It's Friday once again! Time is flying. Even yesterday when I needed to hold my mouth closed on a mold for a crown at my dentist appointment and the gal told me I had to keep my teeth together for four and a half minutes, THAT time flew by. It was uncomfortable and I was not happy about having one of my molars ground down to a stump. You would think time would have dragged.
Here are a few posts I enjoyed this week.
- Another post on managing time more wisely, I enjoyed reading Kristia's rendition Are You Wasting Time and Preventing Yourself From Your Million Dollar Dream? at Family Balance Sheet. One thing in particular that she mentioned from the article she'd read was how wealthy women used a grocery delivery service before they made their millions. We live in an area too rural for home delivery of anything, but sometimes I think it would be a nice idea to look into. Especially if it was only $10!
- Invest It Wisely posts a warning to other bloggers about a new type of scam directed to bloggers in The “Guest Post” : A Deceptive Advertising Trick.
- Another warning, this time from Len Penzo with Priceline Users Be Careful: Name the Wrong Price and You May Go To Jail apparently he bid too low and they locked him out for 24 hours. I've never used one of these places, but I know a bit more about them now!
- OUCH, OUCH, OUCH. I would have been freaked out to find my car missing like that! Click over and read When Being Cheap Upfront Costs Big Bucks in the End at Frugal Confessions.
- Joe Plemon answers a few questions with his recent post Social Security Strategies for Married Couples at Personal Finance by the Book. I've known a few elderly couples that were “living in sin” so that their Social Security wasn't affected, but I thought only one person would be eligible. Joe cleared that up – the second person would get 50% of what they were eligible to draw.
- Car Negotiation Coach gives some pointers on buying a new car in What's a Good Price and Why Should You Keep It a Secret?
Yours Truly,
Hello Mrs. Accountability! Thank you for linking to my post–I am glad you enjoyed (or were pained…:):).
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Mrs.A, Thanks so much for the mention!
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Thanks for the mention about my Social Security post. Yes, there are benefits of being married. I really know of no Social Security advantages for “living in sin” although I don’t doubt there are. Like I said in the post, Social Security is complicated.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
June 26th, 2010 at 6:19 am
Joe, if I’m understanding your post correctly, Husband would get $2000 and Wife – also eligible for $2000 – would only get $1000. These couples I knew years ago had met after they’d retired, and had already been getting the maximum each. If they married, instead of getting $4000, that would have dropped to $3000. Sorry for the confusion in not explaining that better. Or, did I misunderstand your original post?
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Mrs. Accountability,
The first sentence in my post under the heading Spousal Agreement reads, “The lower earning spouse has a choice: to claim a “spousal” benefit of up to 50% of the higher earning spouse’s benefit or to claim his own earned benefit.”
The spousal benefit does not penalize anyone, but could possibly benefit the lower earning spouse if she is drawing less than 50% of her spouse’s benefit on her own record.
For example, if Husband draws $2,000 on his record and Wife draws $2,000 on her record, they get $4,000. But, if the Wife could only draw $500 on her record, she would get $1,000 (50% of her spouse’s benefit) assuming she is full retirement age.
In my understanding, being married can help but not hurt the Social Security benefits. I always leave this caveat: I am not a Social Security expert, just a blogger who has read and tried to understand how it works. If anyone reading this can point out anything I have missed, please do!
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Nice roundup of posts this week; thanks for the mention!
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Thanks for mentioning and linking to my post. Thanks also for alerting us about the guest post scam. I am getting more and more emails asking if I would accept a guest post and also asking me to link to their site and they will pay me. I haven’t accepted any of them yet, because I don’t know if they are legit and now I know to be very careful.
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