Some Companies Are Adding Benefits...No Joke

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Ok, I know many of you have responsibility for staff and looking for ways to cut costs. Well, maybe you might want to think about how you make those changes. The Wall Street Journal today had a really interesting article about the need to value employees and combat sinking employee morale.

Perking Up: Some Companies Offer Surpising New Benefits

These companies have stepped up and done something out of the box. I bet you those that make the effort for the employees will be the ones that will be a part of the economic recovery, and not a casualty of the economic crisis. Think strategically! One benefit not listed here has been free financial advice. That would be a great one to help everyone through this period.

And if you don't have staff, but you are worried about your own job security, maybe you can drop this anonymously in the employee suggestion box if you have one.

WATCH: More Money For YOU By Cutting Spending

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Kiplinger.com has a great video with some quick tips to cut spending. Some categories?

• Food - Restaurants and Shopping
• Mortgage and Insurance
• Energy
• Transportation - Purchase, Insurance, Gas
• Clothing - Shopping, Reducing Impulse Buys, Credit card management etc
• Entertainment
• Vacation - Airfare etc.
• Utility and Technology Bills - Cable, Cell Phone etc., Conservation tips
• Pay Down Debt - Tax Exemptions,
  
• Life Insurance
• Cash Back Credit Cards
• Buying and Selling online, Shopping online, internet comparison shopping
  

It's just under 9 minutes. Totally worth it.

Call Your Credit Card Companies

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If you are not aware of this you need to be.

Since the global financial markets went into a tailspin last September, credit card companies have taken it upon themselves to cancel your credit cards without discussion or warning.

So, if you have a zero balance, and think you are being so responsible by doing that - and you are - some credit card companies have just decided to cancel those cards.

Why? Well, they have a host of reasons. But whatever they may be, what I want to know is that since for the most part, people work very hard to maintain a good credit record, and work very hard to have access to affordable credit, then 1) why are these companies not required to discuss this matter of cancellation with you and 2) why is there not a process for appeal or review?

Today's Wall Street Journal did a nice short piece on this: Credit Card Issuers: Buy Something Or Else! I submit it is well worth your time to read these few paragraphs.

Now, if you are not concerned, you should be.

Credit cards serve some very useful functions. For example:

• They provide access to funds when you have none - albeit at a price. Hence, you should always have one for emergencies
  
• For many services like a rental car or a hotel room, you must provide a credit card to secure the room and also in the event of incidentals.
  
• Credit cards allow remote purchases via the phone and internet.

So, they are very useful. I just insist that prudent money management necessitates that credit card use must be moderated and managed.

Let's talk a bit about your credit rating. A good credit rating gives you access to credit, and access to lower rates. Did you know that when your credit cards are canceled, your credit rating could be negatively affected? Your credit score is determined by your debt relative to credit available. So when a card is canceled, your available credit falls.

Oh, and by the way, if you are depending on your rewards from any card - zero balances or not - you need to rethink that. Check out CNBC's article today: Credit Card Firms Slash Rewards To Cushion Losses

My two cents? Go call your credit card companies. Decide which cards you want to keep. And then if you must make small purchases regularly to keep those cards that you have zero balances on, you may want to consider doing so to keep your credit lines open. But make sure you don't sacrifice your debt management for it. And as for the 'by the way" with the rewards, I'd use 'em before I lose 'em.

FREE Online Personal Finance Courses

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Check out this article in today's Wall Street Journal about the sharp increase in online personal finance courses: A Boost in Online Money Management.

What's the trend? People are arming themselves with knowledge to make informed decisions. Even if you use a financial adviser, it would be prudent to ensure that you have enough of your own knowledge to evaluate if his or her recommendations are appropriate for you, your particular financial situation, your goals, and your risk tolerance which determines not only investing, but also how much money you feel is a comfortable cushion of savings in the current environment.

There are many FREE and paid services you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home!

From the article: "Popular courses included those on reducing spending, and ways of saving and creating a priority spending plan. "

With a little due diligence to ensure the information is credible, do yourself a huge favor and check out some FREE or paid personal finance courses!

What's a small investment of your time if it saves or makes you money for your own financial security?

Spend Less on Health Care - 3 Quick Tips

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No one wants to think about getting sick, but it happens. Plus, there's regular health maintenance all of us have to do - annual checkups etc. One thing we know for sure - health care is very expensive. Here are 3 quick tips to bring down those healthcare costs.:

1. Get health insurance.

For some people it's part of your benefits package at work; while others debate whether or not they should pay the premiums. Well, why do you pay premiums? So that the insurance company will cover the costs of certain covered activities up to the limit of the insurance that you have bought.

Health insurance is worth it, and here's why:

• Health insurance covers a wide range of things - doctors visits, dentist visit, optician visits, prescriptions, hospitalizations etc. Other than hospitalizations, I think health care provider visits (doctor etc.) and prescriptions are pretty unavoidable for most people. Since you have to spend money regularly on health-care, why not pay the least that you can for each visit/prescription/event?

• Here's the key: if you have an unexpected health catastrophe at any age, comprehensive major medical benefit covers you so you don't have to look first to wiping out savings, going into debt or cashing in investments.
  

What do you need to know about health insurance? You pay a fraction of the cost up to a limit.

Consider this.

• My recent visit to the dentist cost J$6000. BUT, when I took out my insurance card, I actually paid J$1200. That's right. I saved J$4800 just by making sure that I had health insurance and had the card. I paid 20% of the cost that was quoted to me. I saved 80%.

• Prescriptions with insurance can be hundreds of dollars instead of thousands of dollars.
  

If American Express would allow me to borrow their tag line, I'd say "I never leave home without my insurance card"

2. Get a NHF card.

A NHF card is a National Health Fund card, and no you don't have to be a senior citizen to qualify. If you live in Jamaica, if you have a NHF card, the government will subsidize the cost of certain prescriptions in certain categories of illness.

NHF and your insurance card work well together. So let's say you need Drug A. Drug A is covered by NHF and the Government pays a portion. Then, the pharmacist will determine if your insurance will pick up another portion, and how much. Then you pay what's left between the original cost and what NHF paid and what your insurance paid.

Now, why get an NHF card? Because it will allow your insurance benefits to last longer - you will take longer to reach your prescription limits and therefore receive more subsidies by using both.

What illnesses does NHF cover? Here's the list (click here):

• Cancer: Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer

• Cardio-vascular: Hypertension, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Rheumatic Fever/Heart Disease, High Cholesterol, Vascular Disease

• Endocrine: Diabetes

• Neurological: Epilepsy, Major Depression, Psychosisoptical
  

• Optical: Glaucoma

• Respiratory: Asthma
  

• Musculo-skeletal; Arthritis
  

• Geneto-urinary: Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH)

NHF has a specific list of drugs in each category and the amount of subsidy for each. Here is the link for the Drug Subsidy List. For information about how to apply for a NHF card, click here.

3. Prevention and Wellness

Generally speaking, it's less expensive to avoid illness than to treat it or cure it. Take the time to adopt a healthy lifestyle with proper nutrition, diet, exercise and rest. Besides, the better you treat your body, the more you strengthen it to fight illnesses that you may not have been able to avoid!

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• Today Show On Saving Money On Healthcare (patientadvocate.wordpress.com)

Real $$$ with Discounts !

Image via WikipediaMeet your new best friend - Discounts!

Now, I have a confession to make here - until my experiments started, I never asked for discounts. At minimum, Discounts are supposed to reduce the cost of your consumption. However, they do more than that. By reducing the cost of consumption, they leave more money that can earn interest. Also, dollar for dollar, every time you forgo a discount you could have used in 5 minutes, you have depleted more than one whole YEAR's accumulated after-tax interest.

If you are a skeptic - like I was - let me tell you how I was convinced.

First, I realized that in a 5 minute transaction, if I get a discount on $1 of say 10% (the usual discount amount), I would have saved 10 cents. Not worth the effort, right? No, actually.

• For one, it's very straightforward to get a discount, so it's not really a bother.
  

• For two, and this was the clincher for me, I thought to myself, well, how long does it take me to get 10 cents worth of interest on $1? Well, as it turns out, its much longer than 5 minutes. It can even be longer than a year. That's right ONE WHOLE YEAR. That's because the majority of after tax interest rates of saving are less than 10%. So, here came my "aha moment" when I realized that by not asking for a discount, I was negating all the interest I was earning. No, that would not do.

• For three, the more money that stays in my saving account that is not spent earns interest so why not reduce the cost of consumption if I can.

Let me tell you about my discount experiment:

Because I have car insurance with NEM (in Jamaica), I am provided with a JAA card.
Full Disclosure: I work with JNBS, the parent of NEM and JAA.

Now, JAA stands for the Jamaica Automobile Association (it is affiliated with the International Automobile Associations ). JAA has discount partners with more than two hundred (yes, 200) merchants with discounts ranging from 5%-55%! See list here.

I wanted to see how the discount program worked so one Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, I went to my regular pharmacy for an item. They had it and the cost was J$500. However, my regular pharmacy was not listed as a JAA Discount Partner - that means I could not use my JAA card. So, I went to the next nearest pharmacy listed as a JAA Discount Partner. They had the item and it was the same price as my regular pharmacy.

Great, I thought! 10% off means I save J$50. In 5 minutes, I would have saved myself what it takes more than one whole year to earn in after-tax interest on savings on a J$500 deposit. AND, if I save J$50, I can continue to earn interest on the J$50. Now, I was really excited.

But alas, there was a hitch. I asked a store employee if I could use the JAA card for my discount and was told no. I said "But, there's a sign on the door". There was. But maybe she didn't remember or was new. So, luckily I had carried my list from the JAA (a multiple page document outlining all the discount partners and the amount of the discount) and showed her that the pharmacy was listed. She was most gracious and agreed to provide me with the discount. So, after my bill rung up, I paid it, said thanks and headed to the door.

Now, I couldn't wait to see the bill as evidence of my experiment! And here's where I learned another lesson: Always Check Your Bills and Receipts. When I checked my bill, my discount was there - but it was on J$750, not J$500. So, I got a $75 discount, but the item had cost me $675 when it should have cost me $450 with my $50 discount on $500. I had paid more than the original $500! Frankly, I was deflated. This was not the way this experiment was supposed to go. BUT, I had learned to check the receipt.

So, I went back to the store employee and asked what caused the price difference. Turns out it was an error and the adjustment was made so that I was charged the price I saw for the item. So I got my discount, and had paid less - that was the point of the experiment and I had achieved it!

Bottom line: You can save some real money immediately by using discounts! Dollar for dollar in 5 minutes, the cost of NOT using a discount can exceed one whole YEAR's worth of accumulated after-tax interest. If you get a discount, the money saved can continue to earn interest! Even if there may be a problem, persist because it is worth it.

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If you are in Jamaica, a JAA card provides a network of approximately 200 local discount partners with discounts ranging from 5% to 55%. It has other benefits too, including overseas discount benefits but let's focus on the local discounts for tonight. Click here .Chances are you will find something on this list already relevant to your daily life. Although the merchants can change at any time - and some of the new ones have not yet been updated on the website, the categories are listed below and I have linked each one to the JAA website so you can see the current list. Click below and see the merchants!!

• attractions
  
• auto parts and services
• beauty salons and supplies
  
• book stores
  
• clothing and shoe stores
  
• dry cleaners
  
• electronics and jewellry stores
• flower shops
  
• gift shops
  
• gyms and spas
  
• hardwares
  
• hotels
  
• insurance companies
• locksmiths
• optical
• other
• overseas AA membership
  
• photo studios
  
• pharmacies
• rental cars
  
• restaurants
• service stations
• travel agencies
• wedding planners
  
• wrecking companies and garages

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Additionally, if you are a member of Jamaica National Building Society (that means you have any kind of savings account with the Society), you have similar access to the 200 discount partner network. Click here. There are slight differences from the JAA list. To get the discount, you need to show your JN 24/7 ABM card. Chances are you will find something on this list already relevant to your daily life. Although the merchants can change at any time - and some of the new ones have not yet been updated on the website, the categories are listed below and I have linked each one to the JNBS website so you can see the current list:

• accomodation
  
• attractions
  
• auto parts and service
• beauty salon services and supplies
• books/stationery,
• clothing and shoes
• electronics and jewellry stores
• flower shops
• gift shops
• gyms and spas
• hair
• hardware
• locksmiths
• miscellaneous services
• optician
• pharmacies
• photo studios
• rental cars
• restaurants
• service stations
• sports
• travel agencies
  
• wedding planners
• wrecking companies/garage

Two simple little cards - a JAA Card and a JNBS 24/7 (ATM card) - are a great place to start to get those extra $$$$! You can get a JAA card by insuring with NEM, or purchasing membership directly from the JAA (see rates here). Keep a savings account linked to JN 24/7 ATM/Debit Card and receive your card to show for discounts!

Let's talk about benefits and rewards tomorrow!