First, consider what type of life insurance you want to purchase. It’s an age old debate if term life insurance or whole life insurance is a smarter financial decision. Before you make a decision do some research on both types to see which fits your lifestyle better. Never purchase any insurance without fully understanding what you are buying. It’s easy to get talked into buying something you will later regret.

Second, you need to consider your actual funeral and burial costs. Typical burial and funeral costs are less than $10,000. Many times if you are employed your employer will offer you this amount of life insurance as part of your benefits package. It’s always important for your spouse or loved ones to know about this in case of your death.

Third, you should consider your family. Do you have children? How many children? If you want to ensure your children are covered financially until they are adults you may want to consider a larger life insurance policy. This may include college, weddings, automobiles, and general costs associated with raising children.

Next, consider the amount of debt you will leave behind to your loved ones. Home, auto, credit cards and personal loans should all be considered when calculating the amount of life insurance you need. I personally think this number is inflated by insurance sales people. My wife and I have discussed this greatly and several things would change in the event of one of our deaths. For example we would only need one automobile, the survivor would probably downsize our house and general living expenses would decrease. Therefore even thought you have $30,000 in auto debt and $200,000 in house debt you may not need $250,000 to cover this debt. You might be able to sell one auto to pay off the other and downsize your house to $100,000.

Also consider your spouses employment situation. In the event of your death would they continue with their current routine? If they are a stay at home parent and you want them to continue this lifestyle you will need a large policy in order to cover your income, retirement and children’s expenses. If they are currently employed and plan to continue their employment a much smaller policy may work for you.

Planning to meet the financial needs of your family with life insurance is one of the most important steps in creating a sound financial plan. Almost every financial adviser will suggest this as the first step in financial planning. How much and what type of life insurance is ultimately up to you and your own judgement. Use these suggestions as a guide to help you determine the right amount!

I think we have greatly evolved from the original meaning of the “American Dream”. I agree that everyone deserves the opportunity to prosper and be successful and that it should be possible to move upward socially and financially, but I don’t think our forefathers would be happy with the amount of debt that Americans have racked up in order to achieve their so called success.

One large part of The American Dream is owning your own home. For years it was easy to get a loan from the bank to purchase a home with no money down. You really didn’t have to have great credit to get approved for the loan. Banks and lending companies are now realizing that tighter restrictions should have been in place when lending money. I’m not sure we should have ever moved away from the ear when you had to pay at least 20% down on a home loan. As a result of our irresponsible lending behavior, our economy has taken a major blow to it’s financial success and now “The American Dream” may be forever out of reach for many Americans.

What exactly is the “American Dream” today? I personally think it’s became more about keeping up with the Jones’ than personal success through hard work. Greed and envy are dangerous emotions and if uncontrolled can take control of your life. Don’t dig yourself into debt trying to live the American Dream. Work hard, spend the money you earn and live your own successful rewarding life, not your neighbors.

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Credit cards are convenient but often carry huge monthly interest rates. If you have credit card debt you should consider calling them and asking for a rate reduction. With so many banks and lending companies eager to lend money there is probably a better deal to be found. A simple call to your current credit card company will probably net you a few percentage points on your APR. If you have a $5,000 balance, even a 3% rate reduction saves you $150 a year.!

You probably won’t get an instant reduction with just a simple call. You will probably have to talk to a supervisor and possibly even threaten to take your business elsewhere. However, with a little persuasion you’ll probably get what you want, especially if you’ve always paid your monthly credit card bill on time and have a decent credit score.

Simple things such as a cardboard box can be turned into a princess castle with fancy windows, crayon colored flowers and baby doll filled rooms. Or do a little cutting and it can just as easily be turned into a race car or big wheel truck. If your children are more of the artistic type find some old newspapers and magazines and let them cut out their favorite foods, toys and games. Paste them onto a big piece of construction board to hang in their room. To us it may sound silly but to a child it will light up their faces and save you cash.

I think parents of get caught up in what they think their kids will enjoy. I remember once my wife planning a fun filled night out of town. We would stay the night in a hotel and get up early the next day and spend the day at the zoo. We spent roughly $100 in gas, $100 in hotel charges, $50 in zoo tickets and even more money in food.

We walked into the gates of the zoo and our 5 year old wanted to know where the rides were. After explaining that we were there just to walk around and look at animals she was very disappointed. Our 2 year old fell asleep about 1.5 hours into the adventure. We walked around for about another hour and everyone was ready to go home.

We did learn that our family wasn’t zoo people but we also learned that we could have saved or hundreds of dollars, stayed in town at our house, went somewhere fun to eat and played family games at home. We would have had much more fun and saved hundreds of dollars.

Television is completely designed around advertising. A typical 30-minute block of time now includes 22 minutes of programming and eight minutes of television advertisements. Over 25% of television is companies trying to sell you something. Obviously it works or advertisers and marketers wouldn’t be paying millions of dollars to advertise on network television.

So… get off your couch, turn off your television and find a hobby you enjoy doing that’s free. You’ll save yourself some money and possibly get healthier as well.

Keeping track of when bills are due can be very simple with our free spreadsheet. It’s a simple concept that allows you to track when bills are due, the estimated monthly amount due and the total amount you have paid for the month. Using this simple spreadsheet may help you never miss a bill due date again.

Download the 2012 Budget Format Schedule Template now.

According to Energy Star the “annual energy bill for a typical single family home is approximately $2,200.”

You may already know this but Energy Star also says the single largest portion of your electric bill is from heating your home. About 29% of your annual electric cost goes to keeping your home warm.

If you want more specific information about how you compare to everyone else check out wattzon.com. It’s free to setup an account and they provide some pretty cool statistics. You can input your own personal electric and energy charges and see how you compare.

Sometimes it’s a complete joint venture. The husband and wife work completely together to track spending, saving and every aspect of cash flow. Both partners share accounts, one checking and one savings account. This makes budgeting simple and both parties are always completely aware of the financial situation.

Another example is where one partner has complete control over the finances. They pay all the bills, track all the expenses and all income. Every single dollar that comes in and goes out of the household is controlled by that person. Both still share checking and savings accounts but one is oblivious to their “real” financial shape. This can lead to many financial problems including over spending by the unaware partner.

Example three would be similar to the previous example but the opposite partner is always well informed. Maybe a family meeting happens every week and they discuss their financial situation and future goals and plans.

Yet another example would include separate checking and savings accounts. I know a few people who use this technique and I’m baffled as to how everything works out. All the bills and monthly expenses are cut in half and it’s his and hers with everything. In my opinion if you are going to be married everything should go into a single pool, otherwise why get married? I can see where this would lead to financial problems quickly.

A final example is nobody takes care of the fiances. You may laugh but this is pretty common in today’s society. There is no budget, credit cards are maxed out, no one knows how much money is in the checking account, etc. These types of financial problems are common and will quickly lead to marriage problems.

So… who keeps us with the finances in your household? Do you share responsibility? Have you experienced that financial problems quickly lead to marital problems?

For example if a homeowner bought a home for $300,000 and placed the 20% down payments of $60,000, he got $240,000.

When the real estate markets crashed at 2009 and properties lost their value, in our example the homeowner is left with nearly $240,000 mortgage but if the home value decreased by 30% to $200,000 the lender owns a home worth less than the borrower had borrowed.

If the borrowers fail to pay, they will lose the house and the lender lose a lot of money.

Unfortunately at the financial crisis of 2009 millions of Americans fell into such awkward situations, when the value of their homes dropped steeply, while their mortgage loan stayed as it was. It is estimated that there are 3-4 Million homeowners nationwide with underwater mortgages.

Together with the crisis the national interest rates decreased too, this was a life saver for those who could refinance their mortgage and lower their monthly payments or shorten the mortgage term by a few years.

While Millions of homeowners took advantage from the crisis outcomes and refinanced, homeowners with negative equity mortgage not only lost their home value, but they were not able to refinance, since the home value is less than their loan.

The federal administration tried to launch some programs to help those with underwater mortgages. This effort is part of the 14 Billion dollars the Treasury Department funds for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. It was released as ‘FHA short refinance’ program.

Until lately saving underwater mortgages with the FHA short refinance’ program was not very successful, because not many lenders joined the plan. This may be changing soon, as Wells Fargo and Ally Financial have both stated they will join a pilot program.

The basic guidelines for Negative Equity Mortgage Refinancing are:

• That the borrower must be living in the property;
• The borrower must be current on their mortgage payments;
• The mortgage processed should not be an FHA backed mortgage;
• Borrower with credit score above 500
• Loan to Value should not be over 97.75%

There are many reasons why the FHA short refinance program did not succeed until now, the main one is that it is up to the lenders to decide to join. Many lenders did not join this program even though there where some federal incentives invested by the government.

Lenders were reluctant to join because they need to write off at least 10% of the current borrower’s principle on the underwater mortgage.

Since FHA requirement is that the homeowners will be the ‘perfect borrowers’ which are never late on their payments, lenders didn’t want to lose principle on those who were paying on time.

In case there are two mortgages on the same property, both of the lenders need to agree to the FHA short refinance guidelines.

As you can see, the FHA strict borrower’s terms and the lenders requirement made the underwater mortgage refinancing program, too specific to really solve the negative equity to the Millions of homeowners who need it. The entrance of two major mortgage players Wells Fargo and Ally Financial may bring new hope to more homeowners.

Obviously, each person will need a different amount of money to secure their retirement years based on several factors.

• Current debt situation
• Lifestyle you want to live in retirement
• Portfolio performance after retirement and Inflation
• Life expectancy
• Health Insurance Coverage and your health
• Our current social security program

Your current debt situation is a major factor in determining a secure retirement. Typically, most Americans’ house payment accounts for 25%-28% of their monthly income. At either percentage it’s a big chunk of the monthly income. If you add auto loans and credit card payments into the mix then obviously you won’t be able to retire with a million dollars without having some type of extra income in retirement. Go into retirement debt free and a million bucks will probably last you through your golden years.

Another major factor in a secure retirement is your lifestyle expectancy. If you plan on spending your golden years on the lake fishing or growing a garden in the back yard you will probably be pretty safe with a million dollars. However, if you want to fulfill your retirement dreams and travel the world, you better get busy saving.

Inflation will play an important part in your nest egg. A vital part of ensuring your retirement savings will last is the ability to create some type of interest on the money you have stored away. Most financial experts will tell you to invest in safe low risk funds after you retire. However, if the inflation rate is more than your interest rate you will essentially be losing money. Be sure to keep a balanced portfolio even after retirement so you can stay ahead of inflation.

How long do you plan on living? Sure we want to live as long as we can and be completely healthy, but longer lives mean we need more money. If you plan your whole retirement savings around living until you are 80 and then live to be 90 you may be in some trouble the last 10 years of your life. Let’s face it, nobody knows how long they will live, but you want to plan for several years over the average life expectancy.

Unfortunately the cost of health care keeps rising and the benefits keep dropping. Health care and health insurance will consume a large portion of your retirement savings. Be sure you plan for these rising costs before you pick your retirement date. A Fidelity Investments report shows that typical out of pocket costs for health care after retirement are over $225,000! Trust me that number will probably not decrease as you get closer to retirement.

Ideally social security will still be around for all of us when we are ready to retire. The maximum benefit from social security is somewhere between $25,000 and $28,000. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it makes for a great boost in your current retirement plan. Unfortunately, many Americans depend solely on the social security system to fund their retirement and the truth is if current trends continue there won’t be enough money left in the system to secure those funds in the future. Personally, I am not planning on the social security system to fund my retirement.

If you are in doubt about your retirement situation sit down with an honest financial adviser or professional personal finance manager. It may cost a few dollars now to talk to a professional, but the payout will be far greater to secure your retirement.