Rule of 219

It’s that wonderful time of year again, TAX TIME!  Hopefully those of you who will be receiving a refund have a plan in mind for your money, if not, I recently heard some figures that will definitely make one stop and think.  At last week’s bank meeting, one of our financial advisors told us about the ‘Rule of 219.’  This rule involves determining the cost of eating for two people during retirement.  Let’s say two people eat three meals a day during retirement and each meal costs $5.  You then take that times 365 days a year, then multiply that by 20 years of retirement.  Here’s the math;

2 x 3 x 5 x 365 x 20 = 219,000

In this situation, it will cost two people $219,000 to eat during retirement. This doesn’t even factor in dessert! Throw in other costs, such as bills, transportation, travel, etc… and the number grows even greater.  One may argue that it will not cost $5 per meal for them, but even at $3 a meal, two people’s cost of eating would be $131,400!  Also, note that this is estimating for only 20 years of retirement.  With life expectancy increasing, it’s easy to raise that number another 10-15 years.

So when sitting down to determine what to do with your tax refund, it may be helpful to visit with a professional.  A financial advisor can help you reach your long term financial goals. They can assist you in making sure you get to spend your golden years eating steak instead of reverting back to the college days of ramen noodles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Opportunity Checking

If yourself or someone you know has opened a new checking account recently at a new bank they probably ran into a process called ChexSystems. ChexSystems is a service that became available to banks in 1971, letting financial institutions run reports on prospective customers to find out if they have had undesirable account history in the past.

The down side to this is if you have ever made an honest mistake with a bank account in the past you are marked by ChexSystems for five years. Most banks will not open a savings account for someone with a history on ChexSystems much less a checking account.

Since many people on ChexSystems did not open their accounts with that intention it can be like a 5 year punishment imposed by banks. If you do not have a bank account you are forced to pay to have your checks cashed, purchase money orders, and pay fees for prepaid Visa cards.

Central National Bank has a new account that can help the majority of people who have been turned down by ChexSystems in the past. New Opportunity Checking is a real checking account with a debit card, checks, and ability to have direct deposit to the account.

There are restrictions on the account like no overdraft protection and a monthly fee for the account. But the good news is that after 12 months of good account standing the customer is eligible for a regular Free Checking account with Central National Bank. There are other restrictions to the account that a Central National representative would be happy to discuss with a potential customer as well as see if they qualify for New Opportunity Checking.

Bad things happen to good people and Central National is recognizing the need to have products that can serve a wider population of customers. Please come in today and inquire about New Opportunity Checking at a branch near you or give us a call.

No Need to Get Down on the Market

I was going to write about how the dropping economy is not such a bad thing, then I found this article that sums it up better than I could.  Check it out…

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/generationdebt/66424

Bank from your Phone!

Central National Bank is proud to introduce the latest product in our Online Banking Suite–Mobile Banking!  Mobile Banking lets you access your banking accounts directly from your phone or mobile device. Now you can take the bank with you wherever you go! 

Mobile Banking works on any mobile device with a data plan and an Internet browser.  If you’ve already been accessing Central Online Banking from your phone, now there’s no more scrolling from side-to-side and up-and-down to view our web page in your phone’s tiny web browser–Mobile Banking is optimized for small screens!

Using Mobile Banking, you can:

• Check account balances, pay bills, or make funds transfers
• View alerts that you’ve set up within Central Online Banking
• Receive text message confirmations each time you pay a bill or make a transfer (this lets you know each time one of these actions is performed for security’s sake)
• Look up Central National Bank branch locations and hours
• Find a Central National Bank ATM near you

And best of all, Mobile Banking is simple, secure, and FREE!

For instructions on how to sign up for Mobile Banking, click here.

Once you’ve signed up, go to mobile.centralnational.com on your mobile device.

More Green Tips

In one of the first blogs I wrote for this site I talked about simple ways to be more green. One way was collecting junk mail and taking it to recycle. This is much better than letting this unsolicited paper mail fill our landfills. On the Today Show this morning on NBC they featured a Website that’s message is let’s stop the catalogs from ever getting to our Mailbox. This site http://www.catalogchoice.org/ takes your name and address and you can select what catalogs you would like to stop receiving. If you are like me you bought one thing, one time on the internet, and now you get catalogs from that store a couple times a month. I don’t want my one time bargain to be hurting the earth so I’ve already signed up and cancelled two catalogs!! You do have to register on the site but they do not share your information with spammers. It also helps to have the magazines or catalogs with you when you opt out of getting them. Please go take a look at the site and if you thinks its helpful use their invite link to send the website to all your friends. Let’s save some Trees!!

A New Way of Banking

 

Say goodbye to teller lines, drive-thrus, and bankers behind desks. A slow growing trend on the east coast will tell you that kind of banking is out of touch with high tech consumers.

Ascend Federal Credit Union in Nashville, TN feels more like a GAP than a bank when you first walk in. A greeter at the front desk can help direct you to the person you need or they can sell you an Ascend T-shirt or coffee mug.

Even the most loyal customer, one who even likes a bank’s logo, might wonder why they want to give money to the bank for a coffee mug. Well Ascend uses all the money sold from their merchandise to help charities. After learning that you might take two cups!

With floor to ceiling windows and all the bankers sharing the same identical offices this bank feels like the customer’s building where everyone is on even footing.

In other areas the retail trend takes a different shape. Instead of looking like a GAP your next bank could look and smell like a Starbucks! But you will get out a lot cheaper as the banks are giving away the coffee and scones in exchange for your business. These latte looking lounges also have computer terminals where one can check their on-line banking or pay bills on-line.

Banks like any other business are always evolving to try to attract new customers as well as be the best they can be for their existing clients. Will this new trend fit that bill? I think if you see this new retail style of banking in your neighborhood the answer is yes.

 

Check out some pictures of new age banks at

http://www.newground.com/casestudies.html

Get Some Green by Going Green

With all of the talk about “Going Green” lately, it’s time to remind people of any easy way they can help the environment; E-Statements.  Here are a few of the numerous E-Statement benefits…

o FAST - You’ll receive your E-Statement two or three days earlier than you normally receive your paper statement.
o EASY - A monthly e-mail lets you know your new statement is available online, and you can access it from anywhere. You’ll have up to 12 months of statement history to print or file anytime.
o SECURE - You’ll enjoy peace of mind knowing your statements are delivered to you securely via e-mail and encrypted for your protection.
o ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY - Receiving your bank statement via e-mail reduces the usage of natural resources. You will no longer receive a paper statement, so you can easily store your E-Statement to a file on your hard drive.

Not only will you save trees, you’ll earn money as well.  If you sign up to receive E-Statements on your Central National Bank checking, savings, or money market account between now and January 31st, CNB will deposit $10 into each account you enroll in.

• Take note that the $10 credits will be deposited to all of the customers’ accounts on the last day of the month (Dec. 31, and Jan. 31) – the deposits will not happen immediately upon enrollment.

A Tax Free Distribution For The Holidays

 

A lot of people are worried about their required minimum distribution (RMD) taking them into another tax bracket, or pushing them to a point that they are going to have to itemize their taxes. Are you or someone you know in this situation: a parent or grandparent maybe? If you’re at least 70.5 years old, you now have the option of making a tax free distribution. You have the opportunity to distribute some savings from your IRA to a charitable organization available (http://apps.irs.gov/app/pub78). When you take your RMD and donate it to a charity you don’t have to report this money as income for the year.  Another option is if you are supposed to take a $3000 RMD which may take you $1000 into your next tax bracket, and instead you could take $2000 towards your reportable income and the other $1000 given as a charitable distribution. This is an excellent opportunity for those who are interested in giving to charity. But you may want to act now, the government has designated these guidelines until December 31^st, 2007 when they expire, so act quickly!Another option is to use the money from the RMD as a gift to a grandchild’s college education fund (529 plan). You’d still have to pay taxes on the RMD; however, the money can go to the grandkids income tax free.  The money is no longer in the giver’s estate and the giver of the gift still controls the spending of the money in the future. The grandchild never becomes the “owner” of the funds. 

 

·                    IRA owner must be age 701/2 or older

·                    Cannot exceed $100,000 per year per IRA owner

·                    Effective for distribution on or before December 31, 2007

·                    Have a check made payable to charitable organization

·                    IRA owner may hand carry the check to the charitable organization

·                    A qualified charitable distribution offsets an IRA owner’s required minimum distribution

·                    IRA owner addresses taxation on federal income tax return

 

*Contact the Central National Bank Trust Dept. for further information

 

*Info provided by Allison Gowing and Joe Karnes

Protecting Your Money

There are lots of people out there making a living off of tricking an honest consumer out of their money. Yet there are simple tips and precautions that can protect you. After all criminals look for the easy scam, if they were into hard work they would probably have real jobs!

 

Tip #1

Do not leave your wallet or purse in plain sight in an unattended vehicle. It takes less than a minute for a passing thief to break your window and snatch anything they want. 

 

Tip#2

Never write your PIN on your debit or credit cards or have them written down close to where you keep your cards. 

 

Tip #3

Buying products or services on-line must be done with care. Using reputable sites that have been around awhile is always encouraged. Sometimes when you authorize them to charge your card you are unknowingly signing up for a service as well. They might charge your card every month for a monthly e-newsletter or some other nonsense.

 

Tip #4

This is more a fact than a tip. Lately there has been an e-mail rumor going around saying if you are held up at the ATM and you put in your pin backwards the ATM will signal the police. THIS IS NOT TRUE! In fact most debit and credit cards have the option where the user can pick their own pin number. In that case if you pick 5555 as your pin there is no way the ATM could decipher what is forwards and what is backwards. 

Thanks to Sherol Rumbagh for sharing these tips!  

I Won the Lottery!

That’s right; I really did win the lottery.  Well, at least that’s what an email told me.  Even though I’ve never lived in, or visited England, somehow I won their lottery.  I couldn’t believe my luck while reading this.  It seemed so weird that I had won because just that week a customer came in with a check saying she won the lottery in Nigeria.  Two big winners in one week!  All I had to do to collect my winning check was send back an email with my current contact information.  There was also a form where I had to fill in my lottery ticket number and the amount I won.  Strange that they were informing me I won, yet they didn’t have my ticket number, but I chalked it up to a misunderstanding. So I filled in the winning ticket numbers I would have played.  Deciding the amount I won, well that was difficult.  I didn’t want to appear too greedy so I put down a meager five billion dollars.  I figure that’s the difference between having a plain quarter pounder and having one with cheese for the rest of my life. The English lotto officials were so accommodating.  All I had to do in order to get my winnings was give them my bank account number and they took out several thousand dollars for ticket and handling fees.  After doing this, I was told it would only take a few weeks for them to send me my big winnings.  It’s only been a few months since they emptied out my account, so I know I should be receiving the money any day now.  I wonder what I’ll buy first after I pay off all of the recent debt I’ve incurred.

NO, I did not send them any money or give out my bank account number! Hopefully after reading this, most of you have realized what a joke lottery scams are.  I guarantee it’s a scam any time you receive an email saying you’ve won a foreign lottery.  Why on earth would someone send money to a lottery office in order to get money sent back to them?  Yet it happens all the time. Even if by some one in a trillion chance it was real, too bad!  It’s illegal in the U.S. to play any foreign lottery.   So please don’t get fooled by these emails and watch out for your elders so they don’t fall for these tricks via direct mail or phone and end up losing everything.  To learn more about foreign lottery scams, talk with your local police department, talk with a bank official, or check out http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/intlalrt.shtm.