While I was filling out school paperwork this weekend, I noticed that the schools had sent home information on WIC to all of the parents. I was on WIC when I had my first child, and it was a huge help - especially the formula! There are several programs like WIC that offer assistance to mothers once the baby is born, but pre-natal care is just as important. This Pregnant Care card program is designed to ensure mothers-to-be who don’t have insurance, and don’t qualify for Medicaid can pay a reduced rate (negotiated by the large network behind MaternityCard.com) for doctor visits, hospital stays, sonograms, labwork, and more. If you’re paying cash for your pregnancy, this program is worth a look!
Our home owners insurance is up for renewal next month, and we’re shopping around for rates. We pay out of pocket for it, so it’s not built into the cost of our insurance. Paying out of pocket is just one more reason I want to get the lowest home insurance rate possible. Sure, everyone wants to save money on insurance, but when you’re paying out of pocket, you REALLY want to save money. A higher cost is a little easier to absorb when it’s part of your monthly mortgage payment. We did find a good rate from one local company, and they offer car insurance as well. In fact, they offer all kinds of insurance - life insurance, pet insurance, and probably even travel insurance. (I could use that pet insurance after my sweet little Lola got bitten this weekend at the kennel!)
We’d love to switch our car insurance and save some money, but we JUST had a claim, and I want to make sure everything is square with that before I consider making a move. We just got motorcycle insurance for my husband’s new bike through a different company, and it was only $100 for the whole YEAR! I wish car insurance was that cheap.
I’ll be doing some of my training in another country this summer, when we go to Canada! We plan on LOTS of walking in Toronto and Montreal, I only hope the kids and my husband can keep up with me and my long legs. I’m excited to go, because I watch a few shows on HGTV that are set in Canada…one in (BuyMe) particular focuses on a different homeowner attempting to sell his or her home in each episode. This website focused on real estate Mississauga is focused on the areas and homes that I see a lot on BuyMe. Just look at all that snow on the ground in the listing pictures! Now I know what the agents on TV mean when they say that the selling season is over…it’s got to be tough to sell in winter. The site even has a blog for those interested in buying or selling. The market there is quite different from what we’re experiencing right now, because they’ve got low inventory and tons of bidding wars.
Do you wonder how safe & secure your credit card data is? A retailer in the UK by the name of TK Maxx (not to be confused with US chain TJ Maxx) recently revealed that hackers accessed the personal data of almost half a million customers from the clothing chain’s computer systems. It’s a little scary to think that a company you trusted to keep your information secure left that information available for hackers to access. I know that with all of the mail we get each week offering to refinance our house, and switch our balances on credit cards using
0% balance transfers, and all sorts of other junk - there are a LOT of people out there with our personal information already. Is your credit card company protecting you? Are they selling your name and data to other companies and making a profit on your personal information?
Worrying about money always stresses me out. I’m a worrier by nature, so I worry about it even when I don’t need to be worrying about it. Make sense?
For instance, this month we have a lot of expenses. We’ve got 2 kids having laser surgery, we’ve got to pay a $500 deductible for car repairs, and we’re going out of town for a weekend. We can handle all of it, but it doesn’t stop me from worrying about handling it all!
One of the things that’s really helped us is free cash from those credit card offers arriving in the mail. What free cash, you say? Well, we have a few 0% credit cards we keep for emergencies. And because there’s no interest rate, it’s basically a free loan. If we have crazy bills like this month, we could use the card if things got tight, and pay it off next month, or in 2 months, without paying any interest. Interest free credit cards are great, if you remain disciplined when using them! If you’re not getting enough credit card offers in the mail, you can go online to compare credit cards and find a few that work for you. Just make sure you pay attention to the terms and rates - some cards will up your APR if you’re late with a payment, so read the fine print!
There’s a show I record every night on HGTV called BuyMe. It’s a one of those reality home selling shows, set in Canada, and I enjoy watching real people attempt to sell their homes. The episode I watched today was a little sad. A retired couple realized that they were really missing their grandkids, and they decided to sell their home and move 3,000 miles away to where their children had settled. Because of the difference in home values, they ended up selling their old home (which they had purchased for just over $100,000) and making $300,000 in profit. The trouble was that their NEW house cost over $430,000 - and needed renovations, so they really didn’t come out ahead. It got me thinking about retirement and your home, which is typically your biggest investment.
When my grandfather bought his retirement home, he paid cash - about $50,000. The market increased dramatically, and after he passed away in 2005, it was sold for about 3 times as much as he had paid for it. The money was split between my mom and her siblings, but it’s money that most seniors could use while they’re still living. There’s a lot of stories in the news about seniors not being able to afford proper health care, or medication, and I hate hearing about those things - it should be the best time of your life. Spoiling grandkids, and enjoying the fruits of your labor after years of work. Most senior homeowners probably aren’t away that there’s a mortgage that can help them use the equity they’ve built up in their homes over the years, to improve their quality of life NOW.
To take a reverse mortgage, you just need to be over the age of 62. You can convert the equity of your home into cash or monthly payments that they lender pays to YOU. This reverse mortgage calculator can help you see how much you’d stand to gain each month. There’s also a detailed overview of the reverse mortgage process. The short version though, is that you get payments each month, and your equity decreases a bit with each month that goes by. Obviously, your total equity is reduced, so your heirs won’t get as much from selling your house as they could, but it this can make a difference in your quality of life now, and reduce your worry about finances, then it’s worth it.
My husband and I have been able to save quite a bit of money in the past few months, and we’ve been putting the bulk of it into an online savings account. I keep on top of our bills by scheduling payment dates in my Outlook calendar, and I haven’t missed a payment in a LONG time since I started doing that. And because we’ve maintained a good payment history, we’ve been eligible for a few 0% credit cards. In fact, we charged our airfare for vacation in June on one, and I’ll pay it off as soon as the bill comes. Free money! One of our credit cards that we opened just for the ability to do a 0% balance transfers has a points reward program. I thought, how nice if we could use the points for our vacation. It’s the only reason I wanted to apply for credit cards that gave you points, in fact. HA! You need approx. 50,000 points to get a decent airline ticket, and to get that many points, you need to charge $50,000 to the card. Not all at once…but still! I need to compare credit cards and see if there’s a card that will give us more for our points. If I found a good deal, I’d continue charging and just pay it off each month in full!
Got a blog? Want to turn it into a money making machine? Just click the review my post logo here:
If you click on it, you’ll be taken to PayPerPost to sign up as a blogger, like me. And since you signed up via the “Review My Post” link, a special opp will be created just for you, for $7.50, to review this very post. Neat, huh? Websites and businesses who choose PayPerPost to advertise on blogs pay a fee to PayPerPost. They then take 35% and give the rest to us - the bloggers. We blog about it (and with complete disclosure I might add) and make money. It’s thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat simple.
If you’re a blogger who wants to give this a try, trust me - PayPerPost is the best program out there. And my blog traffic has gone up a ton since I’ve started using PayPerPost, not to mention - I’ve met a lot of great people.
You can make money off this even if you don’t want to do sponsored posts - just put your own “review my post” link at the end of any post, and let people sign up. It’s like a little PayPerPost affiliate program. 
Big changes in the paid blogosphere this week. PayPerPost has had a LOT more high money opps. Over the past two days, I’ve made close to $200 total. Amazing, for a little blogging, isn’t it? The new segmentation system they’ve put into play is rewarding people with high traffic blogs. While this blog isn’t REAL high traffic, it is a PR 4, and that’s solid. People with PR 7 or 8 blogs stand to make $1000 with ONE sponsored post. Can you imagine? Disclosure is required for all bloggers, so you can be upfront with your paid posts.
Lower PR bloggers aren’t left out - the minimum offering is still $5, and with being able to take 3 posts a day, you still stand to make at least $15 a day. Again, not bad for part time blogging. And with a little work, you can increase your PR in no time. I have blogs that are less than 90 days old which are already a PR 4.
Additionally, PayPerPost only charges a 35% service fee to advertisers. Other paid blogger services, like ReviewMe, charge 50%! That’s more money in your pocket. To date, I’ve earned $6,350.14 with PayPerPost. That’s since July 2006. It’s been a big help around our household for extras. You can sign up by clicking that PayPerPost image in my sidebar over there —-> and start to make money blogging like me! All of the bugs aren’t worked out with the new segmentation system, but I’m in for the long haul…I’m not giving up on something that has worked so well for me!
I can’t stop thinking about that post I made yesterday about teens in debt. It really irritates me that credit card companies chase down young adults, especially people in college who need money, but can’t have a full time job to pay for the things they need. How many times have you been out, at the mall or a sporting event, and been propositioned to apply for credit, and in return you’ll get a cool t-shirt / umbrella / gift card? I can just see it now - graduates rack up credit card bills in college, and once they’re out of school, and have a real job, their credit is so damaged that they can’t even buy a car on their own, and the only financing option they’ve got are bad credit personal loans. It can only take a few months to ruin your credit, and YEARS to rebuild it. The credit card companies going after the uninformed should be ashamed of themselves! If you HAVE had bad credit issues in the past, here’s an excellent article on how to turn it into a positive. CreditLoan.com gives you the honest truth that can save your credit!
