Today’s post gives you soup to nuts as it relates to getting out of debt!  So if you’re in debt and need a strategy?  Pull up a seat!

Before we get started, it’s important to underscore the importance of this step.  If you’ve been in debt for some time, you’re clearly reading this post because you want to get out, right?  Ok, good!  So let’s not sabotage your efforts by keeping those credit cards available to you.  This is what I need you to do, and you can do one or all, it’s up to you.

Now when I discuss paying down debt, I usually go to the snowball method which works really well.  But I also realize that we all have different situations and preferences around how we’re planning to pay down debt.

That said, I always refer back to one of my favorite posts by fellow personal finance blogger, NCN-No Credit Needed as he ROCKS this debt reduction strategy post by listing various scenarios that we can use to pay down debt.  Here I will list the strategy and the pros and cons but you can see the full post with deets for yourself:

Pick one of the above-mentioned methods to get out of debt, see what works for you and stick with it!  Adjust your course when things aren’t working out but make sure that you stick with the action plan to pay down all of your debt!

Next Steps:  Stay Out Of Debt!

Whether you choose to do this before or after you pay down debt, save 1-3 months of expenses.  This helps you stay out of debt because you’re no longer tempted to use credit in dire situations as you will have a mini emergency fund to fall back on when things get critical.

If you’re new or just joining us, you can recap here:

• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Day 1- Create A 1 Year Financial Plan
• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Day 2- Identify Your Financial Weaknesses
• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Day 3- Track Every Penny Because Every Dollar Has A Job
• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Day 4-Automate Your Bills
• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Week 1 Recap
• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Day 5- Make Extra Money
• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Day 6- Review All Bills And Expenses
• 21 Days To Rock Your Finances: Day 7 -Zero Based Budgeting
• 21 Days to Rock Your Finances: Day 8- Trim The Fat From Your Budget
• 21 Days to Rock Your Finances: Day 9 -Review Your Credit Report
• 21 Days to Rock Your Finances: Day 10- Dispute Credit Report Errors

Remember this story?  Most of you were fired up, and rightfully so. It’s a$$inine to bar someone to get a job because they have bad credit. This is why we have criminal background checks. Perhaps a remedy would be to give the person a mandatory personal finance coach to work with them to improve their credit situation. Not bar them from getting a new job that might help them alleviate some of the financial stress.

Story below:

States May Ban Credit Checks On Job Applicants

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – It’s hard enough to find a job in this economy, and now some people are facing another hurdle: potential employers are holding their credit histories against them.

Sixty percent of employers recently surveyed by the Society for Human Resources Management said they run credit checks on at least some job applicants, compared with 42 percent in a somewhat similar survey in 2006.
RELATED STORY: 9NEWS NOW story on employers firing people because of bad credit score

Employers say such checks give them valuable information about an applicant’s honesty and sense of responsibility. But lawmakers in at least 16 states from South Carolina to Oregon have proposed outlawing most credit checks, saying the practice traps people in debt because their past financial problems prevent them from finding work.

Wisconsin state Rep. Kim Hixson drafted a bill in his state shortly after hearing from Terry Becker, an auto mechanic who struggled to find work.

Becker said it all started with medical bills that piled up when his now 10-year-old son began having seizures as a toddler. In the first year alone, Becker ran up $25,000 in medical debt.

Over 4½ months, he was turned down for at least eight positions for which he had authorized the employer to conduct a credit check, Becker said. He said one potential employer told him, “If your credit is bad, then you’ll steal from me.”

“I was in a deep depression. I had lost a business, I was behind on my bills and I was unable to get a job,” he said.

Hixson calls what happened to Becker discrimination based on credit history and said his bill would ban it.

“If somebody is trying to get a job as a truck driver or a trainer in a gym, what does your credit history have to do with your ability to do that job?” Hixson said. He said he knows of no research that shows a person with a bad credit history is going to perform poorly.

Under federal law, prospective employers must get written permission from applicants to run a credit check on them. But consumer advocates say most job applicants do not feel they are in a position to say no.

Most of the bills being proposed this year resemble laws in Hawaii and Washington that prevent employers from using credit reports when hiring for most positions. The laws contain exceptions in cases where such information could be relevant to the job – for example, if the person is applying to work in a bank or an accounts-payable office.

On a national level, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., introduced a similar bill last summer in Congress, where it is still bottled up in committee.

Even though more companies are using credit checks, only 13 percent perform them on all potential hires, according to the Society for Human Resources Management’s most recent survey. Mike Aitken, the group’s director of government affairs, said a blanket ban could remove a tool employers can use to help them make good hiring decisions.

Aitken pointed to a 2008 survey by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners that found the two most common red flags for employees who commit workplace fraud are living beyond their means and having difficulty meeting financial obligations. The same survey estimated American companies lost $994 billion to workplace fraud in 2008.

Aitken said someone who cannot pay his or her bills on time may not be more likely to steal, but might not have the maturity or sense of responsibility to handle a job like processing payroll checks.

In Maryland, where the state Chamber of Commerce opposes a bill banning most credit checks, employers at a recent legislative hearing said they are not interested in applicants’ credit scores.

Instead, they said, they are concerned about things like debt collections and legal judgments rather than poor credit because of medical bills or school loans. They also said companies give job applicants a chance to explain their credit problems.

Last year California lawmakers voted to curb the use of such checks, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill under pressure from Chamber of Commerce leaders who called it a “job-killer.”

But Maryland Delegate Kirill Reznik, who drafted the bill being considered in his state, said people struggling to get jobs need help.

“We are in the great recession and this creates a vicious cycle,” Reznik said. “People lose their jobs, that naturally precipitates them getting behind on bills, their credit scores go down, they are trying to find a job to pay off the bills, and employers won’t hire them because of their credit score.”

Maryland public school employee Jen Harwood said running credit checks on job applicants “perpetuates the divide between the haves and the have-nots.”

“If you continue digging into people’s past and not looking into what people have to give today, you are making a bigger divide,” Harwood said.

Consumer advocacy groups are also lining up behind the legislation, pointing out that credit reports can contain inaccurate information.

Becker, the Milton, Wis., resident with bad credit, has found work dismantling cars at an auto recycling company that did not ask to run a credit check. He worries, though, about friends in the auto industry are looking for work and coming up empty-handed because of credit problems.

“It just seems like once you fall behind, you’re behind,” he said. “It’s really hard to get back on the right financial track.”

Source

Here’s the oxymoron of the day.

If hospitals start telling obstetricians stop doing C-sections (or try to reduce them), that’s problematic for hospitals because they make money off them.  So they are less likely to engage in C-sections because many hospitals are struggling to stay afloat.   But get this, if you’re a woman who has had a C-section the insurance company sees you as an even bigger risk for complications.

This can lead to you seeing higher insurance premiums or being denied for coverage altogether.

Why?

Mainly because having the operation once can often lead to more c-sections in future births. The problem for insurance companies is that a c-section is usually over $2,500 more expensive than a regular birth. Rather than take the risk of having to pay for another c-section, insurance companies label the women as having a health condition and charge them higher rates. This practice is actually illegal in some states, in which case the insurance companies simply reject applicants completely. Like other so-called conditions, insurance companies are simply looking for a way to protect themselves from possible expenses.

Recommended action:  Talk to your insurance company around their practices in denying/approving women for coverage who have had C-sections.  Check with your state to make sure that you understand the law: is it illegal?

Now You’re Asking How Can I Avoid A Rate Hike?

Obviously, if your doctor wants you to have a c-section, there isn’t a lot you can do to avoid it. In some cases, the procedure may be optional, in which case you’re probably better off doing things naturally. Some companies are willing to overlook a c-section if the woman is sterilized after the operation, as then there’s no risk that they could have another pregnancy and c-section. A premium increase may also be avoided if the woman applies for coverage at least two years after giving birth and is a certain age. Another thing to keep in mind, insurance purchased through employers isn’t likely to increase due to a c-section as group policies generally require that the insurer cover everyone in the group at approximately the same rate.

Have you had a C-section?  Did your rates go up?  Tell us about it!

Source

Police caught someone trying to break in my car outside the school. I am PISSED!! http://twitpic.com/wsuak

I was pissed!  Beyond pissed but it didn’t really show, I was just relieved they caught the guy and even better I have car insurance.  Who am I kidding, having to pay $1000 in unplanned expenses doesn’t conjure up happy thoughts!

$500 – Deductible

$110 – Rental (Geico pays for the rental itself but I put down a $100 deposit and the extra $10 is taxes)

$40 -   Gas to fill up rental tank

_____________________________

$650

Luckily, Geico will go after the guy civilly for my out of pocket expenses like the deductible and I plan to press charges and pursue restitution.

But the week from hell doesn’t end there, it started off with returning home from our trip to NYC to 46 degrees IN OUR HOUSE!  We were gone for about a week so we left the heat off (1st mistake) and upon turning on the heat we realized that the furnace motor died.  The house was built 5 years ago so that was well odd, and the HVAC guy still doesn’t know why it died.  What does that mean?  Well, the heat was on but the fan wasn’t able to push the hot air through the vents since the motor went ca-put.

Getting someone to come out to the house on the weekend was like pulling teeth, after 18 calls, one company made an appointment to come out the next day.  Everyone had their hands full with heating/AC calls in the area so we were out of luck.

The damage?

$400 for the service

$50 for space heaters before he got here

______________________________

$450

Moral of the story?  Make sure you have an emergency fund.  I can’t promise that it will cover everything but at least you’re saving up for a rainy day.  In my case, busted furnace and passenger window.

Kelis and her lawyers have made the following determination, you know, since Nas makes considerably more moolah than Kelis:

– Nas pulls in $244,826 a month
– Kelis rakes in a relatively paltry $13,744 a month
– Kelis should get child support totaling $17,225 a month
– Kelis should get spousal support totaling $72,728
– Nas should pay retro child support totaling $29,522
– Nas should pay retro spousal support totaling $281,571

Wow!

I guess her milkshake did bring all the boys to the yard!

What say you? Is Kelis entitled to more child and spousal support? Last month, a judge ruled Kelis’ estranged husband Nas must pay her $55,000 a month in spousal and child support

Via TMZ

What greatness can you share born out of hardship?

Today I learned that my BFF is pregnant!  I am of course so happy for her and plan to be all up in and through her pregnancy living vicariously through her for the next 8 months.

As we talked about her pregnancy pains, I realized that as much as I would love to be pregnant with her (we have always talked about being pregnant together), Im still not there yet.

Still not ready to give up my freedom, not ready to give up on my plans to return to school, just not ready…yet.  But I am warming up to the idea.

Turning 29 last week seems to have put my biological clock into serious gear when last year this time it didnt mean much to me at all.  I was content with waiting and seeing how I’d feel once I finished my MA program.

Now, as you know from my last post we did set up a “time line”, but Im slowly backing away from it because Im not sure I want to commit to that anymore.  I asked my husband today how he truly feels (he says he’s content waiting until Im ready) and he told me that it might be better for me to get the grad school/career woman pursuit going and out of the way instead of going back and forth about motherhood when Im clearly not ready yet.

Then talking to a family friend who is around 40 years old with a 2 year old, he said that his wife’s boss has her own regrets about waiting so long to have kids because at 35 she cant have any more.  He also said that he’d wished he met his wife 20 years earlier because he would have more time and opportunity to have more kids with her now as they are trying for a second child.

So on one hand there’s the imperative to get started now so that I can enjoy my child while Im young, retire at a decent age and avoid the pain of chronic miscarriages and the possibility of down syndrome past age 35.  But then there’s the I love my career and want to do so much more before having children.  Meanwhile, the clock is ticking…..

It’s like a never ending musical chairs.  Once I think I’ve got this thing down, a time line that is, I change my mind and get back on my original track which is to go with what I know and am comfortable with but to be honest at my age, it’s beginning to feel like a gamble.  I wait, finish my program and then start trying to conceive and then possibly have some issues due to my age.

TMI…..Andy hit the RED X!

My OBGYN here in DC is a prominent fertility doctor and we had a talk a few months back when I had a pregnancy scare.  Yes, as in scared.  If I want to get pregnant and had issues, he’d find a way LOL  So I told him that my husband and I dont use protection ie birth control because any form of hormones make me a raging bitch and I break out horribly.  So, we’ve been living on the wild side for the duration of our marriage.  He seems to think that’s crazy and that something may be wrong since we’ve never been pregnant.  I won’t know until we start trying and I’m not ready to test that theory just yet.

So, here I am obsessing about this time line because frankly Im just not there yet.  Im getting there, warmer and warmer but not quite yet.

photo credit: chrisdlugosz

Over the last few weeks you might have noticed a slow down in posting on my end and that has more to do with my recent work schedule.  Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do so it’s totally a good thing.

But during that time Ive been able to think about the direction I want to take this blog and the topics we cover.  I know that I started out wanting to educate and empower women in the area of personal finance but I want to expand on that a bit.

As women we have so many different areas of life that affect us including but not limited to fair pay issues, work, life balance, health care, childcare issues, race/gender politics and sexism.  I feel pigeon-holed not being able to address these topics here and so I’d like to announce that moving forward, in addition to personal finance topics, you will also now read articles that center around the above mentioned topics.  Don’t get me wrong, I love personal finance, but my take is unique and different in that I address it from a woman’s stand point.

Meeting so many other women on Twitter via the #fem2 chats every Sunday night, I’m compelled to re-examine my focus here and be more inclusive of the issues that affect us each and every day.

So while Ive slowed down my posting, Ive been doing a bit of retooling around my focus and direction.  I hope you like it.  I am planning on a monthly radio show to begin over the summer along with another blog makeover so look forward to those updates.

Thank you for being loyal readers and for supporting me even when life gets hectic

Some friends and I were talking about the US educational system and how we aren’t taught some of the more basic and practical aspects of life, one of them being personal finance.  Think about it, what did you really learn in high school about personal finance? Why aren’t we taught about money from an early age?  We learn countless irrelevant subjects that most of us if tested would fail today, but when it comes to a subject that would stick with us for a lifetime, there isn’t a mention of it anywhere that I could see in high school.

So what would a personal finance 101, 201, 301 and 401 class look like?  This week we’ll address the different levels and what should be taught in these classes.  A personal finance curriculum if you will.  Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments area.

Personal Finance 101 Curriculum Overview

Ideally this would start in 9th grade (1st year of high school if not sooner) and we’d start off with the basics.

Attitudes About Money

Assignment:  Students will be asked to write a short essay describing their attitudes about money.   What have you learned thus far about money and it’s meaning to your life.  Do you work for it?  Do you have free access to it?  Do you save it or do you spend it?  What does money mean to you?   Be sure to indicate specifically what your parents have taught you about money so far. Personal finance is personal so there is no wrong answer!

Your Paycheck:  FICA, Medicare, State Tax, Local Tax, and Federal Tax

• What are they, where do they go and why do they get paid before you do?

Assignment: Research your federal, state and local tax rates and familiarize yourself with the following sample paycheck:

Budgeting and Cashflow

• Budgeting Basics-Create a budget based on paycheck pictured above
• Tracking Your Spending
• Pay Yourself First (Saving)

Assignment: Create a budget based on paycheck pictured above.  Students will be assigned different life scenarios based on the CASHFLOW 101 board game by Robert Kiyosaki and write a reflective essay on the importance of budgeting and saving money wisely.

Savings and Investing

• Importance of Saving: Set It And Forget It, Making It Automatic
• Saving For a Big Ticket Items (Car, Shopping Spree, etc)
• Emergency Funds
• Compound Interest Is Your Friend:  Make Her Work For You!
• High Yield Savings Accounts and other types of savings accounts
• Using Webware To Track and Achieve Your Savings and Investing Goals: Yodlee, Mint, Rudder, Quicken Online/Mobile, PocketSmith et al

Assignment: Identify the top 5 high yield savings accounts based on interest rates and obtain the permission of your parent or guardian to open one in your name.  Then, based on your fictional paycheck and life scenario assigned in previous classes, detail your monthly expenses and determine how much you’ll need to save in an emergency fund.

Credit and Debt

• Credit Basics:  What is Credit?
• Avoiding the Credit Trap
• What does the APR, Interest Rate, Billing Cycle and Universal Default mean to you?
• Your FICO score and how it shapes your financial life
• Debt To Income Ratio:  How Much Is Too Much?

Assignment: Write a reflective essay on appropriate uses for a credit card.  Create a case detailing an item you really want to purchase, however, you are 6 days until your next paycheck and it’s now or never.  Write down the pros and cons of purchasing the item now using a credit card instead of later using cash. Please be thoughtful in your answers.

How’d I do?  What would you add to the first year of a personal finance 101 class for high school students?

The Goal

• To make the loan process transparent while educating consumers on more than just the monthly payment.

The new site addresses this by putting the information in the consumers hands thereby giving them a 3-dimensional view of the process. Previously, homeowners relied on a mortgage broker to run mystical calculations which often varied depending on your broker resulting in a 1 Dimensional perspective which is usually the interest rate and monthly payment.

Bank of America seeks to change that by presenting the potential home buyers with a 3 dimensional, insightful view of the process which educates the consumer an puts them in control with the necessary information needed to make an informed decision.

What’s Different?

• Bank of America demystifies the process so that the process of buying a home or refinancing is easier and you’re well informed along the way about your own financial situation and expectations
• The borrower will understand through the information presented if they are ready for home ownership and how much they can afford.
• After going through this process, user is given a comprehensive summary to use with BOA or another lender

Question:  What do you think of the new BOA site?  Does this arm you with more information to help decide if home ownership is the right thing for you at this time?