Air Miles sets expiry date on unused miles - Travel - MSN CA. TORONTO - One of Canada's most popular loyalty programs has a message for Air Miles collectors: use 'em or lose 'em. As of Saturday, participants in the Air Miles reward program will be required to use their existing miles before they expire on Dec. 31, 2016. In addition, reward miles earned after New Year's Eve will only be valid for five years after they're first posted. Air Miles collectors gather miles by making qualified purchases from the program's participating sponsors. Until now, the miles — redeemable for eligible merchandise, including electronic goods, plane tickets and vacation packages — never carried an expiration date. There are more than 10 million active Air Miles collector accounts.
The program gives away more than $500 million in rewards each year, said Neil Everett, executive vice-president and chief marketing officer for Air Miles. "We've got collectors with miles sitting on our books for 20 years," he said in an interview Friday. iWill: Britons leaving heirs 'digital inheritance' How to live well on $40,000 or less - 1 - An MSN Money reader took issue with one of the couples I profiled in "How to become a one-income family. " The couple had lived on $30,000 for a while but were now bringing in as much as $70,000 because of a successful at-home business. "Please write an article that shows what a real family living off of $40,000 a year can do," the reader scolded. So I did. In fact, I'll show you two: * Tracy and Danny Kofke, an at-home mom and a special-ed teacher, live near Atlanta with their daughters, ages 3 and 6.
A lot of people live on less than that. If you can own a home and raise kids in metro Atlanta on $36,000 a year, as the Kofkes do, you obviously have something to teach. Savvy spending and a certain amount of sacrifice let them live in ways that mirror their personal values -- and they do it debt-free. Strategy 1: Know where every dollar is and where you want it to go. The biggest tool in their frugal arsenals is careful attention to spending. Amy and Jack have similar expenses: Three ways to be smarter about money - 1 - By Liz Pulliam Weston, March 30, 2011 Financial education that works is all too rare, so don't feel bad if you're still learning. Meanwhile, these basic tips will help even if you know almost nothing. The last time I talked to financial literacy expert Lew Mandell a few years ago, he wasn't optimistic that we could make people smarter about money. Many people complain that financial literacy isn't taught in enough schools, and since April is Financial Literacy Month, you're likely to hear calls for more educational efforts.
But the programs being offered don't seem to be working. Kids who take financial literacy courses in high school typically don't score much better on tests of money knowledge than their peers. In the past, the reality that financial education doesn't seem to work made Mandell despair, but recently he has seen some slivers of hope. Of course, the bad guys already know how effective that approach is. So we clearly have a long way to go. The foxes are in the henhouse. An alternative to bankruptcy - 1 - Banking: Bankrate. By Michelle Warren, Bankrate.com, February 26, 2011 Consumer proposals offer a viable option for those struggling with debt. Bankruptcies are down and consumer proposals are on the rise as people with financial woes embrace alternative ways to deal with crippling debt. "The percentage of people filing proposals is up dramatically," says Doug Hoyes, a bankruptcy trustee and cofounder of Cambridge, Ont.
-based Hoyes, Michalos & Associates. Consumer bankruptcies decreased 19.5 per cent while consumer proposals increased 22.4 per cent in the 12-month period ending November 30, 2010, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada. These latest figures reflect response to legislative amendments. New rulesChanges brought forth in September 2009 to Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) encouraged restructuring as an alternative to bankruptcy. Overall, the amendments were designed to make consumer proposals accessible to more people. The benefits include:
Easiest way to calculate your RRSP plan - 2 - Interestingly, someone who starts saving in their 20s and stops a decade later will have more to show for it at age 65 than a person who starts in their 40s and keeps contributing right up to retirement. Here's a calculator that allows you to play with several variables, using different start dates. You'll quickly see that waiting is quite costly. And, even if you've just made a contribution, don't wait until next year's deadline to contribute in the future. * RRSP Guide: Get all the info you need for RRSP season Take, for instance, someone who puts $10,000 in an RRSP every year for 25 years and makes a return of five per cent a year.
The person who contributes at the beginning of the year — in other words someone who made their 2010 contribution last January instead of waiting until now — would accumulate close to $500,000 in 25 years. The latecomer, who is always more than a year behind, would make $477,200, roughly $24,000 less. Not sure where you're going to end up after all this? Creating a central binder for your home. As much as I tend to store information digitally, slips of paper still manage to sweep into our home, such as gym schedules, school lunch menus, and event flyers. That is why I have set up a central home binder. It offers a safe haven for important papers, vital contacts for anyone to access, and a receptacle for health information.
I personally set up a very simple system for less than $15. Here is how to create one of your own: First, decide what categories best reflect the kind of information you refer to often and that you want to store in your central home binder. The Categories (one per binder tab): ContactsHealth & FitnessFoodHouseTravel The Tools: Simple BinderTabsPlastic Pockets for In Between Tabs Simple Binder Select a binder size to match the number of categories and size you think you’ll need.
Tabs Use the number of tabs to match your categories. Plastic Pockets for In Between Tabs Filing Suggestions Contacts: Keep a list of emergency contacts here. Ask Unclutterer: Credit card clutter. Reader April submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer: My husband and I have one credit card that we allow ourselves to actively use.
By actively I mean it is the one we use to buy airline tickets, etc. but we pay it off right away BUT we have several credit cards going way back to our time before we met….most of them don’t have balances but a few do. The balances are the result of the old game of moving balances around to get a great rate until we can pay them off. So there are NO new purchases on these cards at all ever, just balance transfers. So how long do I need to keep those statements? I have so much paper from these cards. What the heck do I keep and what can I shred? I want to begin by laying out my financial principles before delving into specific answers to your questions.
Do not carry consumer debt. As I just said, these are the guidelines I have chosen to follow. Your next priority should be to pay off all of your balances on your not-current cards. Use the Web to save $8,000 a year - 1 - By Katherine Reynolds Lewis, February 3, 2011 Smart shoppers use the Internet to save a bundle through comparison sites, coupons and online services. Just be sure you're not wasting time and money to save a buck.
Savvy Internet users can save nearly $8,000 a year through smarter shopping, online discounts and Web-based services such as bill paying, according to a report compiled for the Internet Innovation Alliance. Gale Swanson, 53, can attest to the value of an Internet connection. Since her children gave her a computer in 2009, her Web usage has saved her more than $5,000 on gifts, entertainment, food and travel purchased through the Internet -- and ended her weekly trips to Wal-Mart. "Because I'm on a fixed income and a budget, I have to make sure I don't spend my money frivolously," said Swanson, a retired office manager in Van Nuys, Calif. "The ease of being able to find things that are discounted is great. " But online savings go beyond retail shopping.
Eight quick ways to slash your bills - 1 - Want to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars? Twenty minutes here and there will do it. This isn't a car insurance commercial. It's a way to rewrite your budget. That one-third of an hour can save you big bucks if you use it to: * Question statements. * Negotiate a better phone plan or a lower credit card interest rate. * Plug money leaks. * Spot problems while they're still cheap to fix. Let your New Year's resolution be to keep more of your money in your pocket. One way to do that is invest 20 minutes a day, a week, a month or a year. Where on earth will you find an extra 20 minutes in your day? "I know people who can literally spend five hours a day on Facebook, in front of the TV, playing Xbox, whatever," she says.
You can still have those things, Stack says -- after you've done 20 minutes of cleaning your financial house. 1. "Americans are beginning to understand the power of purging," says interior design specialist Christopher Lowell. 2. 3. Prefer to shop locally? 4. 5. 6. Top tips on giving debt the boot - Money.