Summer Money Review

Summertime is finally here and last month we covered two summer-related topics, college graduation and putting your house on the market.

College Graduates

We looked at two things that seniors should be thinking about, insurance for college graduates and the importance of credit scores for college graduates.  We also went over some of the best jobs for college grads and offered up a variety of money tip for grads.

Selling Your House

As you might have read, we put our house on the market recently.  We went back and forth over whether a real estate agent was worth the money and finally decided to use one.  Then we had to deal with finding a realtor and figuring out how to prepare our house to sell.  As I filled out our Sellers Disclosure I wrote up some tips on how to sell your house faster by fixing up certain problems before putting it on the market.

Career

Our family had some interesting job experiences last month.  When my wife lost her job, I covered a variety of things you can to to prepare for being laid off.   Losing your benefits can really stink, many times you don’t even realize how much employee benefits are worth until you lose them.

We also covered some entrepreneurial career topics, one of our friends launched thier consignment sale business and the husband shared his lessons learned starting a business.  I also made a video with a peek into the side business of a former co-worker who makes extra money selling Legos.  He makes enough to pay his mortgage each month, I still can’t get over that!

Personal Finance

Along the summer theme there were some ways to save money on summer vacation and a discussion of hiring a contractor vs doing it yourself for those big summer projects like building decks, putting in patios, and adding a fence.

If you’re a fan of cash back cards like I am, I wrote up some tips for getting the most out of your credit card rewards points.  Speaking of credit, I also talked about how close many of us are to major debt without even realizing it and how to avoid drowning in debt. 

Our bank rolled out person to person, micro payments using a service called Popmoney so I took a look at different ways you can send money with your phone.

On the investing front, Smart Money released their annual broker survey so I asked how you choose an online broker.   I also took a look at a ShareBuilder stock market investing survey that seems to show consumers outlook on investing is getting better.

Cash Bonuses

Throughout the month I pointed out a number of bonuses that are going on this summer, here they are:

• TradeKing Promotion for New Accounts
• FNBO Direct Online BillPay Bank Bonus
• Best Cash Bonuses Online
• Chase Sapphire Bonus

June & July
I’m still working on the schedule for Money Smart Life for the rest of the summer so you’ll have to stay tuned until I have it figured out. Thanks for reading last month, we’ll come up with some good stuff for the rest of the summer. I’ve been working for a while on several personal finance projects that I think some of you will find pretty useful. I’m excited to share them with you, I’ll tell you more once they get closer to being finished.

Ben Edwards, the founder of Money Smart Life, saved up enough to buy a Nintendo back when he was 12 years old. When he used the money to buy shares of Wal-Mart stock instead, he knew he wasn't like the other kids... His addiction to personal finance has paid off for his family and now he's helping you to afford the life that you want. Check him out on the web at Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook.

All posts by Ben Edwards