Feeling Charitable? Give Wisely!

When a tragedy like the recent earthquake in Haiti strikes, many people desire to help.  Even folks who rarely donate to charities will open their wallets.  Situations like these tend to bring out the best in people.

Unfortunately, these tragedies can also bring out the worst in people.  Scammers use tragic times to prey upon generous, sympathetic, well-intentioned would-be donors. 

Don’t Get Scammed:

So how can you be sure that the money you’re giving actually goes to those who need it, and not into the pockets of a scam-artist?

For starters, go with your gut.  If somthing just doesn’t feel right, then give your money elsewhere.

Secondly, go with an organization that you know and trust.  In situations like the Haitian Earthquake, that means sticking with proven, established organizations like the American Red Cross. 

Third, use contact information you know to be correct.  Scammers will often contact you via telephone, e-mail, postcards, in person, etc and give you false contact information.  The name, address, website, etc may sound and/or look legitimate, but looks can be deceiving.

Making Your Choice:

There are so many legitimate charities — how do you choose?  You want your money to be used for it’s intended purpose, not to provide non-profit CEOs with plush offices.  And you might prefer an organization that specifically works with children, or infrastructure, or education, or medical care, or . . .  How do you find an organization that will put your money to work in the ways that you would most prefer?

For a list of questions to ask, tips for choosing a charity (including specific tips for the Haitian Earthquake relief effort), and data on over 1.8 million non-profits, explore the Guidestar website.

CharityNavigator is another great resource.  Their site evaluates the financial health of over 5,400 of America’s largest charities.

The Federal Trade Commission also has valuable information on charity fraud, as well as a site for reporting charity scams.

Be sure not to forget our many wonderful local charities.  They still need and deserve our support for the invaluable work they do in our community. 

Not sure which local non-profit(s) to support?  Asking friends and family members about the charities they are personally involved in is a good start.  But the best option to become involved yourself.  To find the best fit for you, visit Plumbago Volunteer Services — a non-profit themselves, they specialize in matching would-be volunteers with charitable organizations.

Whether you give of your money, your time or both, be sure to give wisely.

For more resources on using your money wisely, visit the IRFCU Vault section of our website.

Living on Less — & Loving It!!!

Seems everyone is speaking a “new” language now-a-days.  Words like “budget” and “frugal” have become common in everyday conversation.  But do you find yourself using such words grudgingly, with perhaps a bit of a wince?

You can live on less – and love it!

The first key is to understand the purpose of a budget. Many people create a budget as a last-ditch effort to get out of debt. Or they think of it as a spare tire – only to be used in an emergency, such as the loss of a job.

But a budget needs to be a life-long tool. It’s an x-ray that shows you where every dollar goes, enabling you to make better spending choices – leaving more money for the important things, and probably more for some fun stuff too.

Your budget is also your financial GPS, guiding you to your goals. It’s much easier to be positive about your budget when you realize that it’s the tool that will enable you to one day buy a home, start your own business, or retire.

The second key is to find a balance that works for you. For example: Suppose your budget reveals that you spend waaaaaaay too much each week eating out. You’re not surprised: you love eating out, you hate cooking. So you swear that you’ll save money by never eating out again. Ever.

As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that working for ya?” Unsurprisingly, you’re either totally miserable or you’ve completely ditched your budget plan. Instead of totally eliminating an item in your budget, consider “tweaking” it. Perhaps you could select more affordable restaurants; forego appetizers, expensive drinks and desserts; and/or reduce your number of outings. Of course there will be some items that you’ll be able to eliminate easily. The idea is to find a balance that both you and your wallet can live with.

The final key is to change your perspective, to make an attitude adjustment. Instead of focusing on the sacrifices you’ve had to make, choose to be grateful for the blessings you have.  Measure your happiness on your terms instead of comparing yourself to others and their possessions.  Determine that life is about relationships, not material things.  Learning to be content is true wealth.

In summary:  Living on less can eliminate financial waste, resulting in more money for the important &/or fun things.  It can enable you to reach your long-term goals.  And it can put everything into perspective, helping you experience the true “best” that life has to offer.

Living on less – what’s not to love?

For more budgeting resources, including our Debt-In-Focus tool (it’s  free, annonymous & secure), visit the IRFCU Vault section of our website.

Organizing Your Financial Records

Understanding which personal financial records you should keep and for how long is confusing for even the most organized among us.  Maintaining orderly financial records can relieve much of the stress many of us have with our finances.  It also allows us to create and monitor a plan for achieving financial goals.

What Should I Keep? 

Your records should be organized by the frequency with which you need to use them. 

Immediate needs’ files will include these items from the past year:

• unpaid bills • paid bills • banking statements • cancelled checks • credit card statements • health records • resumé and employment records • income tax receipts for deductions • major purchase receipts • insurance policies

Long-term files will include:

• banking statements • cancelled checks • credit card statements with home improvement expenses • income tax records for the past seven years • investment account statements (If year-end statements have all tax information on them, these are the only ones you need to keep.) • retirement account statements • reports from trusts • inheritance paperwork • birth certificates • wills/living trusts • powers of attorney • social security cards • car titles • house titles/deeds • receipts for home improvement • warranties and operating instructions for appliances

How Long?

Your short-term and long-term files should be cleaned out once a year with your short-term files either being destroyed or placed in the appropriate long term file.  Make sure to shred any sensitive documents such as those with social security numbers, account numbers, or birth date information.

Keep for 3 years:

• household bills • credit card statements • receipts for minor purchases

Keep for 7 years:

• cancelled checks • check registers • bank statements • pay stubs (year-end stubs can be substituted) • tax returns and supporting documentation

Keep forever or until assets are sold:

• receipts for home improvement • receipts for major purchases • annual investment statements • inheritance paperwork • insurance policies • mutual fund statements • a copy of your will • health care proxy forms

While it makes sense that most of these records should be kept private, make sure at least one person you trust knows where to find them.  It is a good idea to create a list of your important records in case of emergency and let your trusted friend know which records are at home, in a safe deposit box, or on file in the attorney’s office.  A word of caution about safe deposit boxes: in the event of death, they may be sealed.  Only photocopies of those documents needed in the event of death — wills, powers of attorney, etc. — should be kept in them.

For more resources to help organize your finances, explore the IRFCU Vault.

Keeping Passwords Safe (& Other Resolutions)

The start of a new year is always a great reminder to review your finances and to take some precautions.  Since Identity Theft is the fastest growing white collar crime in America, & costs victims thousands of dollars & hunreds of hours in “clean-up,” precautionary measures are certainly a worthwhile investment.

So let’s start with your computer, specifically your passwords. 

Keep your computer’s content secure by creating strong passwords, keeping them secret, and keeping track of them.  A compromised password could lead to identity theft or other dire consequences.  A criminal could use your information to apply for credit cards or mortgages, or to make online purchases or other transactions.

The first rule of thumb for creating strong passwords is to use a different password for each of your accounts.  It may be easier to keep track of just one password, but if a crook discovers that one password, he or she can access all of your accounts.  What a nightmare that would be!

The second key to a robust password is to make it lengthy.  At a minimum, your passwords should be eight digits long, and 14 digits or more is ideal.  Using the greatest variety of characters possible in your passwords—letters, numbers, symbols—makes them harder to guess or uncover with malicious software.

After creating your password, you can test its strength with one of the “password checkers” available online such as Microsoft’s Password checker and The Password Meter.  Use your search engine to locate these and others.  If your password tests as weak, make it more complex.

Some password don’ts include:

* Using personal information such as family names, birthdays, or your address.
* Using sequences or repeated numbers, like abcd, 1234, or 9999.
*Using any words listed in a dictionary—they’re easy for scammers to guess.

To help you keep track of your passwords, write them down and store the list where others won’t find it, but in a place you’ll remember.  Don’t share your passwords with others—children, particularly, may unwittingly pass them on to others.  And don’t enter them into computers in public places—theY may have malicious software that can capture your keystrokes for a criminal’s use.

If a password is compromised, monitor all information it protects for suspicious activity.  If you see such activity, notify the authorities.  But remember, the stronger your passwords, the less likely this is to happen.

In addition to a password “check-up,” the start of a new year is a great time to:

~ Check your Credit Report (remember that www.annualcreditreport.com is the only government-authorized website to get a free credit report).

~ Review your budget (See the IRFCU Vault section of our website for lots of great budgeting resources, including Debt-in-Focus, our free, annonymous & secure on-line financial tool).

~ Update (or create) your Emergency Information Notebook.  If you were to become incapacitated for a period of time (or worse), would your spouse, children or whoever would need to handle your responsibilites (bills, home, child &/or pet care, medications, etc) have a clue where to start?  An up-to-date notebook that gives them the information they need can help minimize a bad situation for everyone involved.  But be sure to keep it in a VERY secure location, such as a safe deposit box.

Well, that’s enough to keep most of us busy until Memorial Day, so we’ll consider this enough for one post.  Be sure to visit us regularly for more financial ideas, information and resources.

Happy Holidays from IRFCU!!!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Indian River Federal Credit Union!

What a year 2009 has been!  While we’ve all seen the negative effects of the economy, we’ve experienced many blessings as well.  We’ve been reminded that while money and material possessions may come and go, it’s the people in our lives that really matter.

As we celebrated our 50th Anniversary this year, we couldn’t help but think about the people that this milestone represents: from the nine Vero Beach City employees who in 1959 each contributed $5 to get IRFCU started; to our Board, Management, Volunteers, and Staff; to our business and non-profit friends in the community; to – most importantly - all of our Members who’ve enabled us to serve them all these years. 

We’re truly thankful for each of you. We look forward to serving you, and sincerely hope that you’ll experience the joy of the season as you share this time with your loved ones. We wish you health, peace, joy and love in 2010.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Indian River Federal Credit Union!

Holiday Season Events @ IRFCU!!!

Be sure to mark your calendars for these Holiday Events at Indian River Federal Credit Union:

Christmas & New Years: For Christmas, IRFCU offices will close at 2 pm on Thurs Dec 24th (Christmas Eve) &  will be closed on Fri Dec 25th (Christmas Day).  We will re-open for regular business hours on Mon Dec 28th.  For New Years, IRFCU Offices will be closed on Fri Jan 1st (New Years’ Day). We will re-open for regular business hours on Mon Jan 4th.  As always, members may access their accounts via ATMs, our on-line program CU@Home, or our Account Hotline, 772-770-5260.   Happy Holidays from all of us at Indian River Federal Credit Union!

Toys For Tots: IRFCU Offices are official donation drop-off locations for the US Marine Corps Reserves’ Toys For Tots Campaign.  We’re collecting new, unwrapped toys now thru Fri Dec 18th, during regular business hours at both of our offices. For more info, visit www.toysfortots.org or www.irfcu.com.

Santa Photos: Join us for photos with Santa this Holiday Season — FREE for all members of Indian River Federal Credit Union! Fri Dec 4 & 11 at our Vero Beach office (2800 20th St), and Fri Dec 18 at our Sebastian office (11638 US Hwy 1). All appearances will be from 4 pm to 6 pm. You’ll receive your photo on a CD, making it easy and inexpensive to share with family and friends! Happy Holidays!

Speaking of photos, be sure to check out some photos from our 50th Anniversary celebration! Also, look for some photos from our event in the Dec/Jan issue of Florida Parenting News !!!

IRFCU Celebrates 50 Years!!!

Hundreds of IRFCU Members and friends gathered at our Vero Beach office Friday October 23rd to celebrate Indian River Federal Credit Union’s 50th Anniversary! Be sure to visit our special 50th Anniversary page to see photos from the event!

Members enjoyed burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill, as well as sodas, bottled water, tea, orange juice from Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company, ice cream samples from Marble Slab Creamery, and of course, our 50th Anniversary cake! Blue balloons filled the lobby, while Christian FM’s Extreme Machine got the party jumping with non-stop music. Over 400 members took home jam-packed goody-bags and hundreds also grabbed their 2010 IRFCU Calendar. One dozen IRFCU Members got even luckier, as their names were drawn as door prize winners.

Commissioners Wesley Davis and Peter O’Bryan stopped by to offer their congratulations, as did William Berg of the Florida Credit Union League.  Davis thanked IRFCU for being an institution that “gets it,” referring to our slogan “Where People Are Worth More Than Money.” Berg offered a brief history lesson, telling of IRFCU’s humble beginnings and the growth we have achieved. IRFCU Board Chair H.T. “Sonny” Dean thanked our Members for making the Credit Union a success, and for the priviledge of serving them. Other Board Members, as well as President/CEO Bill Garrett, were also on hand for the occasion.

Our thanks go out to all those who helped make our 50th Anniversary event a success — our volunteers and staff; friends who donated food and/or beverage items, door prizes, goody-bag stuffers, etc; local media who helped promote the event; all those who were able to attend; and most of all, to all our Members! We look forward to serving you for many years to come!!!

Too Broke for the Basics: Where to Get Help

If you’re struggling just to get by, there are many organizations (both governemnt and others) that exist to help you not merely survive, but to get back on your feet again.   But your challenge is two-fold:

1. Finding the organizations, agencies, etc that can help you, and

2. Manuevering through the maze of red tape that is often involved in obtaining such assistance.

If you find yourself in those shoes — or know someone who is — here are two great places to start:

MSN Money’s  Donna Freedman recently wrote an article called “When You’re Too Broke For The Basics.”  It’s a great “cliff-notes” version of where/how to find help.

For more local information, contact Treasure Coast 211  — simply dial 2 1 1 on your phone, or visit their site (www.211treasurecoast.org). Free and confidential, they provide information & referral, crisis intervention, telephone counseling, etc, 24 hours/day, 365 days/year.

Want to help local organizations serve the needy in our community, but not sure where/how to start?  Plumbago Volunteer Services is your answer!  They specialize in matching volunteers with non-profit organizations.  To learn more, visit www.plumbagovs.org.

Details Make The Difference!

The mere mention of the dreaded “B-word” makes many people cringe.  But contrary to popular opinion, the purpose of a budget is not to handcuff you and drain every ounce of enjoyment from your life.  No, the purpose of a budget is to show you where every dollar you earn goes, which enables you to make better spending choices.  That leaves more money for the important things, and probably more for some fun stuff too. 

So start by making a list of where your money goes: daily, monthly, annually, etc.  Be sure not to overlook anything.  From there, go down the list and see what items could be reduced, or maybe even eliminated. 

You might find some big savings.  For example, you might decide that your fancy new car isn’t worth the strain of a $400/month payment.  So you might sell it and replace it with a less costly vehicle and quickly save a couple hundred dollars per month.

But most likely, your savings will be hidden in the details, and will have to be discovered a few dollars — or even cents — at a time.  Perhaps you’ll realize that the bottled water you drink adds up to several hundred dollars per year, and decide to use a reusable bottle with tap water from home instead.  Maybe you’ll opt to drop those extra TV channels that you never watch anyway.  Or maybe you’ll notice that your monthly banking fees add up much faster than you realized, and make some simple adjustments to avoid them.

Small changes like these are relatively painless, but can quickly add up and make a big difference in your big picture.  Where and how you make your spending adjustments is up to you.  A budget is simply a magnifying glass that helps to bring the details into focus.  When it comes to financial success, details make the difference.

For more information on financial matters, visit the IRFCU Vault section of our website, www.irfcu.com, and be sure to read our blog regularly.

Lost or Stolen Wallet? Prevent, Minimize & Repair the Damage

The thought of having a wallet lost or stolen is enough to turn the most iron-clad stomach queasy.  And for good reason: The items they house demand long, tedious hours to replace.  And in the wrong hands, they can result in an identity theft nightmare for the victim.

Identity theft is the fastest growing “white collar” crime in America.  The typical victim spends in the neighborhood of $2,000 and 600 hours over many months to clean up the mess left behind by the thief.  And the most common way IDs are stolen?  A lost or stolen wallet accounts for 43% of identity theft cases (Source: 2009 Javelin Strategy & Research, Identity Fraud Survey Report).

Blogger Paul Michael’s post “How to Increase the Chance of Someone Returning Your Lost Wallet” on WISEBREAD offers some simple, valuable advice:  keep baby photos in your wallet.  Statistics show that having baby photos in your wallet dramatically increases the odds that it will be returned (9 out of 10 baby photo wallets were returned – compared to only 1 in 7  for wallets containing only the usual cards and cash). 

Michael also provides an excellent check list of things to do if your wallet goes missing.  In order to make the most of his list, however, it’s vital that you know what you’ve lost.  So take a few minutes to go through your wallet and make a list of everything it contains.  Be sure to keep that list in a secure location, such as a safe or a safe deposit box.  Don’t forget to update it as necessary. 

While you’re going through your wallet anyway, why not trim some fat?  Most wallets probably contain a few items with sensitive information that could easily be stored in a more secure location.

Perhaps the best advice is simply to make it a habit to be aware of your wallet.  Do you ever leave it unattended at the beach?  In your purse at a restaurant table while you’re at the salad bar?  Or in the shopping cart behind you while you’re reading a label?  Never leaving it out of your sight goes a long way toward preventing its disappearance.

For more resources on Identity Theft, Fraud and related topics, visit the On-Line & Financial Safety page in the IRFCU Vault section of our website.