Black Friday is Coming…

It is hard to believe that it is November and Thanksgiving is a couple of weeks away. It is amazing how the day after Thanksgiving has turned into such a crazy shopping holiday. For shoppers, here is the perfect website to see all of the bargains offered the day after Thanksgiving. A quick scanning of this site shows some incredible deals. Electronics look incredibly discounted whether it is a GPS or a TVs- looks like some great deals from many different vendors. So it looks like it is smart to do your research this year and check out http://www.black-friday.net

Happy Shopping!

Auto Reports- Have you checked it out?

I was reading an article this morning on  insurance and the importance of shopping around for the best deal. The article stated that credit score is a big factor in getting low rates. Another score that is checked is your your Auto Report score which is based on your C.L.U.E. report. I was intrigued because I knew about credit scores but I did not know about other scores so I wanted to check it out. So if you are like me, you may not know what C.L.U.E stands for? If you said, Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange Report you are correct.

So did you know you can pull your C.L.U.E report once a year for free? Too bad, it costs $12.95 to get a score but you do not need a score- you just need to pull your report once a year. You can access these reports at Choice Trust. Along with your C.L.U.E auto report you can pull up a Personal Property report also. It is very easy to set up an account and fill out the request form.

So why do you need to do this? Easy, as you are shopping for new insurance, you can see what the insurance agents are seeing. It gives you the last 7 years of information.

If you do not want to do this on-line- you can call the number below and request your report:

Call us at 1-866-312-8076 to order your report by phone.
Monday – Saturday: Available All Day
Sunday: 10:00 AM to midnight EST

 

 

Check it OUT!

Financial Calculator Heaven

I love learning about new financial resources on the internet. I have found the most amazing site for financial calculators all in one spot. This site allows you to use savings, tax, mortgage, retirement or debt calculators all for free. This site is dinkytown.net. It also has calculators specifically for Canadian residents. So why is this such a great site? There are over 350 calculators available for your use. Each calculator has dynamic graphs and reports that explain the calculation. Check this out and have fun!

Identity-Theft Awareness Day

Did you know October 17th is Identity-Theft Awareness Day? To celebrate this fine day, one should shred old financial and personal documents. Also, one should pull their credit report if they have not done so recently. One can pull their credit report for free at Annual Credit.com. As stated, this site is free and easy to use. Freecreditreport.com is NOT free and you have to pay way too much so do not listen to the ads or the name because it will cost you money. You need to get in the habit of monitoring your credit report fairly regularly. A good suggestion is every 4 months pull a different companie’s credit report. So in October, pull Transunion, February pull Equifax and in June pull Experian. Then the next year it starts all over again.

So have a great time celebrating Identitiy-Theft Awareness Day and go shred!

Insurance

So many times when we speak about financial planning the category of insurance is overlooked. Whether you own a home or you rent insurance is really important. In my many years of working in aid, I have seen students whose possessions are lost because of accidents (fire and pipes freezing). The site know your stuff is a great way to document your personal belongings. Being web based, once you enter the belongings, you always have the a virtual record that you can easily access and update. This is important because if you ever have a disaster such as a fire in your house, your insurance company will ask for a record of all of your belongings destroyed. With this website, you can catalogue your possessions including brands and values. This site helps get you organized including keeping your insurance agents policy numbers and contact information in one spot. Also, it allows you to put photos of the possessions all in one spot. It sure does make it easy! What do you think?

Do you like it?

Thinking About a New Car?

Many students will purchase a car for medical school. If you have listened to my talks in the past, you do not need to spend on a new car with a 6 cd changer and a rear spoiler. Spending 1.9 million is not needed. Buying a car can be a daunting experience. If you are looking for a used car in the Upper Valley see an earlier post about Bonnie Clac. Another resource for buying a car is this new website, truecar.com This is a new car negotiating tool. It allows you to look up how much people actually paid for a particular make and model in your region. Prices are updated weekly. One impressive area on this site is the breakdown of cost. It gives you the dealer price, average paid, factory price and sticker price. Negotiating a car sale is very difficult sometime but this website has information to make this process easier. Do you like it?

Privacy

So who is watching you? This great website talks about many ways to protect your privacy. It allows you to opt out of mailings, phonecalls, offers… For example, if you would like to sign up for a credit freeze and not allow credit bureaus to disclose your personal information, there are steps at this site to opt out. Just by opting out of all the credit card offers , you will save many trees. Happy Opt Out!

Money Saver Website

Wow, it is great having 1st and 2nd years students on campus again. One consequence is that it is crazy now getting everyone cashflow statements. So I am back posting some great sites for you to check out. Consumerworld.org is the place to go for a great website to save money. This site is waiting to show you a list of on-line discounters, outlet malls, travel bargain finders, dining deals and I am sure more stuff. There is even a site that gets you free movie tickets in metro areas for screenings/previews.  It is worth taking some time and scrolling down this site. Have fun!

For people who do not balance their checkbook

This post is for people who do not balance their checkbook. Clearcheckbook.com is an easy free tool that will help people keep their bank accounts organized. It does not go in depth like mint, buxfer and quicken but it is a great 1st step towards organization of finances. You can also link it with your iphone! The great advantage of this site is that you can go on line and update your bank accounts. If you are on the road, the internet is there which means your checkbook is there. Along with being an online checkbook, one can view reports, setting budgets, creating reminders and more. As I stated, it is a free site and I recommend taking the tour. If you like it you can take advantage of some premium tools but I think you will be happy with the free content. Take a look…

How do you stack up against the country?

Have you ever wondered how  your finances compare to others in your age group or occupation? or state? or education level? The site networthiq takes your data (free signup) and helps you with a financial check-up. It will use your data and compare you to a person in your age, occupation, region…

Data collected from all reported accounts (public and private) thru 4/22/2009

Age	Profile Count	% of Pop.	Median Net Worth
Under 25	499	15.99 %	$9,660
25-29	916	29.35 %	$37,229
30-34	648	20.76 %	$136,629
35-39	455	14.58 %	$298,500
40-44	238	7.63 %	$491,100
45-49	114	3.65 %	$690,090
50-54	59	1.89 %	$702,552
55-59	35	1.12 %	$1,123,000
60-64	12	0.38 %	$507,000
65-69	3	0.10 %	$2,294,492
70-74	0	0.00 %	$0
75 and over	2	0.06 %	$2,734,001

This is a great way to chart your networth over time. It is easy to use and set up. It is taking information from your personal balance sheet. So check NetworthIQ out!