MONEY CLIPPED

Bills.com CEO and co-founder, Brad Stroh, recently had this advice to offer women:

1. Understand finances. Today, more and more women are financially savvy, and a large number of women manage their household’s money. But, Stroh said, it is critical for both partners in a household to understand their financial situation, to create a budget outlining all income and expenses, to know how to pay bills and plan for the future, and to agree on a set of financial priorities.

2. Prepare for retirement. Many financial planners believe women’s No. 1 challenge is preparing for retirement. “No matter what women earn, they should put aside a portion of their savings for retirement,” Stroh said. “Invest the maximum in a company 401(k) plan, and save more in an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) if possible. If there is the unfortunate possibility of a divorce, understand your state’s laws when it comes to dividing retirement accounts.”

3. Make decisions carefully. Every family must decide if a parent will stay home with children, and those decisions affect more than finances. But many families overlook the impact of leaving work on Social Security income, health insurance costs and other financial factors. “Consider not only the income, but the value of benefits and the psychological impact of returning to the workforce when deciding which parent — if either — will leave the workforce to care for children or others,” Stroh suggested.

4. Choose careers thoughtfully. While common wisdom is that men earn more than women, in some fields women earn the same or more, according to the book “Why Men Earn More” (by Warren Farrell) In addition, a study published this year found that young women working in big cities earn more — sometimes significantly more — than their male peers

5. Make wise marriage-money decisions. Choosing marriage? Best wishes! But don’t leave good judgment at the altar. “Women should not hand over all financial decision-making to a partner, and they should know about (and share) their credit history with a prospective spouse,” said Stroh, who also suggested that married women are wise to always keep a credit card in their own names and maintain a good history on that card. Some happily married spouses recommend maintaining three bank accounts: a joint account and one for each partner. Pay household bills from the joint account, but keep some individual funds, too.

6.Honesty is the best policy. “More than anything, be honest with your partner and urge the same so that you can address any money problems head on,” Stroh cautioned. “Do not hide purchases or debt problems. If you do, you’re just digging yourself a deeper hole.”

7.Never think that you can’t do it. Even today, many women are not taught about money and investing. “Educate yourself by reading, reviewing reputable personal finance education Web sites such as www.bills.com, and watching TV programs or speakers about investing,” said Stroh. “Be cautious, but do not be discouraged.”

While some of the advice is a bit generic, I think he does make some valid points I hadn’t considered before. A lot of the women I know who have financial problems have them because they were raised in an environment where girls weren’t encouraged to learn about money and finances. Unfortunately, I know a lot of girls are still raised archaic environements where managing the finances is the man’s job. I certainly plan to make sure my daughter is capable of managing her own finances regardless of her marital status.

You can read the rest Stroh’s comments here.

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A weekly, themed batch of worthy readings relevant to your wallet…

Housing Bubble Timeline
Sometimes graphics convey facts better than mere words. When you get to Bubble Meter, click on the graphic for the big version.

The Ascendancy Of Buyer Over Seller
The Housing Bubble Blog provides a nice article in which realtors explain how and why buyers have the upper hand.

Jim Cramer Smacks The NAR
HousingPANIC pulls no punches in it’s evaluation of the Today Show’s debate between Cramer and the NAR president-elect. Well done!

If You’re Looking To Buy, Think About Buying New (?)
Comparing new home prices in the bubble to existing home prices…

Constructing Capitulation Paper Economy provides so many tables and graphs to back up their analysis of the housing markets continous decline my head almost exploded.

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I don’t think most stores or cashiers are out to rip people off but there times when it’s true. If a cashier is out to rip you off, it’ll most likely be by short-changing you. Sometimes a cashier will accidentally ring something twice and that’s why you need to check your receipt everytime.

Another reason is to make sure you’re given the discount advertised. Since I first really started checking my receipts, I’m surprised at how often, an advertised sale price is not programmed into the register and had I not noticed, I would have paid the normal price. No one wants to be the one to hold up the checkout line but no one wants to get cheated either. Especially in light of how much food prices have climbed in the last few years.

You should also watch when products are priced as “so many items for so much money“, like 10 for $10. Most of the time, the discount only applies if you buy the advertised quantity. Just because it’s advertised as 10 for $10 doesn’t mean you can get 5 for $5. Another thing to watch out for is whether you can mix and match flavors/types. One of the grocery stores I go to had a brand of soup advertised as 5 for $10, all flavors. What it didn’t specify is you only got the discount if you bought 5 of one flavor. You could not mix and match but the signage failed to disclose that.

If you’re ever unsure of what an advertised sales price applies to, find a manager and make them explain. Some stores deliberately use misleading advertised sale price tactics because they know that most people won’t catch the discrepancy at checkout or will be too embarrassed to make a fuss if they do notice. Stores can make a lot of money doing that. You can lose a fair amount of money over the course of a year to that tactic. The other hard reality is that prices get programmed into register systems by humans and humans make errors.

Watch the prices as the cashier rings your items. If you have any suspicion an error was made, check the receipt before you leave the store. Once you leave the store, you may be out of luck. If you suspect a store is routinely using misleading tactics, report it to your county or state consumer affairs division.

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Stock fraud is not something I’ve ever given much thought to but since a good chunk of my planned retirement is stock-oriented, I suppose I should. This WIRED article on ShareSleuth.com and it’s connection with Mark Cuban is what got me to thinking about it.

ShareSleuth.com is the work of a single journalist who investigates shady companies. The case that started ShareSleuth has to do with a company that was making wild claims about what it could do and the media either failed to investigate the claims or actually helped promote the claims, which of course sent the stock soaring. It’s scary how easily they seemed to have manipulated the media. There are also questions about whether sites like ShareSleuth are just tools for manipulating stock values. Anyway, if you want the details, check out the article.

If you think you might have been a victim of stock fraud or just want to learn more about it, a good place to begin might be Stock Fraud Newswire.

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I’m in love with the idea of alternate energy sources not because of eco-guilt but because I hate the idea of America being dependent on other nations for oil. On a personal level I like the idea of not being dependent on the utility companies. I once had to go without power for 5 days due to an icestorm and it really sucked. Power outages happen to just about everyone occasionally- be it because of mother nature or an overloaded grid. By all accounts, our electricity infrastructure is in pretty sorry shape. It also seems the natural gas prices are on a continual climb. The average gas bill this coming winter is expected to increase 10%! Going off-grid seems like a no brainer when energy prices keep rising and supply looks sketchy.

How Practical Is a Solar Home?
It’s no secret converting a house to solar is an expensive proposition. Every year I hear about new solar technologies that will make solar electricty a practical alternative but the cost never seems to come down. I’ve moved 7 times in the past 17 years, it’s highly unlikely I’ll stay in any house long enough to recoup the $20-30k solar conversion cost. At this time in my life, at this stage of the technology, a solar home just isn’t practical for me.

The Other Solar Route
After reading this article on corporate adoption of solar technology, the soundest solar investment seems to be in the stocks of companies that supply corporate solar initiatives. The advances made by manufacturers and installers of corporate solar technologies will eventually benefit us all and their stocks appear to be appreciating at a very rapid pace. I’ll do a little more research but it sounds like a win/win situation to me.

So for now, solar energy in my day-to-day life will be limited to a few solar powered lights and maybe even a solar powered water heater. That and I’ll take the time to praise the corporations that are adopting solar technologies and encourage others to start.

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AllFinancialMatters has a preview of the 2008 Federal Income Tax Brackets and is kind enough to provide you with the tax rate tables for “Married, Filing Jointly” and “Most Single Filers” plus the new personal exemption and standard deduction amounts.

There are also direct links to prior tax related posts on AllFinancialMatters that would be useful for you to look at now so you can have your ducks in a row come tax season. A little forethought on you part now could save you some stress in January.

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September is National Preparedness Month. Somehow I failed to find out about it until 5 days before the end of the month. I’m guessing if a news junkie like me missed it, then so did a whole lot more people. But the poor promotion of National Preparedness Month should underscore why you had better think twice about relying on the government to help you recover from a disaster. Do you really want to rely on the institutions that botched the Katrina response?

One would think after Gulf hurricanes of 2005, the Greensburg, Kansas tornado, and the recent flooding in Texas and Ohio that Americans would really be thinking about how they would deal with a natural disaster. Unfortunately, I doubt that’s the case.

All your frugality, stock strategies, and 401k contributions won’t mean squat when the power is out, communication lines are down, and your home has been destroyed.

If you’re reading this it’s probably because you take your personal finances seriously. Well, unless you live somewhere that never sees natural disasters or is susceptable to terrorist attack or to chemical spills, then you damn well better have a plan in place. In business they call it “business continuity” planning. We learned the hard way on 9/11 what happens when businesses don’t have business continuity plans. You need to have a personal finance continuity plan. No one ever thinks it will happen to them. I hope you never have need for an emergency plan but it’s far more likely than your chances of winning the lottery.

So stop the procrastinating and go check out the Red Cross Financial Planning Guide for Disaster Preparedness.

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