Entry bubble Word of the Year: Bailout

By: Joanne | January 13, 2009 | Category: Money

cartoon man carrying a giant bag of money

In its 19th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted “bailout” as the word of the year. When I heard the story on NPR yesterday morning, I was really hoping that the word of the year would be something fun, like 2005’s word of the year, truthiness, made popular by Stephen Colbert. I guess 2008 was a more serious year than 2005.

2008 found us in an economic crisis and it’s going to take a lot to get our economy back on track. I think it’s pretty painful to pinch pennies at the grocery store and drive aging cars, and watch the federal government give billions and billions of dollars away. Yes, I work for the government, but I pay taxes too, you know!

Like you, I don’t have to power to give away billions of tax dollars, but there are some things that we can do. President-elect Obama has a plan to stimulate the economy – get informed about the plan. Gov Gab’s readers are highly intelligent and always writing in to tell us about their great ideas. You can send your economy-saving idea directly to the Obama transition team. They’re listening.

Don’t forget to contact your Senator and Representative in Congress to let them know your ideas and how you want your tax dollars to be spent. They’re the ones that write the laws after all, and we need to hold them accountable to give us the truth, not just the truthiness.

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Entry bubble Government Grants

By: Joanne | April 01, 2008 | Category: Money

Hey! Did you hear that the government gives away billions of dollars so people can pay off their credit card bills, quit their jobs and go on vacation?  April fool!

woman standing in a shower of money

Are we really that gullible? Sure we’d all like it to be true—who doesn’t want some easy money? But before you shell out some of your hard earned money to learn how to get a government grant, or even worse, get caught up in a scam, I want you to know that the government does give lots of money away, but most government grants go to state and local governments or nonprofit organizations that in turn use the money to administer community programs.

If you or someone you know is in need, the government has loads of assistance programs that might help - they’re just not often referred to as “grants.” There are programs to help with heating bills or starting a business or health insurance for children and much more. If you’re an organization seeking a grant you should check out grants.gov, your official source where you can find and apply for a grant from the federal government.

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Entry bubble Life’s Critical Records, Chapter 1

By: Joanne | January 08, 2008 | Category: Money

I recently attended a retirement planning seminar. Retirement is many, many years away but the seminar was a real eye-opening Brown Leather Wallet With Cash, And Credit Cards.experience. I came out of the seminar feeling motivated to get some financial planning done, but the hustle and bustle of everyday life quickly pulled my attention away from the plan. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to go back to the seminar materials and take small steps forward. Hooray! I’ve accomplished my first step: the binder is open on my desk!

I’m starting by getting my records in order. The instructor gave us a list of critical records and papers (CRAP) we should keep in a binder in a safe location. Creating the binder will be my first goal. Since the binder will be in sections, I’m going to focus on one section at a time and hopefully that will make the task less daunting.

The first section of my binder is an inventory of what’s in my wallet. You don’t think of this stuff until your wallet is lost, stolen or you’re the victim of identity theft, but there are definitely times when you don’t have your wallet and you need to know what’s in there. Years ago my wallet was stolen. I quickly called my credit card companies to let them know, but I didn’t have a list of everything in my wallet and I forgot about one card. The robber didn’t have any trouble figuring out which card worked and charged hundreds and hundreds of dollars at area gas stations. From what I saw on the card statement, he took all his friends to the gas station, filled up their car and then bought them lots of cigarettes and snacks.

I finished my wallet inventory in about 15 minutes and now it’s ready to go into my CRAP binder. You never know when you’re going to need to know what’s in your wallet; don’t wait until it’s too late!

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