Could you live on less than $30 a day? If you don’t have a pension or adequate personal savings, that’s what the typical retiree will get in 2036, even setting aside the near-term risks facing Social Security.
As of the beginning of 2011, the average monthly Social Security check for a retired worker was about $1,177. According to its trustees, the Trust Fund that helps support those payments is on track to run dry by 2036.
It’s that time of year when high-school students are thinking about their future plans and what they’re going to do for college. Most will be leaving the nest to live on their own for the first time.
My brother attended college in our home town, so he lived at home, saving on housing expense. However, I decided to get my college experience in another city and, after a long good-bye, set out to live in the campus residence during my first year of school.
I assured my parents that I could handle the landlord duties and that I could easily find four students to rent the extra rooms. We opened a joint checking account for depositing rent money and paying the mortgage, utilities, and other bills. To this, we added $2000 overdraft protection in case all the rooms weren’t rented year-round or other unforeseen expenses came up.
I’m sure it was horrifying to my mom (who was a banker) to have a child with such poor money-management skills. Luckily
Today’s electronics deals, courtesy of The Consumerist:
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July 28 – Retail Food Group, the ASX-listed food franchise that operates the Esquires Coffee Houses and Brumby’s Bakeries brands, has agreed to a $4 million deal to buy Evolution Coffee Roasters group.
The Australian food brand manager will pay cash for the Auckland-based company’s roasting facility that manufactures and distributes 170 tonnes of coffee products, securing supply for its own Esquires brand which makes up more than a third of sales. RFG will also acquire the coffee blend and syrup merchandising businesses and associated intellectual property.
“The transaction delivers upon strategic growth initiatives previously advised to the market by adding value accretive businesses,” chief executive Tony Alford said in a statement to the ASX. “It will provide RFG with its own manufacturing facility and coffee roasting capability in New Zealand, thus complementing the company’s recent acquisition of the Esquires Coffee Hose assets.”
The 10-year old New Zealand business names Andrew, Donald and Patricia Brodie as directors and shareholders.
The deal is subject to due diligence, and is expected to be completed by Sept. 1.
RFG s
July 26 – New Zealand’s trade surplus was $230 million in June, missing forecasts and pushing the kiwi dollar down by almost a third of a cent.
Merchandise exports rose 4.7% to $3.97 billion last month compared to June 2010, while imports increased the same amount to $3.74 billion. The New Zealand dollar fell to 86.17 U.S. cents from 86.40 cents immediately before the release after the data fell short of the $4.2 billion of exports and $3.8 billion of imports forecast in a Reuters survey. The annual surplus was $1.02 billion.
Dairy products continued to dominate New Zealand’s exports, with an 11% increase in the value of milk powder, butter and cheese sales to $888 million in the month. The value of casein and caseinates climbed 37% to $77 million from June 2010, and helped lift sales into the U.S. The v
For more than 30 years, the standard McDonald’s (MCD) Happy Meals have been exactly the same — a burger or chicken nuggets, fries and a soda. But no more. In an attempt to help youngsters make healthier food choices, the fast food chain announced big changes Tuesday morning to its kid’s-meal-in-a-box.
For starters, each Happy Meal will include a fruit or vegetable. The default option will be a package of apples, but customers will also have the choice of carrots, raisins, pineapple, or oranges, depending on the store location and the growing season. McDonald’s toyed with the inclusion of fruit in previous Happy Meals, giving children the option to choose fruit over french fries. But because virtually no kid (or adult) is likely to select a few slices of apple over a packet of fried potatoes, McDonald’s has wised up and is now including both, automatically. Read full post…
Today I’m going to rant.
I get a lot of requests from reporters who want quotes for their stories about personal finance. That’s fine. I’m happy to help when possible. What bugs me, though, is that nearly every single reporter pitches her story with the same caveat: “I need tips about saving, but I don’t want the same old stuff. I need new, unique ways to save money.”
“New, unique ways to save money” have become the bane of my existence. I loathe these requests. Why? Because the basics of personal finance never change. They haven’t changed in thousands of years, and they’re not going to change for thousands more. Fundamentally, all you need to know about managing your money is this: Spend less than you earn.
That’s it. If you spend less than you earn, you’ll do fine. Everything else is details. Those details are
Asset rich, cash poor The estate tax is a potentially confusing and burdensome issue; critics claim the tax forces farmers and small business owners to liquidate assets simply to pay the tax. Farm businesses are frequently framed within the debate as “asset rich, but cash poor.” Ohio’s estate tax will disappear in 2013, a compromise date included in the final version of the budget bill passed by the General Assembly. The original authors of the provision intended to backdate repeal of the tax to the beginning of 2011, but settled on the later date in conference. “Of course, the Ohio estate tax is a much smaller part of the overall estate tax issue,” Hall said. “The federal estate tax is a much larger issue than the state tax.” The federal estate tax has been the center of a contentious debate for years; it returned to its full force this year after a gradual drawdown over the past decade, and brief sunset period in 2010.
