This Week In Your Wallet: How To Shop Smart This Season
Are you shopped out yet? It wouldn’t be surprising. Black Friday hit sales expectations, then surpassed them. Online sales, $3.34 billion according to Adobe, were particularly strong. Was Black Friday the new Cyber Monday, analysts wondered? Nope. Cyber Monday was the largest online shopping day in history, with sales of $3.39 billion. As for the season — and online shopping — as a whole? November 1 to December 5 has brought in $52.16 billion in online spending, a 7.8 percent increase year-over-year, according to Adobe. Between December 6 and 31, people are projected to spend $39.43 billion.
Just in case you’re one of those who still have items to tick off — or you feel like picking up a little something for, say, you, USA TODAY has four money-saving apps that can help. Download them before you head to the stores, then use the Amazon app to scan barcodes of items you want to buy in a store and see what they’re going for on Amazon. If the latter has a lower price, stores like Best Buy, Target, Walmart and Toys “R” Us will match it. The RetailMeNot app will help you amass deals and coupons in-store and online — and if you turn on location services, it’ll ping you about deals in your vicinity. If Tarjet is your destination of choice, make sure you’ve got the Cartwheel app. It will alert you to available coupons for items you scan or suggest similar products that happen to be a better deal. Finally, there’s Flipp, which makes paper circulars mobile friendly. Happy shopping.
Are You Leaving Money On The Table?
Social Security money, that is. Here’s the deal: Your Social Security benefit is calculated based on the 35 years you had the highest earnings. But nearly half of women and about one in seven men don’t have 35 years of earnings to tabulate; so those years go into the calculation as a $0. You’re allowed, of course, to tap Social Security at age 62. We’ve talked in the past about how waiting pays off big time because for every year you delay from 62 until 70, you get a bump in benefits of about 8 percent. That, as CNBC reports, can mean a 76 percent larger benefit. But if you not only delay but work during those years, the result can be even bigger. The folks at the Center for Retirement Research At Boston College released a working paper that shows your benefit can jump as much as 88 percent for women and 82 percent for men. Plus, there are other benefits to working (particularly if it’s at a job you enjoy). It keeps you younger, healthier, happier. Need we say more?
Reading the Health Care Tea Leaves
It’s one of the biggest questions coming as the new administration takes form (and then takes office): What happens to the Affordable Care Act? This week, President-elect Trump picked Georgia Congressman Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon and staunch critic of ACA, as his candidate for secretary of health and human services. So what do we need to know about Price — and what happens now?
Price helped draft the Empowering Patients First Act, which was meant to be an alternative to the ACA. That alternative health care plan calls for tax credits for buying insurance on private marketplaces and a one-time credit for HSAs. Also part of the plan? Protection for those with preexisting conditions if — this is key — they’ve had continuous health coverage with an insurer over the last 18 months, reports Vox. Add to that the fact that President-elect Trump has said that he will keep parts of the ACA, including allowing adult children to remain on their parents’ plans through age 26 and forcing insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions (no contingencies in his language so far).
Bottom line: If you were thinking about purchasing insurance through an exchange for 2017, go ahead and do it. There are so many things up in the air, analysts are staying that your coverage should last through the year. You need to purchase before December 15 if you want coverage to start January 1, though the deadline for the year’s enrollment is January 31.
News Flash: Turtle Doves In Short Supply
On a lighter note, every year PNC calculates the prices of the 12 gifts from “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Yes, those gifts — French hens, gold rings, pipers etc. You’ll be happy to know the price of seven swans a-swimming stayed the same as last year — $13,125. But the turtle doves are up 29.3 percent, to $395. Another interesting find: According to this year’s Christmas Price Index, it would cost $10,239 more to buy the goods online than in-store.
Have a great week,
Jean
