Thursday, October 5th, 3:15 p.m., BHS Lunchroom
The BEU is sponsoring a 403(b) enrollment meeting. Bob Miller will walk you through the enrollment process! The process will take approximately an hour. Start saving now! Retired Devotion teacher Bob Miller is the BEU Financial Consultant (Bob Miller from Heath is BEU vice-president). Save the date!
Retired Devo teacher Bob Miller is the BEU Financial Consultant (Bob Miller from Heath is BEU vice-president). Here’s Bob’s most recent financial message, including a workshop scheduled for October 5. Save the date!
Much Ado about Hacks
The facts about Equifax – What is Equifax? Equifax, along with Transunion and Experian, represent the (un)Holy Trinity of credit bureaus. When a creditor – like a mortgage company or a credit card company – wants to evaluate your credit worthiness, they enlist one these three agencies who provide credit reports and FICO scores – a numerical grade of your credit risk that ranges from a low of 300 to a high of 850. The three credit bureaus also market a variety of products to consumers that purport to “protect” you from identity theft and fraud.
Equifax breach: It’s difficult to fathom but between mid-May and the end of July, the personal information for 143 million Americans– including SSI number, DOB, email and home addresses – was exposed due to an Equifax security flaw or simply lax security. Even more distressing, Equifax knew that their security had been breached as early as July 29, but failed to inform consumers until early September! (Don’t overlook the possibility that you enlisted Equifax’s reporting services if you’ve taken advantage of a free credit report from Credit Karma.)
Step #1 to protect yourself – Take a deep breath – as I did – and assume that there’s an almost 50% chance that you may have been affected by this massive breach. First, visit the Equifax website: www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/. When you arrive at the site, click on the “Potential Impact” tab and input the last six digits of your SSI and your last name. In my case, the unfortunate response identified me as a potential victim.
Based on the information provided, we believe that your personal information may have been impacted by this incident. Click the button below to continue your enrollment in TrustedID Premier: Enroll
Step #2 for potential victims; Don’t Push Enroll! – Call me cynical, but I’m loathe to trust a company that has betrayed my trust along with failing to protect my financial information. Yes, they’re graciously offering a year of free credit score monitoring, but I’ll pass on engaging the fox to guard the henhouse. And I would absolutely not enroll in the Equifax’s oxymoronically named credit monitoring service, TrustedID Premier!
Step #3 for safeguarding your credit – I’ve decided to implement a three-pronged approach to ensure my financial information won’t be misused. First, I’ve been checking my credit card accounts and banking information on a regular basis. Two, I’ve obtained a free credit card report using AnnualCreditReport.com. Three, I’ve decided to place a credit freeze on my account with all three credit bureaus for the next six months – or until I feel that my credit isn’t imperiled. (While this measure will not adversely impact your credit score or prevent you from obtaining a free credit report, Experian and Transunion will charge you a $10.00 service fee.) https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs.
Let’s conclude with a spot-on comment from Dogberry, the constable from Much Ado that rings true for Equifax today. Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.
Retired Devo teacher Bob Miller is the BEU Financial Consultant (Bob Miller from Heath is BEU vice-president).
Much Ado about Money for New Teachers & Paraprofessionals
Investing for your future with the 403b – First of all, welcome to the PSB! As you begin your career in education, you should be aware of a great investment opportunity, the 403b7. This retirement account – completely separate from your MTRS retirement account – is a pre-tax dollar funded retirement account, and it’s almost identical to the 401K in the private sector.
**You will need to bring your smartphone and a laptop to complete the enrollment form!
Saving on a new mortgage or considering refinancing – Does half a percent or even a quarter of a percent really make that much of a difference in your mortgage payment? Absolutely! The difference between an interest rate of 3.78% and 4.28% translates into a savings of $1,000 per year and $30,000 over the life of a 30 year loan! If you’re exploring the possibility of refinancing or purchasing a home, you should take advantage of the MTA’s discounted mortgage program with Berkshire Bank. The contact person is Bill Poirier, Senior Mortgage Consultant: bpoirier@berkshire bank.com. (Countless BEU members have participated in this program over the years.)
You need a will! – According to a recent survey, 78% of Millennials do not have a will. If you die intestate – without a will – your assets will be governed by the laws of “intestate succession.” In the case of a married couple in MA, you might be surprised to learn that your surviving spouse is only entitled to receive 50% of your assets with the remainder divided amongst relatives – some of whom you may not like. In short, don’t wait like Prince until “the party over” and “Oops out of time.” Create a simple will for as little as a couple of hundred dollars with LegalZoom, RocketLawyer or USLegalWills.com.
Bob Miller, BEU Financial Consultant and retired Devotion teacher: odysseus7@comcast.net
geralt / Pixabay
Hear ye! Hear ye. It’s time to celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, “The Bard of All Time.” It’s the year of #Shakespeare400 on Twitter, a scheduled 2016 jazz mock-funeral for the Bard of Avon on the bayou of New Orleans and a whirlwind two-year Hamlet tour for The Royal Shakespeare Theater around the globe – and that includes Mongolia. It’s also an opportune moment to talk about Bardonomics and the weighty matters of managing your pounds, pence and shillings not to mention how “to put money in thy purse.”
What you may ask might England’s national poet and a playwright be able to teach us about money, managing finances and investing? To borrow from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, let’s count the ways with a few Bard inspired financial recommendations.
Borrowing: Let’s begin with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and the memorable words of advice given by Polonius to his son Laertes in Act 1, Scene 3.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
The advice of Polonius will ring true for eternity. There are countless caveats to lending money to friends including compromising the friendship not to mention losing your money. As for borrowing, it continues to be a pervasive problem in America with the average U.S. family carrying a credit debt of over $15,000. Hone thy husbandry and lessen thy debt
Investing, The Eighth Wonder of the World: In Shakespeare’s love poem Venus and Adonis, he suggests that money, or gold in this case, loses its potential to generate wealth if it sits idly.
Foul-Cankering rust the hidden treasure frets.
But gold that’s put to use more begets.
Perhaps no one put forth a more eloquent and compelling argument for investing you money so it can beget more money than Einstein: “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it…. he who doesn’t … pays it.” In short, To be enrolled in a 403b should not be a question! And by the way!
Enrollment Workshop at BHS: March 10, at 3:00 PM – Bring your phone and a laptop.
Patience, the Cornerstone of Successful Investing: While Iago in Othello may be viewed as one of Shakespeare’s most unsavory and duplicitous characters, he certainly has his share of memorable lines.
How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal by degrees?
In the words of the legendary Investor and the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet, patience is one of the foundations for successful investing: “Successful investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
If the Bard were a financial advisor, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear him say: Frailty thy name is investor. Individual investors tend to be slaves to their emotions and lack the required discipline and long-term vision. The path to successful investing can be a tortuous one but can also be successfully navigated with a combination of patience, prudence, a method (a plan) and, of course optimism.
MTA News