Tip of the Week
Here’s a million-dollar idea: Make breakfast and lunch at home every day. A 25-year-old who does not dine out for breakfast and lunch can save an extra $10 a day. Invested in a retirement account earning an 8 percent average annual rate of return, those savings could generate more than $1 million by age 67.
This hypothetical example shows how making small changes in behavior may ultimately yield big results. Farnoosh Torabi, author and financial planning coach, recommends several personal and household expenses to examine for potential savings:
* Track all your expenses to determine where else you might cut back. It’s amazing how extra expenses such as $3 lattes and $10 iTunes downloads can add up.
* Using cash instead of credit can save you up to 20 percent. Not only do you incur fewer interest charges, you may ultimately defer some expenses until you have the cash.
* Credit cards typically represent the most expensive debt, so pay off this debt as soon as possible. When you’re debt free, continue paying the same monthly amount to your retirement plan instead.
* Examine your roster of cable TV channels; you may find you are paying premium prices for channels you rarely watch.
“We all spend more money than we realize on things that don’t necessarily contribute to our happiness or quality of life,” Torabi says. “By taking a hard look at our spending, most of us can find money to contribute to our retirement plan and, ultimately, improve our quality of life when we are no longer working.”
The United States Postal Service is warning residents about fake emails using their name. The messages claim to be alerts about an undelivered package, but they really carry a virus. Like all scams, this one has many variations. Some victims have reported receiving phone calls also claiming to alert them to an undelivered package. Instead of a virus, scammers try to phish for personal and banking information.
— Better Business Bureau
A survey conducted by NerdScholar, the higher education unit of NerdWallet, a personal finance website based in San Francisco, ranked average salaries for new graduates of 184 schools within 57 colleges and universities. Here is there list of highest-paying college degrees:
1. Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science (Average salary: $89,800)
2. California Institute of Technology (Average salary: $83,750)
3. Stanford University, School of Engineering (Average salary: $74,500)
4. Harvey Mudd College (Average salary: $72,500)
5. New York University, College of Nursing (Average salary: $79,200)
6. University of Pennsylvania, School of Engineering and Applied Science (Average salary: $70,100)
7. Texas A&M University, Dwight Look College of Engineering (Average salary: $69,100)
8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Average salary: $68,300)
9. Carnegie Mellon University, College of Engineering (Average salary: $68,300)
10. Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing (Average salary: $67,700)
(NOTE: Many universities, including those in the Ivy League, do not make salary information available; those were not included in the study.)
Number to Know
25 percent: If your monthly rent or mortgage takes up more than a quarter of your take-home pay, look at ways to reduce this big expense. If you have a mortgage, refinancing might be an option. Renters can sometimes negotiate a lower rent.
On Monday Amazon launched a service known as Amazon Payments that allows consumers to use their Amazon accounts to send and receive money and shop online at “thousands of sites other than Amazon.” The launch marks Amazon’s entry into the online payment field currently dominated by PayPal.
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