Ask Liz Weston

Get smart with your money

Liz Weston

Thursday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: Is your wealth dripping away? Also in the news: How to navigate the Equifax data breach settlement, getting real about checking your finances, and looking for “relationship pricing” when you need a loan.

Is Your Wealth Dripping Away?
Draining your wallet, one drop at a time.

How to Navigate the Equifax Data Breach Settlement Offer
Find out what you’re entitled to.

Can’t Bear to Check Your Finances? Here’s Help
Biting the bullet.

Look for ‘Relationship Pricing’ When You Need a Loan
The benefits of monogamous banking.

Wednesday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: Keeping Solo Agers happier and safer. Also in the news: A simple recipe for managing your credit score, how to choose between using your savings or getting a loan when hit with an unexpected expense, and how a few minutes on the phone could save you hundreds on auto insurance.

Keeping ‘Solo Agers’ Happier and Safer
Preparing for the Golden Years alone.

A Simple ‘Recipe’ for Managing Your Credit Score
3 ingredients.

Savings or loan: which should you turn to when hit with an unexpected expense
Making the wise decision.

Those car-insurance commercials aren’t kidding: A few minutes on the phone really can save drivers hundreds of dollars
You could save a significant amount of money.

Tuesday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: Will a summer job burn your financial aid for college? Also in the news: 4 cool-down summer escapes you can book with points, new tools that can help turn your retirement savings into a steady paycheck, and how how to find out if you’re eligible for a $20,000 payment from Equifax data breach.

Will a Summer Job Burn Your Financial Aid for College?
The unexpected impact.

4 Cool-Down Summer Escapes You Can Book With Points
Beating the heat with reward points.

New tools can help turn your retirement savings into a steady paycheck
Personalized tools to create best-case scenarios.

Are you eligible for a $20,000 payment from Equifax data breach?
Don’t get too excited.

Is your wealth dripping away?

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As a spokesperson for the insurance industry, Loretta Worters often gives tips to homeowners on preventing water damage. Some of her knowledge comes from personal experience.

Worters says she had owned a home in Bellmore, New York, for only a month when she noticed the clothes washer in the basement was taking an awfully long time to fill.

“I went downstairs and I was up to my ankles in water,” says Worters, vice president of communications for the Insurance Information Institute.

Appliance and plumbing failures are a leading cause of household water damage, which is far more common than you may think. Homeowners are six times more likely to suffer property losses from water than from theft and seven times more likely than from fire, says Kelly Greene, a risk consulting manager from Chubb Personal Insurance who led a session on property damage at the Financial Planning Association NorCal conference in May. (“Water damage” is different from flooding, which is rising water that affects two or more properties.)

In my latest for the Associated Press, steps you can take to ensure your wealth doesn’t evaporate drip by drip.

Monday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: What you might get from the Equifax data breach settlement. Also in the news: 5 logical credit moves that can lead to trouble, 8 money mistakes newlyweds make, and how to decide if you should get a cash-back credit card.

What You Might Get From the Equifax Data Breach Settlement
150 million consumers were affected.

5 ‘Logical’ Credit Moves That Can Lead to Trouble
Common sense doesn’t always apply.

8 Money Mistakes Newlyweds Make
Don’t start off married life on the wrong foot.

Should You Get a Cash-Back Credit Card?
How to decide which card is best for you.

Q&A: This 529 college savings plan has a problem: no kids

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Dear Liz: When I found out I could save for my future children by enrolling in a 529 college savings plan and not pay taxes on the growth, I started doing that three years ago. Since then I got married, and my wife decided to get an MBA. I have $41,000 saved away for my currently nonexistent children. Am I able to transfer that money to my wife and use it to pay for her MBA without getting penalties?

Answer: Yes.

The beneficiary of your 529 plan is not actually your unborn children, since you can’t open these plans for nonexistent kids. When you started the account and were asked for the beneficiary’s Social Security number, you probably provided your own.

That could have created a small problem down the road when you did have kids because changing the beneficiary to someone one generation removed — from parent to child, for example — is technically making a gift, and gifts in excess of $15,000 per recipient per year are supposed to be reported to the IRS using a gift tax return. Fortunately, you wouldn’t actually owe any gift tax until you’d given away several million dollars above that annual limit.

By contrast, changing the beneficiary to a family member in the same generation — from yourself to a spouse, for example — is not considered a gift and wouldn’t trigger the need to file a gift tax return.