Investments

10:00 a.m. Here come the stomach growls, time for a mid-morning snack.

Today it’s a bag of chips and a diet soda. Total cost: $1.75. That won’t break the bank … but how about your budget? Have you ever thought about how all those easily forgettable little expenses can add up? Let’s take a look at just a few you may view as trivial at the time of purchase. You’ll soon see they add up to very real amounts over the course of a year.

Are you ready for some football?!

It's crunch time for the professional football season. The play-off picture is shaping up, although our hometown Rams have had better seasons (understatement of the year!).

What does football have to do with your credit union? Personal finances, of course! While most of us can’t begin to imagine life with the salary of professional athletes, we can see that they have many of the same financial problems we do, just on a much grander financial scale. It’s true. Just take a look at a few NFL players and former players who’ve had a tough time with finances for various reasons.

Welcome to 2012! Well, almost. How’s that list of resolutions coming along? While a new diet or the promise of a new workout routine is nice, don’t overlook your financial health. The new year is a perfect time to review your finances and insurance needs. Oftentimes things change and you need to adjust accordingly.

So your checking account is at a bank—like the U.S. MegaBank of Wealthy Stockholders… That’s okay, we won’t hold it against you. But your bank keeps adding more drama (and cost) to your relationship with more fees. Again? Well, keeping their stockholders happy is job one. Unfortunately, keeping YOU happy is job two … maybe even three or four. Don’t keep playing second fiddle to those huge entities out there in financial space. Break up with your bank! That’s right, cut the ties. Ditch the deviance. Move on to someone who will appreciate you and treat you with respect. And hey, we know just the credit union!

So maybe we’re a little impartial when it comes to places that offer financial services. O.K., we’re intensely impartial. We’re down with credit unions, all credit unions. We’re a pretty unique bunch of financial institutions, we are. But when people talk about credit unions as alternatives to banks, many times there are questions, which is good; you want to be as informed as possible when it comes to something as important as your money. So to put minds at ease, let’s take a look at some of the concerns involving credit unions.

With all the recent talk of federal deficits and the government trying to cut costs comes an effort by Uncle Sam to save $70 million over five years. The Bureau of the Public Debt (a scary name itself) has announced that beginning January 1, 2012, paper savings bonds will no longer be sold at financial institutions, including Vantage Credit Union.

You might have guessed something like this was bound to happen. Present technology is really pushing for a paperless environment, which saves both trees and money. And that’s what’s happening here. Bonds will now be available only through TreasuryDirect^®, a secure, web-based system operated by The Bureau of Public Debt. This site has been available to investors since 2002, and being web-based, it’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for your bond-buying convenience. Another upside, you’ll no longer have to worry about storing or losing paper savings bonds.

As a kid, it’s likely most of us hated this time of year, when all the Back-to-School stuff started hitting the stores. Who wanted to hear about school when there were still weeks of summer left to enjoy? Buy-One-Get-One-Free socks and rulers? Ugh!!!

But as we get older, we saw how preparation plays a role in life. You can’t always wait until the last minute, especially with something as important as education, which is why when considering college and all its escalating costs, whether a parent or a student, you need a plan early on for how you’ll pay for it. And your starting line should be high school. No, not as a senior, but as a sophomore. Our friends at Bankrate.com give us some tips on what to do and when to do it.

Taxes. There, we said. Right in the middle of the dog days of summer, we had to go and mention the tax days of April. When you think of Uncle Sam and the bite he takes out of you each year, does August create any real kind of urgency? Doubtful. August is just another hot, summer month with taxes a holiday season and spring thaw away. But when it comes to efficient tax preparation, it’s never too early to do some pre-emptive tax planning.

Why wait until the last minute to tackle such an important financial task? If you get started now, the challenge won’t be so daunting when the real hysteria sets in. So what can you do to get a head start? Let’s take a look...

Many of us are pretty familiar with the concept of Social Security. Webster defines it as: “a federal system of old-age, unemployment, or disability insurance for various categories of employed and dependent persons, financed by a fund maintained jointly by employees, employers and the government.” For most of us, it’s simply a government-run plan meant to help us in retirement. But how does it work? Here’s a rather simple explanation …