Ben Edwards's Blog: Money Smart Life, page 2

Tips on Paying For Sports Gear with Credit Cards

Not long ago I wrote an article about saving money on youth sports and I got a text message a few days later from a friend asking about putting sports purchases on a rewards card.

There are a few tips I shared that lend themselves to using a rewards credit card. I’ll talk about them in the context of a specific card, lets look at the Discover it card.

Getting the Right Size

One of the tips I gave about buying youth sports equipment was that when something was on sale you should buy multiple s...

Do Your Parents Have Debt Going into Retirement?

If your parents don’t have much in the way of retirement savings, there’s an excellent chance that they are carrying a significant amount of debt. Unfortunately, debt goes hand-in-hand with a lack of savings. Retirement can be the moment of truth for the debtor class, since there will be no assets to draw an income from. Meanwhile, debt will represent a reduction of future cash flow.

For this reason, if your parents have no little or no retirement savings, one of the best ways you can help th...

Should Your Parents Work in their Retirement Years?

Working during the retirement years is not a subject that a lot of people want to consider. But if your parents will have few financial resources that will enable them to retire fully, working may be the only option. But it may not be as bad as it seems on the surface. How you present the idea to them can make all the difference in the world.

Why Your Parents May Have to Work During Their Retirement Years

There are a variety of reasons why your parents may have to work during their retirement...

Helping Your Parents Downsize in Retirement

Some people can’t wait to downsize their homes in retirement, especially if it means moving to a more pleasant location. It can be an outstanding strategy on so many fronts. But many more people resist downsizing even though it may be highly desirable or even entirely necessary.

If you’d like your parents to downsize, but they’ve been resisting – or you anticipate that they will resist – here are points that may help you to persuade them.

Why They May Not Be OK With Moving

The first point is...

Your FICO Credit Score for free from Discover

You’ve probably seen the Discover commercials where a person finds their credit score on their statement and calls in to ask about the new score on their bill.

It makes sense that credit card companies would make this available to their customers; I’m surprised that more of them don’t. Now that Discover and a few others have set the precedent hopefully more banks will follow suit.

Of course you can see your credit report for free once a year but a credit report isn’t your credit score and you...

How to Protect Your Aging Parents From Financial Scams

It’s unfortunate but true that scam artists prey on the elderly. They often do this because a) the elderly often have a significant amount of money, and b) because the elderly, especially the very old, can often be confused. For this reason, you should consider ways to protect your aging parents from financial scams.

Here are some strategies you can use…

Put Their Phone Numbers on the Do Not Call Registry

This doesn’t guarantee that your parents will never get scammed, but it will certainly r...

Don’t Panic When Your Check Engine Light Comes On

I’m not at all what you would call a car guy, but that’s exactly why I decided to write an article on this topic. As someone who knows little about cars, andhas seen the check engine light come on in his cars more than a few times over the years, I’m starting tobecome something of an expert on this problem.

If you’re like me, or at least like the me that I used to be when I knew nothing about this, you probably panic anytime the check engine light comes on. While it’s almost inevitable that i...

Don’t Be Overwhelmed by Investing

Many of usfeel overwhelmed by investing, partlybecause there are myths about how difficult it is to invest and partly because we don’t understand all the technical terms and concepts we read about or hear financial professionals use. However, investing doesn’t have to be hard, and you don’t have to be overwhelmed. Here are a few strategies to help you avoid feeling overwhelmed by investing:

Dollar Cost Averaging

One of the best ways to stop feeling overwhelmed by investing is to make use of d...

How to Save Money on Youth Sports Equipment & Fees

How can you save money on youth sports?I’ve always loved saving money and the last few years our two young kids have played basketball, baseball, t-ball, and soccer so I guess it makes sense that I’d have a lot to shareon the topic of cutting costs for youth sports.

My suggestions will be most helpful to the parents of kids who play a sport for more than one season. If your child has shown an interest in a sport and you think you’ll be paying for them to play it for the next several seasons...

Why it’s Easy to Wake Up Broke & in Debt

If you had to pick between an easy option and a hard one, which would you be more likely to choose? The easy path isn’t always the wisest one. However, the fact that it’s easier can sometimes explain why we get ourselves into a mess in life.

People my age place an emphasis on convenience. If there’s a fast & easy approach that’s the one we prefer. Taking the easy route isn’t necessarily bad but sometimes it means you’re giving up something in return for speed or convenience.

Because we love f...