Broker dealer financial services are often fodder for water cooler talk: how is your portfolio doing, who is your financial planner, who is your tax guy?  The list goes on, but rarely is the talk about life insurance long lived or easily conversed. Usually, life insurance is discussed as a dirty tragedy or a sadly neglected item which would have benefited a family now bereft.

Fact of Life

The fact is that life insurance is one of the most important and often neglected family financial services.  45% of all families in America will not be able to meet their needs in the event of an untimely death. T

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Are you staying abroad and have relocated temporarily. Do you need to wire funds back home to your family? Often people staying elsewhere wire fund online or through agents. Before you trust these channels, you would have to do a lot of verification, whether the agent is licensed or authorized to transfer funds. It should not happen that you get into a scam and end up being a part of fraudulent activities. Ideally, banks should be the best way to go.

Most of the banks these days have the facility of transferring funds internationally. Often people go elsewhere due to a better rate being offered. However, when you think wisely, the difference is often minimal. You might be putting your whole salary at stake in case you are using a different channel. Bank rates are market rates and many a times better.

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I really like the way Michale Hirsh, author of Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street, describes the causes of the crisis:

A now infamous 1999 Time magazine cover featured Alan Greenspan (then chairman of the Federal Reserve), Robert E. Rubin (then Treasury Secretary) and Lawrence H. Summers (then deputy Treasury secretary) as “The Committee to Save the World.” The three men, the magazine declared, had steered America through the perilous shoals of highly volatile world markets. The United States economy remained “astonishingly robust” and, by protecting American growth, the three had made “investors deliriously, perhaps delusionally, happy in the process.”

A decade later, in the wake of America’s 2008 fiscal meltdown, the thinking of Time’s “Three Marketeers” and their colleagues in Washington and on Wall Street would be cited as a major cause of that crisis. Mr. Greenspan has been

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If you like to rent movies from Redbox, here’s deal for you to get 3 movies for just $1.

The deal is $1 for 3 movie rentals at Redbox offered through Groupon. This is valid only at U.S. kiosks, and only on the first night rental. It is not valid on video games or Blu-ray. It expires Mar 10, 2011 and limit 1 purchase/person that can be used as own or as gift. If you are interest,  you can buy the Redbox $1 for 3 movies code now and use it to rent the latest releases from Redbox kiosks, those machines you can find outside many grocery stores.

Photo credit: United Marketing

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Where does my money go?

Before you start looking up bankruptcy information, you really should know where your own money goes.  If you can’t account for your paycheck cent for cent, there is really no way you can unequivocally state that you qualify for bankruptcy.

How do I use my credit cards?

If you use your credit cards for every purchase, even groceries and gum, it does not mean you are going broke.  Using plastic as your first means of payment is not wise, but if you are able to pay off the balance each month or at least meet minimums plus a bit extra, you are not broke.

If you use credit cards because you have no money at al other than credit, you might want to take a more serious look at bankruptcy.

Do I stick to my budget?

Often when finances are out of control, it is just a symptom of a larger problem.  Money is by nature unruly.  Unless you put a written plan down on paper to control it, those dollars will run wild.

Budgeting can be a fix to many financial problems which preempts bankruptcy.

What assets do I stand to lose?

Bankruptcy does not mean you get to discharge your debt and keep your fat savings account.  If you have many assets before going into bankruptcy, you will only retain a very small portion to help you start over when you emerge from the other side.

If you have large retirement accounts, college savings funds, or other savings, the bankruptcy court will order their liquidation to repay as many of your creditors as possible.

How old am I?

Age is actually a huge consideration. If you

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It has been claimed in a recent report that the cold weather that has swept across Britain could result in a billion pounds worth of insurance claims this year. The claims has been made by the Association of British Insurers, which believes that the cold weather is going to cost insurance firms dearly, with claims being made for all sorts of weather related damage.

Just over one billion is said to have been paid out to homeowners by insurance companies last year following what turned out to be the coldest winter in thirty years, according to the ABI. The association warned that damage such as leaks and burst pipes could cost insurance firms a massive £11 million per day this year.

The Insurance Information Institute reported that last year winter storms and weather cost insurance firms in the United States around $770 million, and this was said to be the lowest total in eight years.

The freezing weather and sub-zero temperatures in the UK have resulted in many schools being closed and chaos on the roads of Britain.

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Kind of funny title because although Christmas is filled with the colour green like our wreaths, decorations and trees we all really want to have a white Christmas. For a couple of days anyways and then the snow can go back to from where it came as far as I am concerned.

Although I blog alot about saving money the other underlying theme of the changes I talk about is the commitment to helping the environment by saving energy and using less. This is important. Although in many cases doing things to be more enviromentally friendly can at first seem costly I think it is important on us all in the long run. Adding insulation is important to conserving energy but is costly to front at first. You get your money back later in lower hydro bills over time.

This Christmas you can do your part by using recycled Christmas cards. I am not talking about taking old cards and crossing names out and reusing them. I

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