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| By George I think they've got it. |
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After meeting with Jerome and Candy yesterday I walked away thinking... WOW, they "get it", they are thinking about things differently. They have a thought process that weighs all of their options before making a choice to spend... now that's progress!
A couple of things they mentioned to me that brought me to this conclusion were when Candy said she had gone through her kids closets and pulled out clothes to sell at 'Plato's Closet,' so they made money to purchase clothes for summer. Jerome mentioned he has found free movies online to watch and I asked him to blog about that in more detail so others could take advantage of his great find - stay tuned.
Candy said she is also saving rain water from their down spouts in a bucket to use to water their flowers. Now that's an easy way to save on the summer water bill.
They have also noticed that the grocery bills seem to be coming in under budget now that this new thought process has kicked it.
Great job Deister family!
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by Rachelle Jackson, June 5, 2010 at 12:56 PM | Add a Comment |
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| May Radio on KFKF 94.1 FM |
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| Choices to consider for upcoming summer fun..... |
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I had a great session with Candy this week! Spring is in the air and the kids will be out of school soon. What will the budget look like for the summer?
We spent some time going over the amount spent for food and how that may change during the summer when the kids are home. We also discussed expenses that will be coming up such as summer camp.
I believe that progress was made in that the Deister's know what their budget is and now all they need to do is decide what "trade offs" need to be made. There is still the same amount of money to work with, and now there may be new priorities.
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by Rachelle Jackson, May 8, 2010 at 1:04 PM | Add a Comment |
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| Challenges and Diversification |
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This my first time being a Financial Makeover coach and hopefully with Rachelle’s help we can help get the Deisters on the road to financial freedom that I know they want to be on. There are always going to be challenges ahead regarding paying the current bills and paying for the children’s activities that are important to them as well as saving for college and retirement. The Deister family is meeting the challenges head on by getting all the family members involved in the Makeover and monthly budget and each family member is finding a way to help out. I did take a look at Jerome’s 401k that he is currently involved in through his employer and offered some suggestions on how he could allocate his monthly contributions going forward as well as the money that is already in the 401k. One of the most important things when investing is to make sure your money is diversified among different asset classes like large stocks, mid size stocks, small stocks, international stocks and different types of bonds because nearly every year a different asset class might be the best place and also the worst place to be. By being diversified among the different asset classes you can usually help smooth out the volatility and stay away from big drops or losses in your portfolio. For an example, having some money in bonds in 2008 would have helped lessen the losses that people experienced as opposed to being all in stocks. Once you lose money you always have to make back more than what you lost just to get back to even, so the key is to try and stay away from just being in one area of the market that at one point might be the worst place to be in. Jerome was just in a couple of places in the market and was missing out on some potential opportunities. Hopefully this will help lower his risk and at the same time raise his overall rate of return going forward.
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Investments and investment advisory services offered through CUSO Financial Services, L.P. (CFS), an independent broker-dealer and SEC Registered Investment Advisor are Not NCUA/NCUSIF insured, are Not credit union guaranteed and May lose value. CommunityAmerica Credit Union is affiliated with CFS. Financial Advisors are employees of CommunityAmerica Credit Union and registered through CFS. (Member FINRA/SIPC)
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by Randy Pierson, April 12, 2010 at 4:58 PM | Add a Comment |
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| Small adjustments are paying off |
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The Deister family has made a major change in the way they are paying their bills each month. Instead of going to each individual website to make a payment they now go to one place, CommunityAmerica’s Online Bill Pay! This saves them a huge amount of time and time is something very precious to this family of five.
The topic of discussion recently was around dividing the house payment in half and taking a portion out of each paycheck. By doing this the family can calculate better how much they have to work with on their budget without a large amount coming out of one check.
Another great idea that has worked for the Deister’s is to barter. Candy has traded her talent with someone she knows from church. Candy is making the headpieces for everyone in the wedding party and since the bride is a hairdresser she is cutting everyone’s hair in the Deister family in exchange.
KUDOs to the Deister family for making these types of adjustments. I can see each month how their thought process is changing in the way they evaluate what they spend. |
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by Rachelle Jackson, April 10, 2010 at 9:44 AM | Add a Comment |
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