Read these books to raise your financial IQ
Before we turn to identity theft, with continuing predictions of energy costs increasing, there are countless tips about saving money at home, like turning the heat down and turning off the lights when you leave a room. But my favorite is to wash your clothes in cold water, which I have read in numerous books and on websites. I have been doing that for years, so please consider it.
Background reading
On a different subject, students frequently ask me if there are books to read to learn more and up their financial IQs.
I refer them to the library and to places where they can buy used books, so that they can save some money (lesson number one). So in that spirit, I recently stopped in the used books section of Barnes and Noble and purchased a few books on personal finances. So here are some tips from one of them.
We have talked a lot in this column, as I do in the schools, about credit histories and credit scores, and the need to pull those free credit reports from each of the three primary credit reporting agencies once a year. It will mean that you can correct any incorrect entries that are dragging your credit down, like an unfavorable entry for someone with a name or address similar to yours.
It can also help you find signs of identity theft.
Signs of identity theft
On that subject, here are some things to look for as signs of identity theft from “The Infographic Guide to Personal Finance:”
1. Some of your regular bills or other pieces of mail go missing.
2. There are unfamiliar charges on your credit card statement.
3. Money is missing from your bank account.
4. You get calls from debt collectors about debts that aren’t yours.
5. You go to e-file your tax return and it gets rejected.
6. You get medical bills that aren’t yours.
What do you do next? Debt-to-income ratios
Then, what do you need to do?
1. Contact your credit card companies and banks to let them know that you are a fraud victim and identify any fraudulent charges.
2. Get free copies of all of your credit reports.
3. Go to the credit reporting company’s websites and dispute any incorrect entries.
4. Place a free 90-day fraud alert on one of your credit reports (Experian, TransUnion, or Equifax), and they are required to notify the other two.
5. File a police report.
6. Visit IdentiyTheft.gov, and file an Identity theft affidavit to create an identity theft report. It will require the police report number.
7. Verify the fraud alert was placed. This could take a week.
Great advice!
Here is another useful formulation from Infographic to calculate your debtto-income ratio, which you hear a lot about, and whether yours is acceptable or not.
Debt includes your monthly payments for your mortgage, rent, home equity loan or reverse mortgage, any student loans, car loan or lease payments, credit card payments, and any other innovative loans of today, including rentto-own agreements, payday loans, buy now pay later, or other similar purchase or services agreements. Then any personal loans to banks or individuals, or other loans, like from your IRA. Then compare that to your gross income.
Its conclusion is “that below 20% is excellent, between 20% and 40 % is average, between 40% and 50% is stressed, and over 50% is danger.”
The costs of having kids and not having them
On a different subject, the decreasing birthrate in the U.S. that although I have been aware of it, and know that for many young people it is primarily about financial considerations and that the teen birthrate in the U.S. has decreased dramatically, I was a little taken back at a holiday get-together when I heard this statement from someone with younger children. “Many younger people aren’t having children because they cost a lot, take up a lot of your time, so you can’t do as much yourself, and they aren’t going to take care of you when you get older, so why?”
So I did a little research, and here are some things that I found.
From the Wall Street Journal: “The number of babies born in the U.S. started plummeting 15 years ago and hasn’t recovered since. Provisional monthly figures show that there were about 3.66 million babies born in the U.S. in 2022, a decline of 15% since 2007, even though there are 9% more women in their prime childbearing years.”
Then there is this from the Carolina Population Center: “There is not a lot of support for parents in the U.S., and young adults face a lot of challenges – student loan debt, the high cost of housing, job insecurity – that may lead them to delay, or maybe even give up on, having children. People feel more worried about the future than they might have been several decades ago. They worry about the economy, child care and whether they can afford to have children.”
After thinking about what so many young people must be seeing as they look into their future and the future of any children, I think I can better understand it. Think about these.
1. For many in our hyper-consumer keep-up society it is hard to save, but the future says you need to save more for a retirement with dignity, health care and for higher taxes because of the national debt.
2. In my parents’ generation, there were many more stay-at-home moms and lots more grandparent support. Now, the cost of daycare is unaffordable for many.
3. Housing for a family is unaffordable for many.
4. Many young people are looking at a student loan payment that is almost as much as a mortgage.
5. Children’s organized activities are expensive, and college costs are out of control.
6. What will climate change mean for the future of children?
7. I have worked hard, and want to have all those “experiences,” but with children, I may not have the time or money for them.
Can this change, or should it?
John Ninfo is a retired bankruptcy judge and the founder of the National CARE Financial Literacy Program.