I have performed two funerals for families in the past two weeks. Always a hard event and very emotional. One thing that can help during this time is if the deceased has preplanned his funeral and express their wishes and desires. This helps to ease the burden on the family. I have seen the difficulty and hardship on families as they try to plan a funeral and make big financial decisions all while under stress and grief.

Now I am not saying that you should pre-pay for your funeral, but you can pre-plan, or as some individuals in the  funeral business call it “pre-need”.  You can have this document left with your other important documents (will, medical instructions, etc.), with a lawyer or trusted family member, or you can even have it on file with the funeral home if you know which business you would like to perform this service for you.

Some basic things you can include:

• Cremation or burial (and location of burial or ashes)

• Open or closed casket (even if cremated—sometimes cremation takes place after a viewing service and you just rent a casket)

• Type of urn or casket (how much do you want them to spend?)

• Who to perform the service

• Service held at a Church or a Funeral Home

• Scripture or poetry or songs to be sung

• Donation of organs, etc. (this should also be on other documents that you leave behind)

• Tombstone? Inscription? Type of burial vault?

There are other things you can add but this list would be a start. Not something we like to think about, but something that will be helpful, appreciated, and one more way to show love toward your family and friends.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Funeral Preplanning is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we switched our cell phone service from Verizon to AT&T. In our area AT&T just has better reception and fewer dropped calls. In our last official bill from Verizon something didn’t look right, and once I checked it wasn’t!

Verizon added a $105 early termination fee to our bill. So I called them up to get it removed. We had been with them since 2004, and we had not upgraded phones for 4 years! The customer service rep listened to my defense, put me on hold, then came back with a “it must have been coded wrong” and reversed the charge. Why is it when companies “code things wrong” it is the customer who always pays, never the company? I am not sure I buy the coded wrong excuse but at least they reversed the charge.

Once again it pays to read over your bills, and then make phone calls to push your case. Another penny saved from taking time to pay attention!

 

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Went into Wawa (local gas /grocery place) the other day to treat myself to a cup of chai tea (gift card!). There was an older gentleman there cleaning up the coffee area, refilling straws and cups, etc. Then I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a storage item—basket for remotes (gift card!). Again, there was an older person greeting us—the classic Wal-Mart greeter. Both of these individuals (they both happened to be men) appeared to be well into their “retirement” years.

Now there is nothing wrong with what they were doing, but is what they were doing what you want to be doing when you retire? Not me! I still want to work part-time when I “retire” but I want the freedom to choose when and where I work.

So to make that happen I am saving. Are you doing what it takes so that you can retire the way you want? Everyone’s retirement dreams are different, which means are plans and saving need to be different. But if you haven’t started thinking about it, now is the time to get started. Actually, yesterday is the day we should have started, but the next best day is today. So let’s get started and start planning and saving! Wal-mart positions could get pretty competitive in a few years!

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. How is Your Retirement Future? is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

I did a quick financial review of 2011. My net worth is up by about $13,600. My liabilities (mortgage) only went down slightly, but we should do better in 2012 since we will be paying extra on our mortgage every month – enough to make a full two extra payments. Extra income helped – made $2500 between the various odds and ends we do to make a little extra. That was much more than I expected. We probably will not hit that figure in 2012 since my work load at church will be heavier and I will have to scale back my time in other areas. Our savings toward a replacement vehicle went well, and we are slowly (and I do mean slowly!) building up our emergency fund.

I broke about even (slightly ahead) on my retirement savings- what a crazy year for investing. Basically what I put in is what I got this year. Hopefully things will settle down and I can start getting some good returns from my investments.

All and all not a bad year financially. One of the areas we want to focus on in 2012 is building up our emergency fund. After it took some big hits in 2010 we just have not been able to put away as much as we would like. Hopefully that can change in 2012.

How did you do in 2011? Any surprises?

 

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Year End Financial Update is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

This week I will be doing some end of year financial things to get ready for the New Year. I have rebalanced my retirement funds to get them back in line with my asset allocation goals. I will set up my budgets for 2012 (at least my first attempt!). I will also begin to go through my files (always fun J). I will pull out the tax information I will need for doing my taxes, throw away documents no longer needed, and just generally clean up the files. Not real glamorous stuff but necessary. I do a little bit at a time so it is not so overwhelming (and so that I do not procrastinate). My wife and I will also begin talking about some financial goals for the coming year just to make sure that we are on the same page.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. End of Year Financial Stuff is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

We finally did it. My wife and I got new cell phones (and a new carrier). Our phones were over five years old, and our carrier (Verizon) kept dropping calls in our “remote” area—it was getting so bad that we had to stand still with the phone to have a two minute conversation before the call dropped (if we moved it dropped sooner).

We checked around to see who the best carrier was for our area, and after talking with neighbors and going into multiple stores, it was hands down AT&T for our area. So we checked out of our family plan (we were with our niece and my wife’s sister) and switched over. So far no dropped calls!

As far as phones, after checking around a little, we decided to join the evil empire and go over to the dark side—we bought an iphone 4. So far we have been very pleased. Not cheap, but very easy for us “old people” to learn. Heck, I have even sent my first text message (I told you I was old!).

I have the phone set up so that I can get all my email in one place – work, home, and my gmail account. I also now have all my calendars with me so that I don’t double book or miss something. I even have an app so I can blog on the go!

Now that we have switched everything over, which was really easy, we are wondering why we waited so long!

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. New Cell Phones and Carrier is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

The church where I serve has approved the budget and I will be getting a raise! With the way the economy is and how tough things are for people, I was really pleased. On top of that, they have agreed to pick up part of the tab for my cell phone expenses since we pastors are “on call” all the time. So that’s also a nice added bonus which will significantly help out the budget.

As far as changes to the budget, most of the raise will go toward the auto budget (gas and repairs) and the medical budget (braces and dentist visits). I think I will also be increasing our vacation budget a little bit. There maybe some other little tweaks but those areas seem to be of greatest need (at least the medical and auto!).

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. I got a Raise! is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

Our church just finished it’s second Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class. One more 13 week course in the books. Once again the people who attended really enjoyed it and thought it was very worthwhile. So far over 100 families have attended between the two courses we have offered. Each time we ask the group was it worth it and would they recommend that we offer another class—and each time the answer is a resounding yes. So it looks like we will offer another class once again in the fall. I am hoping to get some volunteers in place so that I don’t have to be there 13 weeks in a row! I enjoyed the course and helping to coordinate it but I cannot commit to 13 weeks right now, with us being understaffed and so much else going on. The staff will decide sometime in the Spring of 2012 the nights and times and hopefully by then we will have some volunteers lined up to help coordinate and lead.

If you have never gone to a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University, it’s something you may want to check into. Although most of the things he teaches I knew (there were a few new things I learned), he is a great motivator and encourager, and he helped get me back on track in an area where I had gotten a little lazy (emergency fund savings).

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Financial Peace University Class Update is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

NOTICE OF INTEREST OVERPAYMENT – that is how the letter started from Equity Plus. It then went on to read:

“According to our records you have not elected to participate in our bi-weekly mortgage program. The program could save you $40,000 to $100,000 in interest and reduce your mortgage term by 7 to 9 years.

What the letter says is “true”, but what they don’t say is that you have to pay for this privilege! Nor do they mention that you can do this yourself without paying them a hefty fee.

I also received a “nice” letter from a company in Palatine, IL, concerning a “Mortgage Protection Plan”. Now that I have a new mortgage I should protect myself and my loved ones from the loss of our home in the event of death, disability, chronic illness, critical illness or terminal illness (I guess they covered all the bases!). Why should I buy overpriced insurance? I already have life insurance to cover me.

It’s amazing the amount of junk mail that you get after you refinance a mortgage! Your best bet? Throw it out, or if you have a fireplace, maybe use it for kindling!

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With all the medical bills (dentist, eye doctor, braces) and the price of food soaring, my wife and I have been talking about whether she should get a part-time job. At first we thought maybe something seasonal so that in the summer she could be home with the girls. But it looks like my wife is going to go back to substitute teaching! She goes in once a week now to volunteer at the girls elementary school. When she was in the other week, she mentioned to one of the teachers about looking for a job, and they encouraged her to become a substitute teacher. The person mentioned that substitute teachers in our area make $100 a day, which is not bad considering there is no prep and the hours are great with us having girls in school.

It’s funny because she has done that before (she has her teacher certification) and we hadn’t really thought about it (don’t ask me why). So she is in the process of filling out all the paper work, getting her criminal background checks done, getting fingerprinted, resume updated, and references sent in (yeah, it’s a lot to do). Hopefully by the beginning of the year she can be ready to start. We’re hoping she can get about one day a week. That would be enough to take the pressure off and let us do a few thinks we can’t afford to do right now.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Part-Time Work is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.