It’s official. Money-savvy millennials are better at managing their finances
than their parents and grandparents. When compared to baby boomers,
people between the ages of 18 and 33 were more likely to track expenses
and stick to a budget, a 2015 survey by T. Rowe Price found. Sixty-seven percent of young people follow a budget, compared to 55% of boomers.
If you’ve gotten the message about the importance of budgeting,
congratulations. But if you’re among the 33% of young people who is
never quite sure if there’s enough money in your checking account to
cover the night’s takeout order, it’s time to get smart. Learning how to
budget will reduce stress, help you cut wasteful spending, and make it easier to bounce back after a job loss or other money crisis.
Once you start budgeting, you’ll be able to use your money to do what
you want, instead of letting it control you. Best of all, budgeting is
easy to do, if you follow some simple steps. Here’s how to budget your
finances like a boss.
Start by tracking your daily spending in whatever way works for you.
Online tools like Mint will sync up with your checking and credit
card accounts, making it easy to track how much you spend and in which
categories. Spreadsheets work too, or you could keep it ultra low-tech
and simply write down everything you spend on a piece of paper or in a
notebook.
The tool you use doesn’t matter as long as you log every single
purchase. You need to know what exactly you’re spending money on, from
rent to daily coffee runs, before you can move on to the next step.
Next, think
about what recurring expenses you have coming up in the next month, like
your car payment or student loan. Look back on your spending records
from step one to get an idea of how much money you need to get by every
month, and make sure it’s not more than what you’re bringing in.
Now is also the time to set some long-term goals. Credit card debt weighing you down? Resolve to pay it off.
Want to buy a new car? Start setting aside money for a down payment.
Ready to take that trip of a lifetime? Figure out how much it would cost
and make saving a priority. Online tools like Mint are especially handy
here, since you can use them to set goals and track your progress.
By now, you
may have realized that your regular spending doesn’t leave you with
enough cash left over for those goals you outlined in the last step.
Spending less is the easiest, quickest way to create breathing room in
your budget so you can set aside money to achieve your bigger financial
dreams.
Eliminating one meal out a week could save you hundreds of dollars
over the course of a year, for example. At $12 per person for the
average inexpensive restaurant meal, according to Numbeo, you’ll save $624 by cooking one meal a week at home rather than succumbing to the convenience of Seamless.
Eating out less isn’t the only way to save. Cutting recurring
subscriptions you don’t use, watching your spending at the grocery
store, and looking for free activities are other ways to gradually trim
your budget and boost your savings. Here are 10 other unnecessary purchases
that might be eating away at your budget. Eliminate just a couple of
them and you’ll find yourself slightly richer at the end of every month.
Reducing spending is great, but there’s a limit to how much you’re
willing and able to cut from your monthly budget. When you hit that
point, it’s time to look for ways to boost your income.
If you have a special skill you’d like to share with others, create an online course on a website like Udemy. The passive income that comes from this kind of project can significantly reduce your financial stress. This guy says he earned more than $5,000 over five months from his Udemy course.
Most of us have too much clutter in our lives. You can turn your
crowded closet or disorganized garage into a source of cash by selling
things on eBay, Craigslist, or even at a garage sale. Even stuff that
looks like trash to you can bring serious money.
“Believe it or not, there’s a huge marketplace for broken electronics for spare parts,” ebay expert Jordan Malik told Time magazine.
Last, check up on your budget at least once every 30 days so that you
can be sure you’re on track. Dedicating just an hour or two every month
to managing your budget means that you’ll always be in control of your
finances, rather then letting them control you.
Culled from cheatsheet
Shifting money from offshore
secrecy havens to the U.S. has become a brisk business for Rothschild
& Co. One Turkish client is moving assets from the Bahamas to
Nevada. Illustration: Steph Davidson
Last September, at a law firm overlooking San Francisco Bay,
Andrew Penney, a managing director at Rothschild & Co., gave a talk
on how the world’s wealthy elite can avoid paying taxes.
His message was clear: You can help your clients
move their fortunes to the United States, free of taxes and hidden from
their governments.
Some are calling it the new Switzerland.
After
years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide
their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy
haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards,
the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to
stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust
companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move
accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to
Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
“How ironic—no, how
perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its
condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction
du jour,” wrote Peter A. Cotorceanu,
a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, in a recent legal journal.
“That ‘giant sucking sound’ you hear? It is the sound of money rushing
to the USA.”
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Rothschild,
the centuries-old European financial institution, has opened a trust
company in Reno, Nev., a few blocks from the Harrah’s and Eldorado
casinos. It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of
offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international
disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which
are exempt.
The U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world” —Andrew Penney, Rothschild & Co.
The
firm says its Reno operation caters to international families attracted
to the stability of the U.S. and that customers must prove they comply
with their home countries’ tax laws. Its trusts, moreover, have “not
been set up with a view to exploiting that the U.S. has not signed up”
for international reporting standards, said Rothschild spokeswoman Emma
Rees.
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Others
are also jumping in: Geneva-based Cisa Trust Co. SA, which advises
wealthy Latin Americans, is applying to open in Pierre, S.D., to “serve
the needs of our foreign clients,” said John J. Ryan Jr., Cisa’s
president. Trident Trust Co.,
one of the world’s biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens
of accounts out of Switzerland, Grand Cayman, and other locales and into
Sioux Falls, S.D., in December, ahead of a Jan. 1 disclosure deadline.
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“Cayman
was slammed in December, closing things that people were withdrawing,”
said Alice Rokahr, the president of Trident in South Dakota, one of
several states promoting low taxes and confidentiality in their trust
laws. “I was surprised at how many were coming across that were formerly
Swiss bank accounts, but they want out of Switzerland.”
Rokahr
and other advisers said there is a legitimate need for secrecy.
Confidential accounts that hide wealth, whether in the U.S.,
Switzerland, or elsewhere, protect against kidnappings or extortion in
their owners’ home countries. The rich also often feel safer parking
their money in the U.S. rather than some other location perceived as
less-sure.
“I do not hear anybody saying, ‘I want to avoid taxes,’
” Rokahr said. “These are people who are legitimately concerned with
their own health and welfare.”
No one expects offshore havens to
disappear anytime soon. Swiss banks still hold about $1.9 trillion in
assets not reported by account holders in their home countries,
according to Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor at the University of
California at Berkeley. Nor is it clear how many of the almost 100
countries and other jurisdictions that have signed on will actually
enforce the new disclosure standards, issued by the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, a government-funded international
policy group.
There’s nothing illegal about banks luring
foreigners to put money in the U.S. with promises of confidentiality as
long as they are not intentionally helping to evade taxes abroad. Still,
the U.S. is one of the few places left where advisers are actively
promoting accounts that will remain secret from overseas authorities.
Rothschild’s
Reno office is at the forefront of that effort. “The Biggest Little
City in the World” is not an obvious choice for a global center of
capital flight. If you were going to shoot a film set in Las Vegas circa
1971, you would film it in Reno. Its casino hotels tower above the bail
bondsmen across the street, available 24/7, as well as pawnshops
stocked with an array of firearms. The pink neon lights at casinos like
Harrah’s and the Eldorado still burn bright. But these days, their
floors are often empty, with travelers preferring to gamble in Las
Vegas, an hour’s flight away.
The offices of Rothschild Trust
North America LLC aren’t easy to find. They’re on the 12th floor of
Porsche’s former North American headquarters building, a few blocks from
the casinos. (The U.S. attorney’s office is on the sixth floor.) Yet
the lobby directory does not list Rothschild. Instead, visitors must go
to the 10th floor, the offices of McDonald Carano Wilson LLP,
a politically connected law firm. Several former high-ranking Nevada
state officials work there, as well as the owner of some of Reno’s
biggest casinos and numerous registered lobbyists. One of the firm’s tax
lobbyists is Robert Armstrong, viewed as the state’s top trusts and
estates attorney, and a manager of Rothschild Trust North America.
The
trust company was set up in 2013 to cater to international families,
particularly those with a mix of assets and relatives in the U.S. and
abroad, according to Rothschild. It caters to customers attracted to the
“stable, regulated environment” of the U.S., said Rees, the Rothschild
spokeswoman.
“We do not offer legal structures to clients unless
we are absolutely certain that their tax affairs are in order; both
clients themselves and independent tax lawyers must actively confirm to
us that this is the case,” Rees said.
The managing director of the
Nevada trust company is Scott Cripps, an amiable California tax
attorney who used to run the trust services for Bank of the West, now
part of French financial-services giant BNP Paribas SA. Cripps explained
that moving money out of traditional offshore secrecy jurisdictions and
into Nevada is a brisk new line of business for Rothschild.
“There’s
a lot of people that are going to do it,” said Cripps. “This added
layer of privacy is kicking them over the hurdle” to move their assets
into the U.S. For wealthy overseas clients, “privacy is huge, especially
in countries where there is corruption.”
One wealthy Turkish
family is using Rothschild’s trust company to move assets from the
Bahamas into the U.S., he said. Another Rothschild client, a family from
Asia, is moving assets from Bermuda into Nevada. He said customers are
often international families with offspring in the U.S.
For
decades, Switzerland has been the global capital of secret bank
accounts. That may be changing. In 2007, UBS Group AG banker Bradley
Birkenfeld blew the whistle on his firm helping U.S. clients evade taxes
with undeclared accounts offshore. Swiss banks eventually paid a price.
More than 80 Swiss banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse Group AG,
have agreed to pay about $5 billion to the U.S. in penalties and fines.
“I was surprised at how many were coming across that were formerly Swiss bank accounts, but they want out of Switzerland”
Those
firms also include Rothschild Bank AG, which last June entered into a
nonprosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The bank
admitted helping U.S. clients hide income offshore from the Internal
Revenue Service and agreed to pay an $11.5 million penalty and shut down
nearly 300 accounts belonging to U.S. taxpayers, totaling $794 million
in assets.
The U.S. was determined to put an end to such
practices. That led to a 2010 law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance
Act, or Fatca, that requires financial firms to disclose foreign
accounts held by U.S. citizens and report them to the IRS or face steep
penalties.
Inspired by Fatca, the OECD drew up even stiffer
standards to help other countries ferret out tax dodgers. Since 2014, 97
jurisdictions have agreed to impose new disclosure requirements for
bank accounts, trusts, and some other investments held by international
customers. Of the nations the OECD asked to sign on, only a handful have
declined: Bahrain, Nauru, Vanuatu—and the United States.
“I have a
lot of respect for the Obama administration because without their first
moves we would not have gotten these reporting standards,” said Sven
Giegold, a member of the European Parliament from Germany’s Green Party.
“On the other hand, now it’s time for the U.S. to deliver what
Europeans are willing to deliver to the U.S.”
The Treasury Department makes no apologies for not agreeing to the OECD standards.
“The
U.S. has led the charge in combating international tax evasion using
offshore financial accounts,” said Treasury spokesman Ryan Daniels. He
said the OECD initiative “builds directly” on the Fatca law.
For
financial advisers, the current state of play is simply a good business
opportunity. In a draft of his San Francisco presentation, Rothschild’s
Penney wrote that the U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the
world.” The U.S., he added in language later excised from his prepared
remarks, lacks “the resources to enforce foreign tax laws and has little
appetite to do so.”
Firms aren’t wasting time to make the most of the current environment. Bolton Global Capital,
a Boston-area financial advisory firm, recently circulated this
hypothetical example in an e-mail: A wealthy Mexican opens a U.S. bank
account using a company in the British Virgin Islands. As a result, only
the company’s name would be sent to the BVI government, while the
identity of the person owning the account would not be shared with
Mexican authorities.
The U.S. failure to sign onto the OECD
information-sharing standard is “proving to be a strong driver of growth
for our business,” wrote Bolton’s chief executive officer, Ray Grenier,
in a marketing e-mail to bankers. His firm is seeing a spike in
accounts moved out of European banks—“Switzerland in particular”—and
into the U.S. The new OECD standard “was the beginning of the exodus,”
he said in an interview.
The U.S. Treasury is proposing standards
similar to the OECD’s for foreign-held accounts in the U.S. But similar
proposals in the past have stalled in the face of opposition from the
Republican-controlled Congress and the banking industry.
At issue
is not just non-U.S. citizens skirting their home countries’ taxes.
Treasury also is concerned that massive inflows of capital into secret
accounts could become a new channel for criminal money laundering. At
least $1.6 trillion in illicit funds are laundered through the global
financial system each year, according to a United Nations estimate.
Offering
secrecy to clients is not against the law, but U.S. firms are not
permitted to knowingly help overseas customers evade foreign taxes, said
Scott Michel, a criminal tax defense attorney at Washington, D.C.-based
Caplin & Drysdale who has represented Swiss banks and foreign
account holders.
“To the extent non-U.S. persons are encouraged to
come to the U.S. for what may be our own ‘tax haven’ characteristics,
the U.S. government would likely take a dim view of any marketing
suggesting that evading home country tax is a legal objective,” he said.
Rothschild
says it takes “significant care” to ensure account holders’ assets are
fully declared. The bank “adheres to the legal, regulatory, and tax
rules wherever we operate,” said Rees, the Rothschild spokeswoman.
Penney,
who oversees the Reno business, is a longtime Rothschild lawyer who
worked his way up from the firm’s trust operations in the tiny British
isle of Guernsey. Penney, 56, is now a managing director based in London
for Rothschild Wealth Management & Trust, which handles about $23
billion for 7,000 clients from offices including Milan, Zurich, and Hong
Kong. A few years ago he was voted “Trustee of the Year” by an elite
group of U.K. wealth advisers.
In his September San Francisco
talk, called “Using U.S. Trusts in International Planning: 10 Amazing
Feats to Impress Clients and Colleagues,” Penney laid out legal ways to
avoid both U.S. taxes and disclosures to clients’ home countries.
In
a section originally titled “U.S. Trusts to Preserve Privacy,” he
included the hypothetical example of an Internet investor named “Wang, a
Hong Kong resident,” originally from the People’s Republic of China,
concerned that information about his wealth could be shared with Chinese
authorities.
Putting his assets into a Nevada LLC, in turn owned
by a Nevada trust, would generate no U.S. tax returns, Penney wrote. Any
forms the IRS would receive would result in “no meaningful information
to exchange under” agreements between Hong Kong and the U.S., according
to Penney’s PowerPoint presentation reviewed by Bloomberg.
Penney
offered a disclaimer: At least one government, the U.K., intends to make
it a criminal offense for any U.K. firm to facilitate tax evasion.
Rothschild
said the PowerPoint was subsequently revised before Penney delivered
his presentation. The firm provided what it said was the final version
of the talk, which this time excluded several potentially controversial
passages. Among them: the U.S. being the “biggest tax haven in the
world,” the U.S.’s low appetite for enforcing other countries’ tax laws,
and two references to “privacy” offered by the U.S.
“The
presentation was drafted in response to a request by the organizers to
be controversial and create a lively debate among the experienced,
professional audience,” Rees said. “On reviewing the initial draft,
these lines were not deemed to represent either Rothschild’s or Mr.
Penney’s view. They were therefore removed.”
The deals on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday
and Cyber Monday (not to mention the variety of other discounts offered
throughout November and December) are tempting. But some potentially
pricey items that may be on your holiday shopping list -- either for
yourself or for someone else -- can be even cheaper if you wait.
Here are 15 items you can score better deals on after the holidays.
Bedding
View gallery
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Thinkstock
If you're considering stocking up on bedding, such as comforters,
sheets and pillow cases, during holiday sales, wait a few weeks longer
for even deeper discounts, says Kristin Cook, managing editor of BensBargains.com.
Take advantage of white sales in January at big-name retailers
including Macy's, Target and Kohl's. Savings on bedding during these
annual sales can add up to as much as 50%.
Broadway Tickets
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iStockphoto
You can get two tickets for the price of one to several popular shows
during Broadway Week in January, which actually lasts two weeks. Some
shows even offer the discount for up to four weeks, says Erich
Jungwirth, chief operating officer of the Lyric Theatre in New York.
January and February are good months, in general, to see Broadway shows
because it's off-season and ticket prices tend to drop.
iStockphoto
Forget the notion of waking up on Christmas morning to find a new car
in the driveway. Instead, think New Year's Eve (during business hours,
of course) to get the best deal on a new car. Car dealers are in the
mood to haggle and clear their inventory before year's end to make room
for new models and earn manufacturer incentives. Looking for a used car?
Hold off until April for the best deals. It's the month dealers tend to
buy the most at auction, giving you the best selection.
iStockphoto
Cruising during the holidays can often mean more crowds and higher
fares, says Colleen McDaniel, managing editor of Cruise Critic. By
booking a cruise for January, February or March, you can take advantage
of lower fares, avoid the holiday crowds and beat the spring break rush.
The industry's "wave season" also takes place during that time, when
cruise lines offer added discounts that may help you save even more on
your trip, she says. You can score some of the best cruise deals if you
book at the last minute -- just don't expect the really cheap tickets to
get you a stateroom with a view.
Exercise Equipment
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iStockphoto
You might see a few sales on fitness gear and equipment in December,
but January is when the real deals appear on exercise equipment,
according to DealNews.com.
Retailers know that people usually resolve to lose weight in the New
Year, so they tend to have sales on fitness equipment in January. Look
for markdowns of 30% to 70% on fitness DVDs, treadmills, elliptical
trainers, stationary bikes and complete home gyms.
iStockphoto
If you need to spruce up the living or dining room before guests
arrive for the holidays, don't expect to find a good deal on a sofa or
table and chairs before Christmas. Instead, wait until after Christmas,
when furniture stores hold clearance sales to make room for new styles
that are usually released in February. For example, furniture retailer
Room & Board has an in-store and online clearance sale once a year,
typically the day after Christmas. Expect discounts of up to 50% on
discontinued furniture styles and in-store floor samples.
Also, many stores offer 0% financing along with the big discounts during annual clearance sales, according to Deals2Buy.com. Because new styles often are released in August, too, July is another good month to look for deals on furniture.
Gift Cards
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Thinkstock
Gift cards are a no-brainer when you're stumped for ideas. However,
if you can hold off until after the holiday shopping frenzy has died
down to purchase gift cards, you could save yourself some money.
According to BensBargains' Cook, many people who receive unwanted gift
cards as holiday gifts turn around and sell them for cash online. Web
sites such as CardCash.com and Cardpool.com buy the gift cards at a
steep discount and re-sell them below face value. Since sites typically
get flooded with gift cards right after the holidays, Cook says, the
average card price is driven down due to the increased inventory. Also
on eBay right after the holidays, gift cards can sell for up to 15%
cheaper than the original price.
iStockphoto
A new piece of jewelry ranks high on many holiday wish lists. But
high demand often means higher prices, so you may want to give your
sweetheart a rain check and wait until after Valentine's Day to buy that
pearl necklace or those diamond earrings. You can save 15% to 25% on
jewelry during post-Valentine's Day sales, says Howard Schaffer, vice
president of merchandising for deal site Offers.com.
Luggage
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iStockphoto
If you need to replace a beat-up roll-on that's been tossed around
too many times by airline baggage handlers, March is the best time to
buy luggage. Retailers mark down luggage because sales have slowed after
the busy holiday travel season and haven't picked up yet for summer
travel, according to Deals2Buy. Look for discounts ranging from 20% to
70%.
iStockphoto
You probably don't expect Santa to shove a mattress down your
chimney. But if you were thinking about giving your holiday guests
something more comfortable than a futon to sleep on, you might want to
reconsider buying a mattress during November or December. You'll save as
much as 70% by waiting until Memorial Day sales in May to buy a
mattress, Offers.com's Schaffer says. In the meantime, promise your
guests a plush mattress next year, and give them a few more drinks with
dinner so they don't mind sleeping on the couch this year.
Perfume
View gallery
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iStockphoto
Perfume sales often peak around Christmas and Valentine's Day. So
retailers tend to discount perfume heavily after these holidays have
passed. FreeShipping.org
founder Luke Knowles says consumers can expect prices on perfume to be
slashed by as much as 50% in late February and March, with the best
sales at Web sites dedicated to perfume.
Tools
View gallery
.
iStockphoto
Tools typically are discounted during Black Friday sales. But wait to
buy your dad a new drill, wrench set or tool chest for Father's Day
instead. You'll save 5% to 15% more on tools in June when retailers have
sales on gifts for dads, says Offers.com's Schaffer.
iStockphoto
Retailers will offer discounts on coats, sweaters and other
cold-weather clothing during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
However, the deals will be even better in January when stores have
clearance sales on winter apparel to make room for spring clothing.
CouponCabin's Kluth says you can expect to see markdowns of at least
75%.
Hold off on gifts for winter
sports enthusiasts until the New Year. Snowboards, skis, ice skates,
goggles, hockey gear and more will be marked down at least 10% to 20% in
January, according to DealNews. If you can wait a bit longer, expect
even deeper discounts during clearance sales in February and March.
Check into any middling U.S. hotel and chances are
good that the Wi-Fi is free. Have a white-gloved butler escort you to
the Penthouse suite, however, and your lavish lodgment may well bill you
for Internet access.
The wealthiest among us have noticed this disconnect, and they are not pleased. A report on
the habits and preferences of the wealthiest 1 percent and 5 percent of
travelers finds that complimentary Wi-Fi is the top “desirable amenity”
for more than half this demographic. Fifty-one percent called it
“extremely important,” while 66 percent said it was at least "very
important” to have at a hotel.
The research is drawn from a survey of 2,391 travelers by Resonance Consultancy.
The top 1 percent was defined as those with annual income of $400,000
or more or a net worth above $8 million. The 5 percent were classified
as earning at least $200,000 per year or having $2 million or more. (The
former group represented 724 of those surveyed.)
Many of the
priciest hotels charge extra for the Wi-Fi simply because they
can—guests are traveling for business and expensing the cost or
are wealthy clients who don’t care about paying a bit more, said Henry
Harteveldt, a travel consultant with Atmosphere Research Group in San Francisco.
“It’s
a glaring inconsistency in the hotel business, and frankly it’s just a
flat-out stupid approach to doing business,” he said.
Un-Standard Amenity
The
issue is likely to continue roiling many upscale lodging chains that
are weighing where and how to offer Wi-Fi and whether it will need to
become complimentary. For now, many luxury brands, including Fairmont
Hotels & Resorts and Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants Group, offer
free Internet access to guests who join their loyalty programs.
Starwood
Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, for example, offers free Wi-Fi in
public spaces and to members of its loyalty program, provided the rooms
were booked through the hotelier’s website or mobile app. That helps
reduce the company’s distribution costs. Its lower-cost chains—Aloft,
Element, and Four Points—offer free in-room access, while guests at its
luxury St. Regis properties have complimentary Wi-Fi, period. Yet in the
middle of Starwood's hotel-room price pack, the W and Westin brands
charge guests additional fees to access Wi-Fi in their rooms.
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InterContinental
Hotels & Resorts offers free Wi-Fi to all members of its loyalty
program. Even if you don't join it, Internet is free at seven of the
company's midscale brands, including Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza. No
such luck at the luxury Intercontinental chain, though.
It's not
clear why a $500 (or more) hotel room doesn't offer some level of free
Internet when countless Starbucks, airports, and coffee shops have
figured out the economics of doing so. It could be that most hotels
consider the road to free Wi-Fi easy enough and see it as a critical way
to drive greater participation in loyalty programs and direct bookings.
Bowing to Demand
Others
have capitulated to demand. Nearly a year ago, on Valentine’s Day,
Hyatt Hotels made Wi-Fi free in rooms and public spaces at its more than
500 properties worldwide. (Meeting rooms are not covered by the
policy.) “Wi-Fi had quickly become a basic expectation for travelers, as
essential as a comfortable bed or clean room,” Hyatt Hotels spokeswoman
Stephanie Sheppard said via e-mail.
Such hotel operators as
Hilton Worldwide Holdings offer free basic Internet access but levy fees
for greater bandwidth use, including video streaming. This trend partly
reflects the growing inventory of Wi-Fi gadgets travelers now pack:
typically, a laptop, tablet, and smartphone per person, Harteveldt said.
Lodge a couple with two teens in a hotel, and bandwidth needs multiply
rapidly.
Still, the apparent gap between room prices and free
Wi-Fi is not lost on many travelers. It also helps explain why so many
trendy hotel lobbies are clogged with guests pecking at phones and
laptops.
“It’s just a jarring inconsistency and a black mark on what is otherwise a wonderful guest experience,” Harteveldt said.
After
free Wi-Fi, privacy was the second-most requested hotel amenity for
affluent travelers, according to the report. Tennis was the least
attractive hotel option, just below kids' programs.
Schuller
(1988:112) noted that success without social respect can be an ultimate and
dismal failure. But that is not the feelings of con artist as they continually
scheme, plan and put in strategies that will bring in money no matter who ever
that is involved. They do not even care about the state of such people; at times
they deliberately target retirees because of their vulnerability.
What
then makes a retiree vulnerable? The issue of vulnerability will be explained
as we progresses on the write up.
Most
losses during retirement occur as a result of wrong decision, wrong purchase
decision, and the lust for the sweet things of life, mainly womanizing. But the
most devastating of such losses is the loss as a result of scam, fraud and any
other actions targeted on the financial positions of the retirees.
Old age
has one problem according to psychologist, it tend to make old people vulnerable
to issues of money making, as they have dream idea of trying to achieve what
they fail to achieve during their working career. They now want to achieve
itduring old age and by so doing
enter into one wrong investment decision or the other.
Whatever
they have not achieve they tend to believe that retirement will afford them
that opportunity, by so doing they enter into wrong hands who will fleece them
of their hard earned money. The result is that most of the retirees return back
to work in order to survive and enjoy their old age. But what these scammers do
not know is that wealth do not bring happiness as it is stated in Ecclesiastics
5 verse 10-11 “ How absurd to think that wealth brings happiness, the more you
have, the more people come to help you spend it andcontinuingin Ecclesiastics 5 verse 12, 14, it sates “ But the rich are always
worryingand seldom get a good night
sleep” Riches are sometimes hoarded to the harm of the saver, or they are put
into risky investment that turn sour and everything is lost”
And
continuing in Ecclesiastics 5 verse 19 and 20, “And it is good thing to receive
wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it” “To enjoy your work and accept
your lot in life- that is indeed a gift from God, people who did this rarely
look with sorrow on the past,for God has given them reason for joy”.
And so
in making wealth, it is pertinent for us to have that God given joy that gives
one happiness- a lasting happiness.
Anything
short of that may not augur well especially for con artist as Robert Kiyosaki
in his book Rich dad Poor dad, noted that there are so many ways, one can be
rich, and he included the following, through inheritance, playing lottery,
investing or by being a crook or an outlaw but there is a price, you risk going
to jail. Kiyosaki(1995:351) continuing
he stated that ‘A great story must interest , excite and cause people to look
into the future and dream a little, there should also be integrity behind the
story, because our jails are filled with great story tellers without
integrity”.
Indeed, a recent Merrill
Lynch survey found that nearly three out of four people over 50
said their ideal retirement would include working. Which is fine. Staying
connected to the work world in some way can not only offer financial benefits,
it can also keep retirees more active and socially engaged”
But what
happens if retiree involve in spurious contract that may be a scam, intended to
dispossess him of his wealth?There is
need for the retiree to embark on the services of investment adviser even if he
was an investment guru during his career, the reason is that in what concerns
you , there may be likelihood of mistake unlike when you hand it over to an
independent investment adviser, as it has been the same with lawyers, as they
itfind difficult to handle their own
cases as doctors are also in the same dilemma in treating their own diseases.
The idea of
getting an expert is to safeguard the retirees fund from con artist during old age
but that rest squarely on the retiree.
Odunze Reginald is the Lead
Consultant, Chareg Consulting, a management and marketingconsultanta social media and social marketing consultant , you can visit our
twitter anchor @regydunze, find us on Facebook @ Reginald odunze and reginaldodunze.com,
at google+ @ Reginald Odunze and at Linkedin@reginald odunze.
