This Week in Your Wallet: Say Hello To Stronger Savings in 2015
Happy 2015! As you welcomed the year, were you among the 45% or so of people who made a resolution? That’s the number who usually do, according to StatisticBrain.com. The #3 resolution this year according to this research is vowing to save more and spend less. We couldn’t need it more. According to Bankrate.com, one in four Americans has no emergency savings, whatsoever.
If you’re among them…or if you’re just feeling like you’d like to pad your already existing savings, I want you to jump on board #TeamJean and start the 52-week Savings Challenge. This is a program designed to get you into the habit of saving automatically and regularly. It couldn’t be easier to start. In Week 1, you save $1. In week 2, you save $2. In week 3, $3 and so on. You’ll need to open a separate savings account and automatically transfer the money out of checking into savings on a weekly basis (we’ll schedule those transfers a month ahead). And every week, I’ll give you new savings tips and we’ll keep tabs on our progress here and at today.com/starttoday.
This is all part of a big program called #StartTODAY that I’m working on with my pals — just call us “The J Team” — nutritionist Joy Bauer, fitness expert Jenna Wolfe and organizing guru Jill Martin for the Today Show. We kicked it off Monday, and every Thursday, I’ll be back with two more segments devoted to saving more money and whipping your finances into shape. Then on Fridays we’ll all be on set answering questions on Facebook and Twitter.
So I hope you’ll join me. Send the link around. (Here it is again.) Encourage your friends, kids, colleagues, etc. to jump on board. Why? Because as I’ve always said, when you have savings you feel stronger, more independent and, yes, happier. So join me. And save yourself!
And now for the rest of the week’s news.
Wallet-friendly forecasts for 2015
On top of those new savings efforts, your wallet can (hopefully) look forward to bigger paychecks, too. Analysts at Kiplinger predict the economy will grow by 3% or better this year— its best annual growth rate in 10 years — which could mean a bump in pay for you. More midsize and small businesses are already saying they’ll increase pay to employees by at least 3%.
Looking for a job? Expect more of the same: Job gains averaged 227,000 last quarter and it’s looking to be about the same rate in 2015, according to global economic forecasting and analysis firm IHS. In fact, the unemployment rate (which is currently sitting at 5.8%) could drop to 5.3% by 2016. And something that will continue to be in your wallet’s favor are those beautiful prices at the pump. Prices will continue to stay low this year, averaging around $2.60 per gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration. See the rest of Kiplinger’s list of things to look forward to here.
Turbo Tax oops?
Our favorite Boston-based consumer watchdog Edgar Dworsky of ConsumerWorld.org gave us the heads up just this morning that this year’s version of TurboTax Deluxe has some changes that will require, “many users to pay an upgrade fee to get the same functionality they’ve always enjoyed.” Specifically: The full interview for filling out the sections for self-employment income and expenses (Schedule C), investments (Schedule D) and rental and partnership income (Schedule E) are gone. Now you have to upgrade to the Deluxe editions (for Schedules D and E) or Home and Business editions (Schedule C) to get them, which will cost you another $30 or $40.
What can you do about it? Complain. Dworsky notes that, “Intuit is quietly offering free upgrades to some aggrieved users.” Or switch. H&R Block, not so quietly looking to capitalize on the situation, is offering users who’ve already purchased TurboTax Basic or Deluxe free copy of their software. To get it, you need to email your name, address, phone, a copy of your invoice and whether you’re a Mac or Windows user to switchtoblock@hrblock.com.
Cold hard plastic to cold hard cash
Don’t let the gift cards that missed the mark go to waste or take up space. Try reselling the plastic for extra cash. The secondary market for gift cards is more robust than ever — I reported on it for Fortune — and now’s the time to make good use of it. This week CNNMoney wrote about Raise and Cardpool, two platforms through which you can sell your unwanted gift cards.
With any service, know that you’re not going to get 100% of the value for the card. But if you weren’t going to use it anyway, then I say something is better than nothing. Also know that the amount you get for your card depends on the desirability of the merchant. For instance, at Gift Card Granny, a site that aggregates gift card offers for you, you can see that you’d get about 90% of the value for a Costco gift card, but only 80% for one from the Disney Store. Read more here.
Have a great week,
Jean
