Saving

Preparing for the Future

Saving – both for retirement and for college – seemed to dominate this week’s installment of Money 911 on Today.  Watch the video below to see our take on 401(k) rollovers, 529 plans, and whether the money in your investment accounts is safe.

Stashing Cash?

For the past few months, more and more people have been telling me that they’re keeping their cash at home.  I’ve been wondering, is this actually anecdotal or is it just a trend?  Let me know how much cash you’re stashing at home by answering the poll below.  Your response is anonymous and I will post the results in a couple of weeks.

[poll id="3"]

What’s influencing your decision to keep or not keep your cash at home?

Reaching A Goal

I’ve been talking for many, many (many) years now about running a marathon.  How many? About 15.  I was training for the New York City Marathon with a friend and had even completed a 20-mile training run when I got pregnant with my first.  I was able to run for the first five months of the pregnancy, but the marathon was out.

Over the years, I have talked about trying again.  I’ve signed up.  I’ve started training.  For one reason or another — it’s difficult to get those really long training runs in when you have kids, my confidence was shot, I was tired! — I never made it.  More…

MONEY 911

A Safety Net

A good chunk of this morning’s Money 911 on Today was devoted to emergency funds, and how important it is to have one that covers at least six month’s worth of living expenses.  That may sound high to you – in the past I’ve advised three to six months – but in an economy like this, you can never be too sure.  Watch the video below for more:

THE DIFFERENCE

Pay Yourself First

I joined Carmen Wong Ulrich on her CNBC show On The Money last night to talk about The Difference. She focused on the power of saving, as do most of the wealthy and financially comfortable people I surveyed for the book: 55% of the wealthy said that saving was one of the big factors in getting them there.