A New Watchdog is Guarding Your Money

Presented by Mark Phillips

Skip Humphrey is probably a name most folks are not familiar with.  His role however is big and important: to protect 50 million older Americans from financial abuse and exploitation. As the head of the Office for Older Americans at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he has a lot on his plate.  In the current economic environment, growing elderly population, growth of technology and the internet, the rise of scams targeted towards older Americans is growing.

Please read further by clicking on the link: A New Watchdog Is Guarding Your Money

Who’s Rich Anyway?

Presented By Nick Bautista

Think about this, in the US the top 20% households make $107,628 annually. If your networth is more than $415,700 you are also in the top 20%. Here is the total breakdown:

Household Income Annually
Top 1%	$521,411
Top 5%	$208,810
Top 10%	$148,688
Top 20%	$107,628

Household Net Worth
Top 1%	$6,816,200
Top 5%	$1,863,800
Top 10%	$952,200
Top 20%	$415,700

WSJ: 2012 data from Tax Policy Center
 

To put this into further perspective what is considered the poverty line for a two person household is $15,510. Meaning that a two person household making $46,530 makes 300% more than someone in poverty.  (http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/13poverty.cfm)

So who is rich anyway? This week I was reminded that the little things in life are what matter most. I read an interesting article about Brett Favre. When asked if he would return to the NFL with all the injuries to key quarterbacks, he simply said no. A man who made millions upon millions (top 1%). He thought he put his family on hold for 20 years and couldn’t stand the idea of putting them off any longer and he gets to fulfill being with them doing the things he loves, which actually isn’t football related. I found that refreshing, that someone who was defined by their work became something more, a father. No matter how much money he made he ultimately valued the things money and fame couldn’t buy.
 

What are you striving for today, this week, or in life? Do you have more than you need, or do you constantly need the next best thing? We all, including myself need to be reminded that what we have is enough. Don’t let money rule your life, for you might find out it’s not that satisfying.

 

Brett Farve article: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9872646/brett-favre-return-sources-saying-rams-reached-out

Preparing to Care for Aging Parents

Presented by: Mark Phillips

Aging can be a tough topic for everyone - both the one going through it and their families. Are bills getting missed and is memory loss starting to show up daily? Although a sensitive topic, there are ways to approach the conversations, one of which is to learn about your parents’ needs and wishes. Please read on to learn more what kinds of questions to ask to yield the best result for everyone involved.

Click here for article

Why we believe in setting up “Tripwires” in your financial life…

Presented By Mark Phillips

Carl Richards, one of our favorite thinkers on the art of planning and advice – not all financial, shares a great reminder of the value of the “tripwire” in his latest post on his blog site (Behavior Gap). Using a story about a medical procedure he underwent Carl relates, with his typical elegant simplicity, the beauty of the well-designed tripwire.

We believe in a huge way in the tripwire tool. After all we are only human, life is ever more busy and complicated, and mistakes, especially those not caught for a long time, can be expensive.

Please give yourself a well “invested” five minutes to enjoy and think about Carl’s article.

Click here to read the article.                                                                                                                 

Please jot down 2-3 tripwire opportunities in your life to share with me at our next meeting. They need not be explicitly financial in nature. After all, we have all discovered that the non-financial problem eventually often becomes a financial problem as well.

How to Stop Most All Telemarketing Calls.

By Mark Phillips

Unwelcome telemarketing calls can be annoying at the least – and the beginning of you being defrauded at their worst.

In the past few months this issue of my friends and clients getting calls from telemarketers, often 2-5 per day, has come up in conversation numerous times. This has been more noticeable for those whom are retired and thus at home in the day time to receive the calls (as rarely do telemarketers leave you a message). I will share with you both my thoughts and some elements of my discussion with my friends and clients on this issue.

Firstly telemarketer calls, as defined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), include all calls to your home or cell phone where selling a product or service is the ultimate goal of the caller or their firm.

The Federal Trade Commission is empowered to enforce the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003 (Public Law No. 108-10, was H.R. 395 of the 108th Congress, and codified at 15 U.S.C. § 6101 et. seq.), and the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007. These laws allow for individuals such as you and I to list our home and cell phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. The consequence of listing your phone numbers therein is that unauthorized telemarketers will be restricted from calling your listed numbers. The penalty they face for ignoring this is a fine of up to $11,000 per call.

How is the FTC doing with enforcement? On the FTC web site they share the following:

Enforcement of the Do Not Call Registry

The FTC takes aggressive legal action to make sure telemarketers abide by the Do Not Call Registry. To date, the Commission has brought 105 enforcement actions against companies and telemarketers for Do Not Call, abandoned call, rob call and Registry violations. The Mortgage Investors litigation produced the largest settlement for Do Not Call violations, resulting in civil penalty payments of $7.5 million. To date, 80 of these FTC enforcement actions have been resolved, and in those cases the agency has recovered over $41 million in civil penalties and $33 million in redress or disgorgement.

I have had numerous friends and clients complain to me about telemarketing calls, their frequency and the unhelpful entreaties of the callers. Yet when I share the option to list a phone number on the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry there seems to be some reluctance. I hear the following:

Q:        Well I don’t want to cut off important calls from people and companies I need to hear from.

A:         No individual (non-business) caller is restricted in any way by your number being listed on the DNC Registry.

the Do Not Call Registry prohibits sales calls. You still may receive political calls, charitable calls, debt collection calls, informational calls, and telephone survey calls. Sorry, but this service will not inhibit these calls.

In addition, companies may still call your listed number if you’ve recently done business with the company, or if you’ve given the company written permission to call you.

However, if you ask a company not to call you again, it must honor your request. I recommend that you record the date of your request.

As such the calls from firms you are doing business with will not be interrupted.

Additionally, legitimate companies you are not doing business with don't call if your number is on the Registry. If a company is ignoring the Registry, there’s a good chance that it’s a scam. If you get these calls, hang up and file a complaint with the FTC.

Q:        But won’t I miss out on opportunities for me?

A:         I propose that opportunities will not come to you by virtue of a telemarketing phone call. If there is something out there in the universe that you would benefit from you will not likely get a call from a telemarketer offering this to you. They are selling what they have not what you want or need. The better bet to get what you want or need is to be proactive and go get it yourself rather than hope and wait for someone to call you and offer it to you (at a good price no less).

Further consider, as more people list their numbers on the DNC Registry the fewer numbers not on the list will be subject to ever more calls from the telemarketers. Do you want to be subject to this?

I recommend that you list our home and cell phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry today so that the annoying (and worse) telemarketing calls you are receiving may soon be restricted.