The first day of September is tomorrow and that is a big month in my family for birthdays, which means I need to get busy shopping for everyone’s gifts and getting them wrapped or mailed. I have a good idea of what to buy for each person, now it is a matter of just finding each item for a good price. I love shopping online, as you can find the best price plus use online coupons to save a little extra cash.

One website that I love has coupon codes for online purchases but also has coupons that you can print out. So it you prefer to shop locally, you can check this site before you go. I did that with Target coupons and saved enough cash to pay for the gas and back, which is better than free shipping because I got to actually go to the store and walk out with my purchases in my arms- no waiting for the mail carrier!

I love printable coupons when I know where I want to shop and I want to try on clothes or shoes before deciding to buy them. Buying the right size saves a whole lot of time and annoyance if there is any doubt about the size of an unfamiliar style or brand.

There was a news clip tonight about the economy and investments and they mentioned the price of gold. I am sure that most people think about stocks and bonds, and maybe real estate, when you mention investing. But my daddy also taught me about the concept of a gold IRA.

It is not hard to buy gold bullion, especially now that we have the internet. I learned the old way about gold. My daddy used to take me with him to various coin shows throughout New England, back in the late 1980’s. Of course I was just a little kid, but I learned about coins and gold from hearing my daddy talk with the exhibitors and traders.

Every once in a while I still go to a coin show. But when I want to seriously buy gold bullion, I go online. Of course, I don’t keep any of the gold here in the house. I’m not dumb!

When I worked in California, the company’s world headquarters was actually in Australia. That meant that all the top tier management men were Australian – except for my boss. My boss was from Los Angeles and was allowed in because of his high level business connections and deep pockets. He was filthy rich and had a lot of influence with the management team.

The Australian team ran everything related to personnel and benefits through the Human Resources department in Sydney. We had to read through a policy manual that spoke about unfamiliar benefits terms, such as funeral plans. They also have aussie accident cover policies, which we call other names, such as short term disability coverage or major medical.

Eventually we converted a lot of that to American language and more traditional American benefits, such as a term life insurance quote. In fact, after about 6 months on board with them, my boss brought in a couple of venture capitalists and bought the entire company from the Australians.

My cell phone is just a cheap, plain cell phone. I don’t text or take photos or anything. I just use it to make phone calls. But my brother has one of those really cool phones that does everything with special apps and he loves it. After my uncle’s funeral, he was showing me some of what he does on his phone, like Mobile Trading, and I was really impressed!

I’ve been doing Online Trading for a few years, after my dad showed me how to set up an account and track the activity of my stocks. It’s not hard to do, but it was a lot easier having my dad help me get set up and show me what to do.

I’m thinking about upgrading my cell phone now and getting one like my brother. I would like to do my own Stock Trading on my phone, along with other things like get directions, look up phone numbers, and even order a pizza from my car on my way home. But I think one of the coolest things is being able to trade my stocks from the doctor waiting room or the dentist chair, or even at a lunch counter. How cool is that?!?!

When the phone rings after 9:00 pm, most of the time it is bad news.So when the phone rang last night after 11:00, I knew it was not going to be good. The call was from my mom in New York, to let me know that my Uncle Ted had passed away.

Thank goodness that Uncle Ted had a good Life Insurance policy that will take care of his final expenses. I know that my Aunt Judith is devastated and has enough on her mind without worrying about paying for the funeral and making all the payments for a lawyer, possibly selling the house and all those things a window has to do.

Last year I got Life insurance quotes to increase the coverage on me, since I have full custody of the kids now. My dad’s lawyer suggested it when I saw him over the holidays. Planning for the financial aspects of an untimely death is part of the responsibilities of a good parent.

At work, there is Funeral insurance for us, but that is not enough to take care of two surviving children for over 10 years. In fact, the insurance at work will terminate if I quit or lose my job, God forbid. But most people don’t realize that the employer’s life insurance will not convert to a policy that you can continue if you leave that job.

Mu mom was born in a small town that is a suburb of Boston. I have only been there once, but next month when I go home for the holiday weekend we are planning to spend a day going down Memory Lane. I want to drive by all the old places that we used to live, play and shop. I want to hear more stories from my mom and my sister about the good old days in New York and New England.

My grandfather was an insurance broker and so was one of my uncles. Every once in a while I will Google “Insurance Franklin, MA” and see if their old companies have a web site or any news. If I was going to buy insurance, I would turn to the internet for most of the information and search for the key words of the type of insurance and also the city to get the best search results.

If you searched for “Auto Insurance Franklin, MA” or searched for “Homeowners Insurance Franklin, MA” you will get search results that include Berry Insurance.com and that is who I would call for a quote. In fact, their web site lets you get a quote online, too. Things are so much faster and easier now that you can search for businesses anywhere in the world with just a few clicks.

Gosh, we are just a small family, trying to get buy with the modest income of a single parent. But the bills keep getting bigger and bigger each month. The utilities are especially killing me! The amount I pay each month for electric, water, cable and phone is more than what I pay for my mortgage! This is crazy!

One of the drawbacks to being related to a very wealthy man is that people ask you for money. Sometimes they are asking for money as a gift or donation, but most of the time they are asking to borrow money that they promise they will pay back.

For years I trusted close friends to be good on their word about paying me back when I did loan out money. But by the time I was out of college I had so many people not pay me back that I decided I had to stop. Owing money to your friends or having friends owe you money will ruin a good friendship. So now I do not loan money and I refer friends to either loan officers at banks or sometimes even places that do payday loans.

The banking industry has changed so much that if you don’t have a checking or savings account at the bank where you want to cash a check, odds are that you cannot use their drive up window and some banks will not cash your check. Sometimes if the check is drawn on a bank and you don’t have your own account with them, they charge very high fees for check cashing.

If it is this difficult to cash a check, imagine trying to borrow money. In fact, if you don’t have a checking account somewhere locally, it becomes very challenging to get a check cashed. Consequently, trying to borrow money for a short term personal loan is almost impossible at most commercial banks unless you already have a large sum of money deposited with that bank. That is why there are so many cash advance businesses opening up in this area.

When did toothpaste get so expensive? I can understand if there is something special about the toothpaste, like the Sensodyne toothpaste for people with sensitive teeth. But just plain Colgate or Crest is about $5 for one tube. And the Sensodyne is $8 for one tube. This is expensive for people trying to keep to a budget. I don’t see why toothpaste should be more than $3 for a tube. There’s not much of anything in there!

Next week there are several movies coming out on DVD. I didn’t get to see many of the new releases this past year – unless they were children’s movies. So I’ve been waiting for the movies to come out on DVD. I want to buy a couple of them to add to my library, and I’ll probably rent a couple of the others from the Red Box machines.

The Avatar movie is coming out for anywhere between $29 for Blu-Ray to $17 at Target. I read all the Sunday newspaper sales brochures to see who had the price prices on the new DVDs and I was surprised to find that Target has them cheapest.