wishing for a little of it ourselves. Or maybe your neighbor just bought a brand new Ferrari. How did he become so financially successful?
Here’s a hint: He might not be. He might just appear to be successful. In fact, the world’s most successful people generally don’t spend wildly. They’ve developed good fiscal habits and they’re exactly that – habits. They’re consistent.
A Penny Saved…
Successful people routinely save. This doesn’t necessarily mean dropping their change into a jar every night before bed, although this is certainly beneficial, too. It means never spending more than they have to.
Think of it this way: Every time single time you use that credit card or write a check, you have less money than you had a minute before. The equation only works if you spend less than you earn. It’s that simple.
You might have heard about Warren Buffett’s house, the one he bought for cash decades ago and continues to live in. It’s not a mansion. In fact, it’s a little on the small side. There’s no doubt in the world that Buffett can afford a lot more, but he’s lived with the habit of deferring instant and copious gratification in exchange for long-term wealth and security.
Are you stretching your budget to accommodate a lifestyle you can’t easily afford? Do you find yourself juggling your finances every month because you don’t quite earn enough to make all ends meet? This might be a habit you want to get out of.
And It’s About How You Save
About that change jar you toss your coins into every night. Get your money out of there and put it in some type of a financial account, even if it’s just a run-of-the-mill bank savings account, where it can earn some interest and grow.
Financial experts tout the 10 percent rule – you should regularly and methodically tuck aside this much of your income. Financially successful people tend to make it a habit to do more than that. Think 15 percent or even 20 percent if you can manage it.
If you’re not that disciplined – although most successful people are – set up automatic transfers to your savings so you don’t even have to think about it.
Put It in Writing
Another habit that can bear fruit involves writing it all down. Commit your budget to something black and white, whether it’s a file in your computer, a smartphone app or good old pen and paper. Financially successful people like to literally see where their money is going and coming from.
Sure, you can go online and view your bank balance at a glance. But do you really want to take someone else’s word for how much money you have? Banks aren’t infallible, and financially successful people know that. They keep track of their own money as well.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
https://pocketsense.com/15-quotes-from-successful-investors-that-will-change-your-life-13708277.html
.What Are You Willing To Do For Financial Independence?
.What Are You Willing To Do For Financial Independence?
By Barry Choi
I’m honestly getting really tired of all the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) blogs, articles, and people out there. Don’t get me wrong, I think FIRE is amazing, and if you can achieve it, that’s great.
My problem is that in the last little while, FIRE has been making headlines because of people who have unique situations.
It’s easy to achieve FIRE if you have a high income and reside in an area where there’s a low cost of living, but for most people, that may not be the case.If you want to achieve FIRE, you can take a few steps to help you get there. You may not retire in your 30’s or 40’s, but I would say if you can retire a few years early without having to worry about money, you’re probably doing alright.
Full disclosure, I’m looking to retire early myself, but there’s just no way I’m doing what some people did to get there. What are You Willing to do for Financial Independence?
What Are You Willing To Do For Financial Independence?
By Barry Choi
I’m honestly getting really tired of all the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) blogs, articles, and people out there. Don’t get me wrong, I think FIRE is amazing, and if you can achieve it, that’s great.
My problem is that in the last little while, FIRE has been making headlines because of people who have unique situations.
It’s easy to achieve FIRE if you have a high income and reside in an area where there’s a low cost of living, but for most people, that may not be the case.If you want to achieve FIRE, you can take a few steps to help you get there. You may not retire in your 30’s or 40’s, but I would say if you can retire a few years early without having to worry about money, you’re probably doing alright.
Full disclosure, I’m looking to retire early myself, but there’s just no way I’m doing what some people did to get there. What are You Willing to do for Financial Independence?
When FIRE Gets Out Of Hand
A couple years back the CBC featured Millennial Revolution, a couple in their early 30’s who retired with a $1,000,000 portfolio. There was so much online hate that they followed up with another story loosely explaining how they managed to achieve FIRE.
Basically, the couple graduated as computer engineers and had high paying jobs while living in an apartment that cost them $800 a month. They saved $500K and invested their money which happened to coincide with one of the biggest market rallies in history.
When their portfolio hit a million dollars, they called it quits and have been travelling since. This is a great story, but that’s some pretty unique circumstances.
Business Insider recently featured Physician on FIRE who is a part-time doctor earning $250,000 a year and plans to retire in a year at the age of 43. When I first read the headline, I was wondering why it took so long for a guy who earns a quarter of a million U.S. dollars working part-time to retire.
Well, it turns out he was never really formally planning to do so but realized that with his current situation, it made sense to achieve FIRE. It’s clear that Physician on FIRE worked his butt off to get to where he’s at, but how many people make $250K working part-time?
Then there’s Sean Cooper who paid off his mortgage in just three years. Sean gets a lot of hate online since he sacrificed just about everything to achieve his goal.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
https://www.moneywehave.com/what-are-you-willing-to-do-for-financial-independence/
.When Money Makes You Miserable
More Money, Less Happiness: When Money Makes You Miserable
By Michael Laurence — August 14 2019
More money, less happiness: When money makes you miserable
Money, the conventional wisdom says, doesn't buy happiness. Modern psychology seems to back this up, with studies suggesting that beyond an income of $75,000, money doesn't make you any happier.
This conclusion is simultaneously obvious and counter-intuitive.
As an abstract principle, most us acknowledge that money doesn't buy happiness. But, at the same time, we all want more of something material — a nicer house, nicer vacations, the ability to live in a certain neighborhood or eat at fancier restaurants — that we think would make us happier. (If you're J.D., you think maybe season tickets to your favorite team might make you happier.)
So, we're left with a conundrum. Or, rather, a series of conundrums: Does income in excess of $75,000 make us happier? And if not, why not?
More Money, Less Happiness: When Money Makes You Miserable
By Michael Laurence — August 14 2019
More money, less happiness: When money makes you miserable
Money, the conventional wisdom says, doesn't buy happiness. Modern psychology seems to back this up, with studies suggesting that beyond an income of $75,000, money doesn't make you any happier.
This conclusion is simultaneously obvious and counter-intuitive.
As an abstract principle, most us acknowledge that money doesn't buy happiness. But, at the same time, we all want more of something material — a nicer house, nicer vacations, the ability to live in a certain neighborhood or eat at fancier restaurants — that we think would make us happier. (If you're J.D., you think maybe season tickets to your favorite team might make you happier.)
So, we're left with a conundrum. Or, rather, a series of conundrums: Does income in excess of $75,000 make us happier? And if not, why not?
When Money Makes You Happier
In answer to the first question, I believe that all else equal — and as we'll see below, this is a huge qualifier, as things are rarely equal — more money generally makes you happier.
To be clear, money won't solve every problem. If you're lonely or bitter or angry, for instance, more money won't make you any happier. But just because money doesn't solve every problem doesn't mean that money won't solve any problems.
Money can make many things easier, or better. With more money you can:
Build a nest-egg.
Pay off your house or car.
Go on more vacations.
Have more kids.
Be a stay at home parent.
Eat better food.
Retire early.
With more money, you can do any number of other things that people enjoy and that make them happier. And if you're a victim of systemic poverty, more money can change your world.
As much as we pay lip-service to the idea of money not making us happy, it often does, and it's okay to admit this. It doesn't make us materialistic or greedy to want retirement savings, a nicer home, a paid-off car, or a trip to Europe.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
.Which Financial Advice Should You Trust?
.Which Financial Advice Should You Trust?
By J.D. Roth — published 19 August 2019 (updated 22 August 2019)
Commenting on a recent article, Carmine Red asked an excellent question:
How do you evaluate the financial advice you get from other sources? Specifically, how do you decide if some piece of advice is for you, or if you should discard some adjacent advice. Is there an amount of pick-and-choose?
GRS definitely doesn’t seem like a dogmatic 100% one-way-of-doing things site, so I’d love to hear about the critical thinking you employ, and that I’m sure we can all use a little of since we’re getting bombarded by financial “do this!” or “don’t do this” instructions from so many different dimensions.
Carmine is right: GRS is not dogmatic. From the start, my top admonition has been “do what works for you”. By this I mean that you should test financial advice to see if it works for you and your situation.
There's little (if any) advice that applies to 100% of people in 100% of cases. Life is messy. Money is messy.
Which Financial Advice Should You Trust?
By J.D. Roth — published 19 August 2019 (updated 22 August 2019)
Commenting on a recent article, Carmine Red asked an excellent question:
How do you evaluate the financial advice you get from other sources? Specifically, how do you decide if some piece of advice is for you, or if you should discard some adjacent advice. Is there an amount of pick-and-choose?
GRS definitely doesn’t seem like a dogmatic 100% one-way-of-doing things site, so I’d love to hear about the critical thinking you employ, and that I’m sure we can all use a little of since we’re getting bombarded by financial “do this!” or “don’t do this” instructions from so many different dimensions.
Carmine is right: GRS is not dogmatic. From the start, my top admonition has been “do what works for you”. By this I mean that you should test financial advice to see if it works for you and your situation. There's little (if any) advice that applies to 100% of people in 100% of cases. Life is messy. Money is messy.
So, how can you decide whom to trust? How can you evaluate a piece of financial advice to decide whether it has merit? And if the financial advice does have merit, how can you tell if it's right for your life?
Today, let's take a deep dive into this question. Let's explore how to evaluate all of the financial advice you get — from the internet, from television, and in real life.
Which Financial Advice Should You Trust?
How to Evaluate Financial Advice
Before I answer Carmine's question directly, I want to approach it obliquely. If you find this section boring, please skip to the next one. I won't hold it against you!
In 1940, Mortimer J. Adler published How to Read a Book, which contained 400 pages of advice on doing something that most people would argue needs no instruction. In 1967, he revised the book and turned it into a little masterpiece.
In the revised edition, Adler argues that there are four levels of reading:
Elementary Reading. At this basic level, the reader is able to answer the question, “What does the sentence say?” But reading at this stage is a mechanical act.
Inspectional Reading. At this level, a reader's aim is to get the most from a book (or article) in a minimum of time. “Inspectional reading is the art of skimming systematically,” Adler writes. Your aim is to get a surface understanding of the book, to answer the question, “What is this book about?”
Analytical Reading. At this level, you're doing the best, most complete and thorough reading of a book that you can do. Inspectional reading is done quickly. Analytical reading is done without a time limit. Its aim is understanding. This is the sort of reading that most of us do most of the time.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
.7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments
7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments
Golden Rules for Every Investor, or Major Mistakes Newbie Investors Make
The number of those who’re new to our business increases every day. Many of them face a number of typical mistakes (step on a rake) of a young investor.
You need to know everything about mistakes to avoid them. Maybe we should start with a start-up capital.
7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments
Rule #1 Constantly Build up Your Investment Capital
Investing requires money, which total amount must constantly grow; otherwise, it cannot be called investing. The source of growth may include both the funds saved up from base wages and the profit from already invested funds (investments).
7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments
Golden Rules for Every Investor, or Major Mistakes Newbie Investors Make
The number of those who’re new to our business increases every day. Many of them face a number of typical mistakes (step on a rake) of a young investor.
You need to know everything about mistakes to avoid them. Maybe we should start with a start-up capital.
7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments
Rule #1 Constantly Build up Your Investment Capital
Investing requires money, which total amount must constantly grow; otherwise, it cannot be called investing. The source of growth may include both the funds saved up from base wages and the profit from already invested funds (investments).
The figure of 10% of base wages that should be saved up is common in many information sources, but every case is different. Everyone decides how much money he/she can put aside without negatively affecting the quality of life – read more about that in the next paragraph.
![ru_gold-investor-rules[1].jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5222a44813620001d89582/1566564614785-KRZ42YIF2E0RNYTO2OKL/ru_gold-investor-rules%5B1%5D.jpg)
Rule #2 Don’t Invest the Last of Your Money
Any kind of investment involves increased risks, so when you invest the last money, you run the risk of ending up with nothing. However, there is something worse than losing the last of your savings (see the next paragraph).
Rule #3 Don’t Invest Other People's Money
![ru_last-money[1].jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5222a44813620001d89582/1566564720818-EV2UMDU5XADKPK32BCI6/ru_last-money%5B1%5D.jpg)
There's nothing worse than being in debt to someone, especially when you're a decent person. Investing debt capital is twice the risk, because if you lose it, you’ll have to look for money to repay your debt to the creditor.
Rule #4 Having an Investment Strategy
An investor having no strategy is not an investor anymore, but a gambler. You must have a plan of action (preferably set down on paper) for any possible situation. At that, you unreservedly must stick to it and make adjustments only when the market is closed. Adjusting your strategy “on the go” or in the course of making investment decisions is often caused by various emotions or gambling excitement of an investor.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
.Why Lottery Winners Crash After A Big Win
.Why Lottery Winners Crash After A Big Win
5 Rules If You Play An Office Lottery Pool
CHICAGO, IL - NOVEMBER 28: A Powerball lotter...What happens when your “dreams” come true? We’re always told to be careful what we wish for, and for Powerball lottery winner “Wild” Willie Seeley and his wife Nancy, this advice couldn’t be more appropriate.
The Seeleys are calling their $3.8 million win a “curse.” Their complaints? They have been bombarded by the media for interviews, and family members – many they’ve never heard of — have hit them up for loans and financial favors. “There are days I wish we were back to just getting paid every two weeks,” Willie Seeley confessed in an NBC News interview.
There is nothing unusual about their complaints. This is what commonly happens with lottery winners, and often, with other recipients of sudden wealth from lawsuits, sports contracts or even inheritances.
Why Lottery Winners Crash After A Big Win
5 Rules If You Play An Office Lottery Pool
CHICAGO, IL - NOVEMBER 28: A Powerball lotter...What happens when your “dreams” come true? We’re always told to be careful what we wish for, and for Powerball lottery winner “Wild” Willie Seeley and his wife Nancy, this advice couldn’t be more appropriate.
The Seeleys are calling their $3.8 million win a “curse.” Their complaints? They have been bombarded by the media for interviews, and family members – many they’ve never heard of — have hit them up for loans and financial favors. “There are days I wish we were back to just getting paid every two weeks,” Willie Seeley confessed in an NBC News interview.
There is nothing unusual about their complaints. This is what commonly happens with lottery winners, and often, with other recipients of sudden wealth from lawsuits, sports contracts or even inheritances.
But don’t count out the Seeleys just yet. There is hope they won’t face the same fate as $315 million Powerball winner Andrew “Jack” Whittaker who said “I wish I’d torn that ticket up,” after being robbed, losing his granddaughter to a drug overdose, being sued, and finding respite from the pressure by drinking, attending strip clubs and gambling.
As a sudden wealth financial advisor for over 15 years, I’ve had the chance to work with many clients who have received a windfall, and I’ve noticed there are predictable patterns – patterns of thinking and behaving that can explain how a multimillion dollar lottery winner can call her money a curse just a month after winning.
Immediately before or right after a sudden wealth event such as winning the lottery, many clients experience an almost out-of-body feeling. I refer to this as the honeymoon stage of sudden wealth.
They are exuberant. It’s an exciting time and they feel like they are on top of the world. Anything and everything is possible. They celebrate with family and friends.
They may buy new cars and larger houses, jet skis and motorcycles. It’s Christmas morning every day, but the thing that makes Christmas so special is that it comes just once a year. The honeymoon phase is an artificial reality that is not sustainable.
Their emotions are high, and they are enjoying the charge of the novelty of their new life. But this “high” cannot last forever – most often as little as a few days to over six months — and then reality hits them.
Did Willie Seeley experience the honeymoon stage? I think he did and I think it lasted about a month. Seeley and 15 of his co-workers recently won last month’s $450 million Powerball jackpot and he was all smiles as he celebrated his win by holding a large check over his head at a press conference in August.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpagliarini/2013/12/11/5-rules-if-you-play-an-office-lottery-pool/
.Smartphone Unlock Pattern vs 6 Digit PIN Security
Smartphone Unlock Pattern vs 6 Digit PIN Security
Security: Don't Rely On An Unlock Pattern To Secure Your Android Phone
By Andy Greenberg
SMARTPHONES TODAY COMPETE over which can best secure your secrets. They encrypt your data, store the digital keys to unlock themselves on specialized hardware, and even offer fancy biometrics from fingerprints to faceprints.
But many millions of smartphones remain open to an absurdly low-tech attack: a sly glance at someone's phone while they unlock it. One new study has quantified just how easy an Android-style unlock pattern—as opposed to a six-digit PIN or biometric unlock—makes the job of any over-the-shoulder snoop.
Security researchers at the US Naval Academy and the University of Maryland Baltimore County this week published a study that shows that a casual observer can visually pick up and then reproduce an Android unlock pattern with relative ease.
Smartphone Unlock Pattern vs 6 Digit PIN Security
Security: Don't Rely On An Unlock Pattern To Secure Your Android Phone
By Andy Greenberg
SMARTPHONES TODAY COMPETE over which can best secure your secrets. They encrypt your data, store the digital keys to unlock themselves on specialized hardware, and even offer fancy biometrics from fingerprints to faceprints.
But many millions of smartphones remain open to an absurdly low-tech attack: a sly glance at someone's phone while they unlock it. One new study has quantified just how easy an Android-style unlock pattern—as opposed to a six-digit PIN or biometric unlock—makes the job of any over-the-shoulder snoop.
Security researchers at the US Naval Academy and the University of Maryland Baltimore County this week published a study that shows that a casual observer can visually pick up and then reproduce an Android unlock pattern with relative ease.
In their tests, they found that six-point Android unlock patterns can be recreated by about two out of three observers who see it performed from five or six feet away after a single viewing.
Spotting a six-digit PIN of the kind used in most iPhones, on the other hand, proved surprisingly difficult: Only about one in ten observers in the study could reproduce it after one look.
That disparity is in part due to how memorable an Android unlock pattern is for human brains, says Naval Academy professor Adam Aviv.
"Patterns are really nice in memorability, but it’s the same as asking people to recall a glyph," says Aviv, who along with his fellow researchers will present the paper at the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference in Puerto Rico in December. "Patterns are definitely less secure than PINs."
In their tests, the researchers recruited 1,173 subjects from Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform to watch carefully controlled videos of the unlocking online, and had subjects try guessing PINs and unlock patterns after watching the phone's owner unlock it with commonly used PINs, or patterns from five different angles and distances, averaging out those variables.
They also repeated the video test with 91 people in person, just to check their online results.
They found that around 64 percent of the online test subjects could reproduce a six-point pattern after one viewing, and 80 percent after two. Only 11 percent could identify a six-digit PIN after one viewing, and 27 percent after two.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
.How to Secure Your Online Financial Accounts
How to Secure Your Online Financial Accounts
By Dirk Cotton The Retirement cafe
In my previous post, You're Responsible for Your Own Online Security, I noted that online fraud protections from banks, credit unions, investment companies, and other financial services companies are significantly weaker than consumer protections for credit cards, debit cards, ATMs, and EFTs.
The "100% online fraud guarantees" advertised by financial services companies can have a lot of fine print and they are backed by the companies, not by consumer protection laws.
You may be thinking, "That's a lot of trouble. In the unlikely event that my account is hacked, the financial services company will reimburse me." I think that's a mistake for a few reasons.
First, even if the company covers your losses, recovering from the fraud is unlikely to be a pleasant experience. Second, if you don't meet the company's security requirements spelled out clearly on their websites, you might not be covered by their online fraud guarantee, at all. Do you want to take that risk with your savings?
How to Secure Your Online Financial Accounts
By Dirk Cotton The Retirement cafe
In my previous post, You're Responsible for Your Own Online Security, I noted that online fraud protections from banks, credit unions, investment companies, and other financial services companies are significantly weaker than consumer protections for credit cards, debit cards, ATMs, and EFTs.
The "100% online fraud guarantees" advertised by financial services companies can have a lot of fine print and they are backed by the companies, not by consumer protection laws.
You may be thinking, "That's a lot of trouble. In the unlikely event that my account is hacked, the financial services company will reimburse me." I think that's a mistake for a few reasons.
First, even if the company covers your losses, recovering from the fraud is unlikely to be a pleasant experience. Second, if you don't meet the company's security requirements spelled out clearly on their websites, you might not be covered by their online fraud guarantee, at all. Do you want to take that risk with your savings?
My goals for this post don't include boring you to tears, though that is certainly a risk when one explains technology to people who just want things to work. The truth is that Internet passwords don't work. We need a very different solution for securing online access but unless and until we get that, we have to work with what's available.
One of my goals is to help you avoid losing your hard-earned wealth to online fraud. A second goal is to help you avoid the long, painful process of recovering from online fraud when recovery is possible — you'll find it much easier to stop fraud before it happens than to tidy up afterward.
And, my third goal is to keep you from running afoul of requirements that might preclude those "100% online fraud guarantees" offered by financial services companies. I used to refer to them as "online financial services companies" but now almost all of them are.
I warn you up front that some of these measures can be complicated to implement and that they will complicate your financial life a bit. It won't be as easy for you to access your online financial services but it should be a lot more difficult for a thief to do so.
And finally, before diving into security measures, be aware that many online services offer different levels of security that you can implement depending on how much set-up work you are willing to do and how much inconvenience you will tolerate to achieve greater security.
You can improve security significantly with stronger passwords, for example. With more work and complexity, you can greatly improve on long-password security by adding two-factor authentication.
You will need to decide if the extra security is worth the effort. You might also think, "This is way too difficult. I'm just going to avoid online access to my accounts altogether."
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
http://www.theretirementcafe.com/2019/08/how-to-secure-your-online-financial_6.html
.Manage Money Based On Reality
Don’t Live a Financial Fantasy: Manage Money Based On Reality
Post From Brave Saver
$800.
That’s what I consistently spend on monthly groceries for our family of four.But I’m not always happy with that number.
Other finance bloggers spend far, far less — sometimes as little as $100 per person, per month.
I compare my budget that’s double that and wonder, why can’t I do that too? I get sucked into googling how to save on groceries, looking for an easy answer or a simple way to spend less on food. I obsess over my meal plans and grocery mailers and coupons until my eyes cross.
Don’t Live a Financial Fantasy: Manage Money Based On Reality
Post From Brave Saver
$800.
That’s what I consistently spend on monthly groceries for our family of four.But I’m not always happy with that number.
Other finance bloggers spend far, far less — sometimes as little as $100 per person, per month.
I compare my budget that’s double that and wonder, why can’t I do that too? I get sucked into googling how to save on groceries, looking for an easy answer or a simple way to spend less on food. I obsess over my meal plans and grocery mailers and coupons until my eyes cross.
Other times I tell myself: It’s fine! I’m trying! Feeding a family is no easy thing, and our spending is below the average for a family of four. I already keep costs low while feeding everyone, and my spending is consistent. I’m doing great, really, and there’s just no room or need for improvement.
In both cases, I’ve noticed something happens: I idealize a financial situation — either someone else’s or my own.
When I Idealize Other People’s Finances
In the first case, I look at someone else’s situation and automatically view that as the ideal. In this example, it’s other people’s grocery budgets. But it also happens with their debt-free lifestyles, higher savings rates, or more-impressive freelance incomes.
I see someone doing better than me and get starry-eyed and a little jealous. There’s a compulsion to try to accomplish the same. To show I can put in the hard work to earn the same outcomes.
But why do I idealize others’ finances? Why do I look at their money situation from the outside and see only easy success?
Because I want it to be as easy as it looks — easy enough that I can do it, too. I want that idealized version of money management that promises results and always delivers. I want to know that if I only follow this financial advice, I’ll always get amazing results.
When I idealize other’s finances, however, I’m missing the steep costs that are paid to reach that success. While cutting groceries costs looks easy when it’s packaged into a slick list of 10 tips, that doesn’t mean it is. It doesn’t reflect the author’s effort coming up with these tips. Or how hard it was to apply them to build a consistently frugal system for buying groceries.
When I idealize others’ money, I buy into the fantasy that money is easy, the myth that these one-size-fits-all solutions will work for me.
When I Idealize My Own Money
I don’t just idealize other’s finances, however. I’ve noticed another pattern that crops up: I idealize my own finances.
I minimize money issues, smooth over financial bumps, and tell myself I’m already doing my absolute best. My grocery budget or money simply is what it is — and it can’t really be changed, I say to myself.
Or I justify my car loan and why I’m not yet focused on paying it off. I tell myself that my retirement savings rate is already okay, that saving at all puts me ahead of the average person, anyway.
To continue reading, please go to the original article at
https://bravesaver.com/2019/08/07/financial-fantasy-money-reality/