Advocates support and promote the rights of the patient in the health care arena, help build capacity to improve community health and enhance health policy initiatives focused on available, safe and quality care. (wiki)

If you haven’t used a health advocate before, they really are great (in my experience). They offer one-on-one guidance anytime you have a healthcare or insurance question or issue. The person on the other end of the phone is often a past or current nurse, medical director, or insurance expert.

But people don’t use them nearly as much as they should. Healthcare is complex… but it doesn’t have to be if you have this benefit!

10 Reasons to Call Your Health Advocate

1. Find the best doctors, hospitals, dentists, and other providers who are in your plan’s network. Plans can have lists of hundreds of doctors, why not get some help to filter through them all?
2. Schedule appointments. Even for hard to reach specialists and critical care providers. You can arrange for specialized treatments and tests. This could save you hours on end.
3. Resolve insurance claims and negotiate billing and other administrative issues. Your advocate understands the system better and may have better negotiating skills than you.
4. Assist with eldercare for your parents and parent-in-laws. This can be a very stressful and time demanding subject, so any assistance helps.
5. Obtain unbiased health information. The healthcare industry is flooded with biased information. Even your doctors are swayed by the drug companies and the insurance companies. However, the advocate works for you.
6. Work with insurance companies to get approvals for necessary services. If you need a procedure, instead of wasting weeks, and maybe months, trying to get an approval – use the advocate!
7. Answer questions about test results, treatments, and medications prescribed by your doctor. Some doctors are better at explaining results than others. If you have any questions that your doctor isn’t answering to your satisfaction, you should be able to get answers from your advocate.
8. Assist in the transfer of medical records, x-rays, and lab results. Relocations happen. And instead of using valuable time trying to transfer records, have your advocate set everything up for you.
9. Locate and research the newest treatments for a medical condition. If you are beyond a certain level of care and want to try new treatments, ask your advocate for more info.
10. Arrange for home care equipment upon hospital discharge. The last thing you want to worry about after a hospital stay is trying to figure out what you need for your home care. Luckily, you don’t have to.

Check Your Benefits!

If you aren’t sure if you have access to a health advocate, contact your HR representative. They may refer to them as “personal advocates” instead since healthcare advocates are sometimes looked at as advocates for a community or organization.

Has anyone used an advocate before? Did you have success? Or were they not that helpful?

One thing that the holidays mean is increased financial activity for the economy as a whole. People are busy buying lots of food and lots of gifts.

I wanted to discuss the financial pressures that the holidays bring, and ways to relieve the stress.

Causes of financial stress:

Here are some common social pressures that cause financial stress during the holidays:

• Attaching Happiness with Material Things – Retail industry gears up for the holidays, telling you that to be happy you need things and you believe them. You shop till you drop, thinking that the things in your basket will make this holiday a happy one. However, the more you spend, the larger your debt grows. Once the holiday is over, you’re facing large amounts of debt.
• Social Expectations – Oftentimes you feel the need to protect your friends and family from your financial difficulties. You feel the social pressures to be happy and successful. You might spend money you don’t have to meet these social expectations.
• Too Many Responsibilities – You over commit to your loved ones. You schedule too many parties, too many extra activities and too many family obligations. The financial burden of these obligations can make a difficult situation worse.
• Topping Yourself – Every year, you want this holiday to be better than the next one. You feel as if you can’t “beat” last year’s holiday then you’re a failure. Or you’re in competition with another family member to provide the “better” holiday. Sometimes in the heat of the competition with yourself or someone else, you spend far too much.

If you ignore these social stressors, it can have a negative effect on you and your loved ones.

Negative effects of financial stress:

Stress isn’t just a pain in the butt that exists in some sort of emotional vacuum. No, it effects other parts of our lives in drastic ways. Financial stress can affect you in many ways:

• Health – Financial stress can have an effect on someone’s physical and mental health. It can cause someone to feel angry, depressed and fatigued if they’re staying up at night. More extreme cases can cause headaches, upset stomachs and muscular tension. AARP survey on the Impact of Economy on Health Behaviors found that 20% of the participants reported health issues due to financial stress. (Source)
• Lashing Out – Financial stress can cause someone to lash out against their family and friends. In some extreme cases even lead to domestic violence. Last holiday season, National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) ran a 6-week study on the link between financial stress and domestic violence and found that 54% of victims who called their national hotline reported a change in their financial situation in the past year. (Source)
• Self Destruction – Financial stress can lead to self-destructive behaviors such as increased drinking, illicit drug use, over-eating, excessive gambling and even additional spending. These behaviors can start effecting one’s work, school or home life negatively.

You may feel like you’re alone. That you can’t reach out. You might feel guilty that you can’t offer the holiday that you feel you should. Those negative feelings are not going to help you.

How to Cope with Financial Stress

Instead, start coping with your financial stress with these strategies:

• Be Real – Stop putting on airs to your family and friends and be honest about your financial situation. Being honest with them will relieve many of the financial pressures that come with the holiday.
• Take Care of Yourself – It’s hard enough to deal with problems when you’re healthy. If you’re having physical and/or mental health issues, you need to seek help from a healthcare provider, spiritual leader, school counselor, psychologist or community health clinic.
• Deal with Your Debt – Hiding from your debt problems and continuing your current spending habits will only make the situation worse. It’s never too late to start dealing with debt.
• Release Stress – Physical exercise can go a long way to release stress and reduce anxiety. You can also funnel your negative stress into free activities and hobbies to get your mind off your debt problems.

How Do You Cope?

When you feel financially stressed out because of all of the pressure from the holidays, what do you do?

Just realize: You’re not alone. According to the National Retail Federation, this tough economy is impacting two-thirds of families this holiday season. Many families are going to be spending less, shopping the sales, using last year’s decorations and cutting out holiday travel. Focus on your family and be thankful for what you have this holiday, rather than what you don’t. Just by changing your mindset, you can have a happy holiday.

In some cases you may know someone or be related to someone who is in fact a financial advisor. You may even be tempted to solicit them to be your personal advisor to handle your retirement and estate planning needs. Take it from me, you don’t want your friends or family handling your finances, or any other part of your life.

The Financial Advisor Relationship

The relationship of you and your advisor should be that of an employer and employee. You are paying for the advisor to provide a service and you should expect that service to be top notch. When you allow an insider to assume that role, they will know that you are their family, or friend, and they can get away with less explanation and less personal service. They want to focus on the clients they feel like they could lose, not the one they know will "always" be around regardless.

If the "advisor" happens to be a relative of you or your spouse it adds an additional level of complication. If the advisor makes a suggestion that one of the spouses doesn’t agree with then the related spouse could get defensive or even combative to defend their relative. I am personally struggling with this situation around an Equity Indexed Universal Life Insurance (EIUL) account my Mother in Law set my wife and I up with. Neither my wife or I truly understand the product but because it is her mother she inherently is trusting that it is what is best for us.

You don’t want to have to question the motives of someone you care for, but you will. Every time my "advisor" sends me a new product pitch or wants to move my funds around in my 401k, I ask myself why? She doesn’t explain the why to me because I am expected to just agree and nod my head. For all I know it is purely to generate commissions with little to no concern about my true financial well being. I doubt this is the case but the fact that I question it internally makes me nervous. I don’t want someone working for me who doesn’t explain the why behind their actions. This should go for any financial advisor.

Choose Your Options Carefully

Just like when starting a business, you shouldn’t work in this nature with family or friends. It puts undue strain on your relationship. Why create tension where there would otherwise be joy. You don’t want to look at your buddy with disdain because he sold you on a bad investment. there is chance that if you fire him as an advisor you could lose him as a friend. You don’t want to be in that situation. You definitely don’t want to be in a position where you have to fire your mother in law.

Instead of hiring your family member or friend to be your advisor ask them for a recommendation of someone they trust who will treat you fairly and not charge you outrageous fees. Explain that you are sure they are great but you would prefer to have a level of separation between you and your advisor. You could even add in that you don’t want them to feel responsible if your retirement goes to pot.

No matter how you get out of it it will be better for everyone involved if you keep business and family/friends separate

Have you ever used a family member or friend as your financial advisor? How did it turn out?

Any time the weather gets below your tipping point, think about starting one of these weekend projects to save money on heating, electricity, and/or water. Keep in mind: These projects are not necessarily quickies, so we must rope off more time than we would normally in order to ensure we get the job done entirely and effectively.

1) Install a Programmable Thermostat

Programmable thermostats allow you to set up different temperatures for different times throughout the day. By adjusting the temperature when you are away from home, you can set it to a higher temperature (summer) or lower temperature (winter) and thus save money. You can have it automatically kick back to whatever you think is a comfortable temperature around the time you usually get home.

As Ron Popeil says, “Set it and forget it.”

Sample Product: Lux Touch Screen 7 Day Programmable Thermostat

2) Install a Ceiling Fan

Most people think of fans as a warm-weather tool. However, if you run them clockwise during the cooler months the fan will push warm air from the ceiling back to the floor. The warmer air will not only keep you warmer, it will make your heating system work less since you are using the existing heat more efficiently.

Better circulation of heated air can save you money, so try and install ceiling fans in any rooms that you frequent and think could benefit from better air circulation.

Sample Product: Westinghouse Turbo Swirl

3) Install Dimmer Switches

Standard light switches give you two options: OFF / ON. I would be more than satisfied with a dim light in a lot of situations… just enough to let me see my surroundings clearly, but not so bright that everything is well lit.

A dimmer switch gives you the flexibility to choose the exact amount of light you would like.

I imagine a lot of people would question the efficacy of a dimmer switch. For some back of the napkin numbers: A typical bulb lasts 1,500 hours or 1 year based on normal usage, costs $1.75, and uses energy costing $.10/kWh. Dimming your lights 30% saves 24% in electricity costs, extends the life of the bulb to 3.8 years, and saves you $60.40 over 5 years. (Source) Not too shabby, eh?

Sample Product: Lutron Toggler & Dimmer

4) Install Motion Sensors

Motion sensors are very useful for outdoor lighting situations. Besides giving a sense of security, they can save you money by not leaving the light on all night.

However, interior lights can also benefit from a motion sensor. Often times people leave lights on in hallways without thinking. Hallways act as passageways between destinations. Thus, if you install a motion sensor, the light is only on when you need it to be on.

My workplace recently invested in a lot of motion sensor lights for warehouse aisles across the country. If a Fortune 100 company is investing in a simple technology, that should tell you that there is a cost savings to be had.

Sample Product: Heath Zenith Motion Activated Wall Switch

5) Install New Light Fixtures

If you have the option, get a light fixture that uses compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). They often times distribute light more evenly than a standard fixture while still saving you money on electricity. Win-win’s do happen!

Sample Product: Lithonia Fluorescent Ceiling Fixture

6) Install a WaterSense Toilet

WaterSense toilets typically perform at the same effectiveness while using 20% less water than the current federal standard. If you have an old toilet (not a low-flow), you could cut 4,000 gallons of water from your annual usage.

Using the math in my post about low-flow shower heads, this could wind up saving you about $30/year. It may not be worth it if you have no intention of getting a new toilet, but if you are already shopping it may be something to look at.

Sample Product: Cheviot Dual Flush (WaterSense Certified)

7) Install a WaterSense Faucet

Just as I said above, WaterSense faucets don’t sacrifice performance while reducing water usage by 30%. How much money this could save depends entirely on your usage, but with faucets being pretty cheap, the breakeven point can’t be more than a year or two.

If you have a rough estimate of how much water you use through faucets, take 30% of that and multiply it by $0.007 and that should give you an approximate savings per year. If you know your actual $/gallon cost for water, use that instead. That number is a rough average of what I saw across a few areas.

Sample Product: Leland Lavatory Faucet (WaterSense Certified)

8) Insulate Your Water Heater

When you take a hot shower, do you know what is busy at work? Your hot water heater. When you wash dishes? Hot water heater.

Being that it is used so often, anything we can do to improve its efficiency can save you money. Try wrapping it in an insulating blanket. This will serve to keep the heat inside the tank and thus save energy by making it reheat its tank water less frequently.

Sample Product: Thermwell Water Heater Blanket

9) Find and Seal Air Leaks

Do you know where the most common air leaks come from? The attic, the basement, around plumbing, around ducts, and around wiring penetrations. The aggregate air leakage can equate to the equivalent of an open window. Would you ever leave a window open in December while the heat is on? Absolutely not.

Start big and work down. Make sure your attic is properly insulated first. Then check your basement for any cracks or leaks. Next, you can caulk around all of the window frames, door frames, ducts and vents, etc. For the actual window panes, you can reglaze them. All of the doors and windows shouldn’t take more than a day.

Once you’ve done all of the leak proofing, its time to get window blinds. Not only can these be used to set the decor, but they also help insulate the warmth or the cool.

When all is said and done, these changes could lead to almost 10% off your electricity bill.

Sample Product: Insulate & Weatherize (Book)

You Go You DIY Warrior

What are you waiting for? Get working on all of these projects and start saving some money.

Make sure you figure out your breakeven point on any project you take on. If you only plan to live in the house for 3 years and the breakeven point is 1 year, the project is worth it. If you plan to live in the house for 3 years and the breakeven point is 5 years, it probably isn’t worth it. I say probably because their may be other factors to consider: Do you put a value on  the societal benefit of reducing your energy consumption? If you want to go green, it still may be worth it. And you could always advertise the cost-savings when you go to sell your house!

If anyone has any other weekend projects for heating, electricity, and/or water purposes, give the suggestion via comment!

A lot of people tell me that Quicken is much more comprehensive when it comes to investment tracking and budgeting. So, are they right?

Quicken 2010 – Comparing the Versions

As with most products that you have to pay for, they have released multiple versions (“tiers”) with different functionalities. The more basic versions come at a cheaper price and the more comprehensive versions come at a more expensive price.

Quicken has 6 flavors. I will only be reviewing the program itself, but the comparison chart (the link is below) will go over the free online service, too.

I got my hands on the Home & Business version, which is one step below the most comprehensive version for Rental Property Managers.

Where to Buy

Like I said, I got Quicken 2010 through my workplace. But if you don’t get it free or at least have a discounted option like some workplaces offer, you can buy it at Intuit’s site. You will be eligible to download it immediately after purchasing it. You can opt to get it via CD if you would like.

They are offering Willmaker Plus for free when you purchase Quicken 2010 Deluxe or better. This is a pretty awesome add-on, because if you don’t have a will you are missing a very important part of financial planning. At least until you get a more extensive will, this program can set you up with a basic one.

Just click on the image to the right and choose the version that is correct for you.

Quicken 2010: Let’s Go!

I will be posting a lot of screen captures. I will post them slightly smaller on the page itself, but if you click them they will open in a new window much larger so you can see what’s going on more clearly.

Installation

This goes very smoothly. Compared to installing a number of other programs, nothing is different. You must  check a box to agree with their license agreement, of course.

While installing, it also automatically updates itself so that you are guaranteed to have to have the most up to date version. This is convenient so that you don’t need to do it when you launch the program for the first time.

One thing I didn’t like, though, was that it added 5 shortcuts to my desktop. The only one that is (in my opinion) acceptable is the one all the way to the right as it is actually for the program. The other 4 are just trying to sell me extra services. They were deleted right away.

Opening Quicken

When you open Quicken 2010, you are presented with the following options:

I have decided to proceed as a new user for the purpose of this review. All you need to do is click the radio button you would like and then click “Get Started.” If you do select the bottom option, you will be prompted to locate the file in next screen.

Main Screen

Once you have told Quicken that you are a new user, they bring you to the main screen. Going forward in this review, I will be referencing it as the dashboard. It is pictured to the right of the text.

So far, everything is very user intuitive. Since it is being presented as a cookbook (which I think is a good thing), I  am going to proceed line by line.

To give you a sneak peak of what’s to come, though:

#1 See Where Your Money Goes = Adding Accounts (Savings, Checking, Credit Cards, Retirement, etc)

#2 Stay On Top of Monthly Bills = Setting up bill calendar, income planner, cash flow predictor

#3 Track Spending Goals to Save Money = Budgeting, planning

Adding Accounts

When you click on this, it immediately opens up a screen that allows you to add your bank accounts to Quicken. As you start typing your bank name, it auto populates with your options. For example, I was going to type ING, but as soon as I typed “I” it came up with a list. As I typed more it automatically narrowed the list. By the time I typed “ING,” the option for “ING Direct” was the only option remaining. (Pictured right)

Once I selected ING and went to the next screen, I was prompted to enter my username and password so that my transactions could be downloaded. If you don’t trust their privacy, you can opt to not download transactions. If you choose this option, you can manually upload the transactions. (Pictured left)

I entered all of my account information and clicked next. A screen popped up to let me know that it was downloading my account information. I didn’t take a screenshot of this, but it also popped up another screen after about 30 seconds with my security questions asking me for the answers. Once I entered my answers, it went back to the “receiving” screen and eventually downloaded all of my transactions. (Pictured below)

Once the download was complete, I was given a list of my ING sub accounts that were downloaded. Under “type” you can choose checking, savings, or credit card. Under “used mainly for” you can choose personal or business. For the nickname, I have just put the purpose behind the account (eg emergency fund, vacation fund, etc). (Pictured below)

Adding Other Accounts

Once I was done adding my savings account, I was presented with a screen to add another savings or checking account, add a credit card, or start using Quicken. I figured I should add some sort of liability  account before jumping into Quicken, so I chose the credit card option. This functions the same way as above, so I won’t bore you with the details.

After I was done adding all of those accounts, I was brought back to the home screen. At this point, I decided to add the rest of my accounts for retirement (401k, IRA), my car’s value for networth  calculations, and my PayPal that I use for My Life ROI. The image to the right shows where the button is found, and the image to the left shows what the screen looks like once you click that button. I have blanked out most of the significant values in the screenshots going forward. The process of adding these accounts is the same, so follow the steps outlined above. If for some reason you can not add an account, or Quicken doesn’t have an account, proceed throug the steps and choose the option to manually keep the account up to date. This will require you uploading the data from your financial institution manually.

Viewing Transactions

Once you’ve added accounts, the next thing to do to figure out Quicken is look at transactions. You can get to the screen to the right by clicking on the “banking” tab OR by clicking on one of the accounts in your sidebar on the left of the screen. I’ve purposefully not included the sidebar in this image.

This register should look pretty similar if you have used any budgeting tool before. Even if I were to have never used Quicken before, I would understand what this is doing just because of my knowledge of Mint. Some items are auto-categorized, otherwise you can choose the category as shown to the right. You can set up naming and category rules, as well.

If you aren’t familiar with the use of the register, though, be careful. Entering in manual transactions, or categorizing transactions as transfers, can really screw up your account balances. Quicken allows you to add manual transactions which opens the door for user error.

Defining Bills & Income

If you go back to the dashboard and click on “Get Started” for step 2, you will be prompted to set up a bill calendar / bill reminders. As shown to the right, Quicken automatically identified a few bills for me to pay.

I’m not exactly sure what logic it uses, but these are the bills it automatically identified for me: Rent ($512), Verizon Mobile ($47.44), Comcast Internet ($13.16), Gas (Variable), and Electric (Variable). This is pretty good as those are all of my regular bills that I have to pay. Of course I also need to send a payment to my credit cards to pay off the balance every month, but those were not included. And then there are variable bills like car insurance that I save for every month and only pay every 6 months.

To change the bill reminder, I clicked on the “edit” button. I wanted to see what kind of options I had (pictured left). A few of them were very exciting! You can set the due date and a reminder horizon, as I suspected. However, I was  real excited that I could sync this to Outlook (and thus to my phone). You can change the frequency (monthly? weekly?), amount (fixed? variable?), sunset clause (last bill to be paid), and even have Quicken automatically transfer the money for you from an account of your choice. However, this option, also known as bill pay, costs money. I think the option is awesome but not worth the $9.95/month surcharge. I would rather just schedule the payments myself. You should also be able to find a bank account that can do this automatically for you… for free.

You are also presented with a similiar “bill reminder” screen to plan your income. Likewise, Quicken picked up both of my direct deposits into my savings and checking.

Once you are done, the dashboard no longer shows a “Get Started” tidbit – it gives you a predicted cash flow until your next pay check based on your planned bills.

Setting Spending Targets

Back to the main screen and the only section left is section #3. Click “Get Started.” You are immediately presented with a few suggested categories to plan your spending. The middle column tells you what your average spending is and the right column is where you get to decide on your spending targets (aka budget). Please note: As shown to the right, my categories average spending is obviously a little funky. This information is entirely dependent on the accurate categorization of your transactions. No categories, no data. Short financial history in Quicken, skewed data. This information gets better and more useful as you use it longer, which is what I have experienced with Mint.

I entered some dollar amounts that I would like to plan my spending at and clicked next. The main screen is now a complete dashboard of information. To access more budgeting information, click on the “Planning” tab along the top.

Once on the planning tab, you are presented with all of the budgeting information. You can set up savings goals, add more categories to your expense tracking, and run spending reports. There is a column called “rollover reserve” that allows you to “move” money to or from it to make sure your budget is balanced. Think of them as rollover minutes. I haven’t set up Quicken to truly depict my situation, so you will notice that my allocations are greater than my expected income.

Financial Calculators

To further aid you in planning for the future, Quicken has some financial calculators readily available. For example, wondering how much you need to contribute to college for the next 16 years so that your 2 year old  can go to college for 5 years at a state school level tuition? Or are you wondering how much you will be able to afford given a certain contribution? However you want to figure out the math, you have the calculator to do it.

Other life events that there is a calculator available for:  Retirement, Refinancing, Savings, Loans.

There are also a plethora of tax tools for you to sink your teeth into (which I admittedly have not tried as of yet).

Investments

I feel a litle out of my league reviewing the investment part of Quicken because of how comprehensive it seems. The main screen I saw when I opened it up was a listing of each fund I own in my 401k along with the lot #, shares in the lot, and cost basis. If there is one thing that Mint is lacking for me, it is investment tracking. I want to learn more about investments, so I need a tool that can get me there.

There are a lot of fun reports that graphically represent the changing value and allocation of my portfolio.

The intriguing part, though, is all of the tools that are included. Asset allocation guide, capital gains tax estimator, portfolio rebalancer, portfolio analyzer, online research, etc. Then there are a ton of reports I can run, too!

I feel as if I could write a whole review on just the investment section of Quicken. Perhaps I will, but for most people, this should be more than you need.

Business

Right now as I have it set up, it is only accounting for transactions that I have tagged as business related. However, the category seems a lot more powerful as shown in the drop down menu I included in the screenshot.

If your business needs to invoice clients regularly, you can create a receivables account in Quicken. You can then create invoices for that account right from Quicken. This will then be included as expected cash flows for the business. You can also create estimates for clients that have been contacted but not sold.

If you travel for work, you can use the built in mileage tracker which I can only assume is then also used for tax purposes. If you run an established business (more complex than a small-medium sized blog like moi), a lot of these features seem like they could come in handy.

Quicken 2010 Recommended?

I will honestly say that I am impressed with this software. It does what Mint does, plus a lot more. It gives a lot more detailed reports and can tie into other tools that I use like Outlook and Turbo Tax.

If you are looking for a solution that is more comprehensive than the free solutions out there, Quicken seems to have a lot to show for all of the hype. If you like the fact that Mint does a lot of the work for you and you rarely have to tinker with anything, it seems like Quicken will not be your friend. I am not saying this is a fault of the program – rather it is by design that it expects the user to be actively engaged in their finances.

My Recommendation

For myself, I am at a cross-roads. I have a few years of data in Mint that is driving a very pleasurable user experience. It’s budget projections and suggestions are spot on, the data analysis allows me to look at my patterns over time, and it is simple.

However, my finances are starting to get more complicated and it seems like Mint is not as stretchable as Quicken is.

I will probably run Quicken in conjunction with Mint for a few months. This may take more work for me, but I’m hoping to see if I should make the jump. If you would like to purchase Quicken, start by comparing the different versions. Remember: There is a free online version if you don’t feel like spending any money!

The average starting salary in 2009 for all graduates was $49,307, a little below the average of $49,693 in 2008. The slight drop is understandable – as companies have been cutting benefits and instituting pay freezes.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), here are the Bachelor degrees that garnered the highest starting salary offers.

Top 15 Degrees By Starting Salary

This past Thursday, I made a post detailing the top 10 college degrees by demand. You probably wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there is a good bit of overlap. For obvious reasons, degrees that are high in demand also often times receive high compensation. This is particularly true for the more technical degrees.

15. Civil Engineering – $52,048

14. Information Sciences & Systems – $52,089

13. Construction Science/Management – $53,199

12. Aerospace/Aeronautical/ Astronautical Engineering – $56,311

11. Engineering Technology – $56,447

10. Systems Engineering – $57,438

9. Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering – $58,358

8. Mechanical Engineering – $58,766

7. Electrical/Electronics & Communications Engineering – $60,125

6. Computer Science – $61,407

5. Computer Engineering – $61,738

4. Mining & Mineral Engineering (incl. Geological) – $64,404

3. Chemical Engineering – $64,902

2. Petroleum Engineering – $83,121

1. Pharmacy – $111,782

(Source)

Key Takeaways

I wouldn’t pick a career based solely on the average starting salary (example: If the supply of graduates is far greater than the demand, or if it is a job that would not satisfy me). But, here are my takeaways after looking at that list:

• Getting a technical degree pays off by way of an increased starting salary. 11 of the top 15 highest paid majors are engineering related. 1 is medical. 1 is computer science. 1 is information science. And 1 is construction science. All technical.
• This is evident of a growing trend in America away from the sciences. As more students study arts and business, less students are studying the sciences. Our economy still needs these people and is willing to pay more to create an incentive.
• By looking at the overlap between the two lists (top 10 by demand and top 10 by salary), you can choose a major that has a high starting salary AND is in demand. The majors that overlap: Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Information Science & Systems, and Computer Engineering.
• The starting salaries do not mesh up exactly between the two lists even though the source is the same. I am guessing the analyzer (CNBC) did different things with the data for each list. They may have been more inclusive of related majors in one list, and more exclusive in the other, which would skew the salary data. Not really sure, but the important thing is that we get an idea of what’s going on. For all intents and purposes, the exact numbers shouldn’t make that big of a difference if the variance is only a few thousand dollars.
• Healthcare is way out in front, and will most likely only get better as the population ages. (Leave the healthcare debate out of this, thanks)

Pay isn’t everything, but it helps to know what you’re getting yourself into. If you are expecting a $60,000/yr salary out of college, $20,000 in student loans isn’t that bad of an investment. However, if you are expecting a $30,000/yr salary out of college, that $20,000 is a lot more burdensome (but still manageable).

In the end, just don’t let your student loans drive your career. And make sure you are happy with what you are doing.

Every single year… EVERY single year I do not plan for Halloween. If I played it well, I would get a costume the week following Halloween for 70% off and save it for the next year. I mean, it’s not a big burden to do that. But alas, I don’t. And how can you go to all of the fun costume parties and bar events if you are the guy in normal clothes who says “Oh, I’m… uhh… the guy from the Real World. Yeah, get it?”

Last minute costumes are one thing for a solo person. You throw a few things together and BAM, you got a decent enough costume to get into the party. But what about for couples who want to theme their costumes? Most store bought costumes cost a pretty penny, so here are 5 cheap costume ideas!

(All images will open in new window so you can see them closer)

Jim & Pam, The Office

You couldn’t ask for an easier and cheaper costume. The Office is a popular NBC television show that is filmed as a mockumentary following the employees of a paper company, Dunder Mifflin. Jim and Pam are two of the main characters and are married to each other. Jim is a co-manager (former salesman) and Pam is a saleswoman (former receptionist).

As long as the guy has a shirt, slacks, and a tie, he is good to go for Jim. For bonus points, try and make his hair a little disheveled – in the “I look good, but I don’t try” way.

Pam is known for looking plain. So stick with a work skirt, collared shirt, and a “motherly” sweater over top. Her hair is wavy and she usually ties it back.

This “costume” isn’t completely obvious, so a “Dunder Mifflin” sticker with “Hey, My Name is…” may help. Or you could just prank the bartender by putting their Jose Cuerva in a Jell-O mold or gluing all of their pint glasses down. That might give them a hint.

Bonny & Clyde, Outlaws

Bonny and Clyde represent a relationship that has carried on through the decades. They were a couple who, along with  their gang, robbed convenience stores, gas stations, and banks in the early 1930’s. They are thought to have killed at least nine police officers and several more civilians. Eventually, they were caught and gunned down in Louisiana by police officers.

What do you need to wear? You should both dress nice in an early 20th century way (look at that awesome hat), carry fake guns, and get a cloth sack with a dollar sign on it to represent the money you just stole. For novelty sake, you can throw some candy in the money sack and give it out to people while you’re out on the town.

Warning: If you are going someplace that is public or you don’t know a lot of people, substitute the fake gun with a cardboard cut out that is colored to look like a gun. Better safe than sorry.

Clark Kent & Lois Lane, Superman

Clark Kent is otherwise known as the alter ego of Superman. Clark is a reporter for the Daily Planet. A newspaper? A fitting role for a superhero who is often times at crime scenes and often has unexplainable absences. Lois Lane is a fellow reporter who often rejects Clark’s advances, but is infatuated with Superman. Little does she know…

The costume is much like Jim and Pam’s. You need to wear something that a professional (reporter) would wear. To dress as Clark, wear a suit, tie, and black frame glasses. To dress as Lois, dress as a females news reporter by wearing a suit and heels. Carry a note pad or voice recorder with you if you would like.

So how will you convey the “Superman” aspect of it so that people get that you are Clark Kent and Lois Lane? Wear a Superman shirt under your dress shit and keep it unbuttoned – hinting at your hidden identity. You can take a normal shirt, print a logo, and tape it on. Or you can go to a party store, they will surely have plates or napkins with a superman logo that you can cut out. Or any number of stores will have actual Superman shirts you can buy.

Cleopatra & Mark Antony, Roman & Egyptian Empire

Cleopatra was a queen of Egypt who held relationships with Caesar and Mark Antony. She wasn’t known to be particularly beautiful, but she was seductive and charming. This would be a fun take off of the normal Roman god and goddess costume.

To dress as Mark Antony, try and dress as a Roman would. As the picture on the right shows, use white under garments and create a brown vest with matching brown forearm straps and bicep straps. Drape a red toga-like thing around your neck. It isn’t really a cloak or a toga, not sure what it’s called.

For Cleopatra, you can wear a white dress with gold embroidery. Get some fake gold jewelry to make yourself flashy. She pretty much dressed in a very Greek/Roman inspired way.

This may be cold, but it could be fun to dress as one of the most famous ancient couples!

Tarzan & Jane, Disney

Tarzan is the story of a young boy whose parents are killed by leopards. He winds up being raised by a gorilla named Kala. Jane is the daughter of a professor who is part of a research group. Jane gets separate from the group and Tarzan winds up saving her from a group of baboons. It is a classic love story about two people from completely different worlds.

The costumes are very easy to make as shown to the right. Just go to any store that sells fabric and you can make a skirt and shoulder strap for Tarzan. For Jane, you can go in two different directions: 1) You can dress as an English person who is on a safari in the jungle, or 2) You can dress like Tarzan in a skirt and bra. It all really depends on what stage in the relationship you want to depict!

If it’s cold, this might not be the best costume. It also probably only works if you are relatively fit!

A Few Tips

In addition to the costume ideas, here are a few tips to make sure your Halloween isn’t a bust:

• Don’t over think it. You want people to know who you are. Your “clever” interpretation and personification of the relationship between healthcare and taxes really isn’t clever. Be simple.
• Be conscientious of feelings. Don’t be a terrorist or a Nazi soldier. People will get upset. The point is to have a good time. And also, you don’t want these pictures to wind up on a social networking site… companies do use those sites, ya know!
• Bring some duct tape. You never know when your costume will rip or break. That’ would especially be a problem for the Tarzan/Jane.
• If you make your costume, give yourself pockets for keys/money and an easy way to go to the bathroom.

Other than that… have fun! Does anyone have some cheap and quick costume ideas to share for other couples that are waiting until the last minute?

Even though 43% of employers intend to maintain their current level of college hiring, they say they want to focus on fall recruiting and cutting costs by attending less job fairs. If they are attending less job fairs, that means you will have to be more vigilant then your fellow classmates to get noticed.

Overall college hiring intentions (Class of 2010 vs. Class of 2009)

“Don’t project beyond the range of the known observations”

But, how are things looking for the class of 2009?

Top 10 Degrees By Demand

10. Marketing/Marketing Management

Majors in this field study how to build a successful image or campaign for a business or product and can be employed by any number of companies in a variety of capacities. Marketing graduates average a starting salary of $43,334.

9. Management Information Systems/Business Data Processing

MIS involves the different ways that technology can propel a business. Expect to start with an average starting salary of $52,817

8. Computer Engineering

Companies need people who know how to design and develop software and systems for a computer network. Employers, who on average were offering a $59,803 starting salary, range from software engineering to telecommunications firms.

7. Information Sciences & Systems

Students majoring in this area learn the ins and outs of creating computer systems or a web site. Information sciences and systems graduates were offered a starting salary of $49,167.

6. Economics/Finance

With the state of the economy, who doesn’t need an economist to put it all in perspective? Finance and economics majors are expected to rank sixth on the hiring list. When it comes to starting salaries, the average starting salary was $49,794.

5. Business Administration/Management

Majors in this area, who earned an average starting salary of $45,887, are trained to successfully lead a team and complete a business’s plans and goals efficiently.

4. Computer Science

Computer science majors graduate knowing how to develop computer programs and how the machines work. Their skills earned grads an average salary offer of $56,128.

3. Electrical Engineering

At an average starting salary of $57,404, electrical engineer majors are able to design and oversee the electrical aspects of everything from a car to the electrical wiring in a building.

2. Mechanical Engineering

Majors in this field can become mechanical engineers where they design and manufacture mechanical devices like an elevator or a generator. Their first salary out of college averages $58,648.

1. Accounting

Take out your calculators: Employers said they expect to hire accounting majors more than any other group from the class of 2008. Accountants averaged a starting salary of $48,334.

(Source)

Key Takeaways

As my quote in the introduction says, don’t read too much into these lists. Just because a major is in high demand now doesn’t mean you should go into it. If you are just starting college, 4 years can change quite a lot. However, if you look at it every year, it can provide you the direction that we are heading.

• Undergraduate majors with “technical” skills (accounting, engineering, computer sciences) command the most attention in today’s job market.
• If you want to be in demand AND make money, you need to go more technical. Try mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, or computer engineering.
• New jobs are not likely to be plentiful, but replacement openings due to aging in the work force will be dominant.
• The only major that I saw drop in pay from previous years data was Business Management. The abundance of business grads may be driving the price down.
• Elementary and Secondary Education and Information Technology are the best prospects for new grads in the next few years.
• Healthcare positions, particularly in nursing, are also attractive options.

You do not have to be in one of those majors to get hired (obviously). There are also niche majors that are in high demand relative to the amount of people who go to school for the subject matter. For example, I went to school for Supply Chain and Logistics. This is a growing field both domestically and internationally. But it was also the smallest (I think) business major at my school. There were plenty of job offers for all of my classmates, and our major wasn’t on any “high demand” job lists.

When it all comes down to it, I published this list to give you some information, but don’t let it guide all of your decisions.

Just in case you don’t feel like reading through pub 590 (and I can’t blame you, the IRS is very good at dragging out documents), I will summarize the key takeaways from the document.

2010 Contribution Limits

The contribution limits are very straight forward and are the same as last year.

The above table shows that people under the age of 50 are allowed a maximum contribution of $5,000. People 50 and older are allowed an additional $1,000, also known as a “catch up contribution,” which brings their total to $6,000.

The contribution limits are per year per person, not per year per person per IRA type. Put in another way, if you are 30 years old you can not contribute $5,000 to a Traditional IRA and $5,000 to a Roth IRA. You can only contribute a combination that equals $5,000 total.

2010 Roth IRA Income Phase-outs

The above contribution limits are not effective for everyone. They are used as a general rule. But as always, there are exceptions. These exceptions focus around income limits and filing status for the most part.

The income phase-outs are only applicable to Roth IRAs. Traditional IRAs do not have income limits. However, they do have income thresholds in which you are no longer able to contribute tax free dollars, which I will go over later.

Single, Head of Household, or Married Filing Separately (And Didn’t Live With Your Spouse)

If you’re single, head of household, or married and filing separately (and did not live with your spouse for ANY part of the year), you can contribute a maximum of…

• $5,000 if you’re under 50 and your earned income is $105,000 or less
• $6,000 if you’re over 50 and your earned income is $105,000 or less
• $0 regardless of age if your earned income is $120,000 or more

If your earned income is somewhere between $105,001 and $120,000, your 2010 Roth IRA contribution limit phases out based on a percentage basis.

Married Filing Jointly

If you’re married and filing a joint tax return, you can contribute a maximum of…

• $5,000 if you’re under 50 and your combined earned income is $167,000 or less
• $6,000 if you’re over 50 and your combined earned income is $167,000 or less
• $0 regardless of age if your combined earned income is more than $176,000

If your earned income is somewhere between $167,001 and $176,000, your 2010 Roth IRA contribution limit phases out based on a percentage basis.

Married Filing Separately (And Lived With Your Spouse)

If you’re married filing separately (and lived with your spouse for ANY part of the year), you can contribute a maximum of…

• $5,000 if you’re under 50 and your earned income is $0
• $6,000 if you’re over 50 and your earned income is $0
• $0 regardless of age if your earned income is $10,000 or more

If your earned income is somewhere between $1 and $10,000, your 2010 Roth IRA contribution limit phases out based on a percentage basis.

2010 Traditional IRA Income Phase-Out

As mentioned above, there is no income limit to contribute money into your Traditional IRA. However, there is an income limit if you would like to do so while making it tax deductible. The phase out threshold starts at 55,000 for single filers and 89,000 for married filing jointly filers. The upper brackets that determine when the filer can no longer deduct contributions are 65,000 and 109,000 respectively.

Any income between the lower limit and upper limit is figured out on a percentage basis.

2010 Roth IRA Conversions

If you are ineligible for a Roth IRA because of your income, you may be glad to find out that the income limits were removed for a Roth IRA conversion.

How could this come in handy? Let’s say you make too much money to contribute to a Roth IRA. You can make non tax deductible contributions to your Traditional IRA and then convert them to a Roth IRA at the end of the year. However, there are some tricky tax situations around doing this. You should seek a tax professionals input as you may get an unexpected tax bill if you do it wrong (which will be easy to do if you have both tax deductible contributions and non tax deductible contributions to a Traditional IRA).

This article in the Baltimore Sun explains what I just went over.

Contribute!

Before we get ahead of ourselves, keep in mind that you have until April 15, 2010 to make your 2009 IRA contributions. You will be able to make your 2010 contributions from January 2010 until April 15, 2011. Obviously there is a little overlap there, so make sure you declare what tax year you are contributing to to avoid any issues.

If your teenager already understands the basics of budgeting (as I went over in the post targeted towards kids), then the following tips should be a lot easier to enact. If not, I will offer some suggestions along the way on how to bring them up to speed.

During the teenager years is when I really started to bring home an income worth talking about. I made money as a kid doing odd jobs, but never had brought home a paycheck for obvious legal reasons. This is the case for a lot of teenagers and thus they find themselves ill prepared once they have a pocket full of spending money.

Tracking Expenses

You should have your teenager track their expenses much like the way I suggested you teach a kid to budget. However, this is not the end exercise.

After a month or two of tracking even the tiniest expenses, they should tabulate all of their expenses into categories (eg fast food, gas, etc). This will allow them to view their current spending habits. If they have a checking account and debit card, they can use a service like Mint to automatically download and categorize all of their transactions for them. It may require some tweaking, but it does help by automating the process.

Once all of their expenses can be accounted for, you should go line by line and look for ways to trim the fat and other opportunities. Most likely you will encounter at least one of these:

• Shortfalls. How can they increase income? Decrease expenses?
• Needs vs Wants. Tell them how to determine needs and wants, and that they should be budgeted for accordingly. (car insurance gets paid before video games, for example)
• Impulse Buying. If it seems like every time they go to the Supermarket they pay $20 more than they were expecting, they may need to find a system to control their impulses. Hopefully a budget will help with that.
• Responsibilities. Maybe at 16 you will pay for the cell phone UNLESS they go over. However, they should know that at certain ages they will pick up more responsibilities. Tell them they need to pay for their whole cell phone bill at 18, in this case.
• No bail outs from the government of mom and dad. They should know that you will always support them, but that only goes so far. If they screw up, they need to buckle down. Don’t preach, let it happen. You want them to make mistakes and learn from them. Buying a $300 Xbox they can’t afford at age 16 is a much better mistake than buying a $400,000 house they can’t afford at age 27.

Now that all of the expenses are accounted for and you have helped them figure out where to cut down and how much to earmark for certain categories, they can move on to budgeting.

Explaining & Creating the Budget

With younger children, it’s easiest to just tell them that a budget is a paper that tells them how much money they have to spend.

However, as your teenager starts earning regular income from a job like babysitting or a paycheck from a company, they start understanding why they need to save for future payments like car insurance or the purpose behind an emergency fund. So the concept of budgeting should make sense to them. You just need to take it one step further and have them formalize the process and come up with a concrete budget.

The process, as I just said, should make sense to the teenager. If anything, the above exercise where they track their expenses should help them understand the purpose. If they are poor at managing their money, you may find this out when they still ask you for money to do “this and that” even though they are making money.

If they aren’t sure what typical constitutes income and expenses, you can go over this basic list with them:

Income: Paycheck, Tips, Side Income, Allowance, Gifts

Expenses: Auto (Insurance, Gas, Repairs), Food, Parking Permits (I had to pay to park at my high school), Medicine, Cell Phone, Utility Share, Charity, Emergency Fund

The first thing they should notice is that some of those expenses are irregular! If they don’t: POUND THAT IDEA INTO THEIR CRANIUM! If you don’t, they will get slammed during the months in which they have large expenses such as car insurance. This means they need to budget for car insurance every month and put that money aside.

Sample Budget

Here is a sample budget I have created that you can use with your teenager. It is an excel document, so you need a spreadsheet program to utilize it. Since your teenager is most likely computer literate, I have made it so the spreadsheet auto calculates the totals in case they want to do their budget on the computer. There is a sample budget on the tab called “Sample.”

  BudgetingForTeens.xls

Following Up

Encouraging your teen to develop and stick to a budget will hold them accountable to their finances. Imagine how awesome that will be for you AND them when they are adults that are responsible for their own finances. They will thank you when they don’t have $100,000 in debt to pay down at the age of 23.

If they are still receiving an allowance, try to give them a monthly one so that they learn to stretch it further. The weekly allowances you give younger children are not as productive or effective at an older age.

Required tools: A bank account, a source of income, expenses, a budget worksheet

Optional Tools: A financial aggregator like Mint, a debit card

Any More Applicable Advice?

Do you have an “out of the park” method for making budgets make sense to a teenager?

Do you have any improvements or suggestions on top of what I said?