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Get smart with your money

Liz Weston

Thursday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: 5 questions when shopping for a brokerage account. Also in the news: Is a robo-advisor right for you, why higher prices are squeezing both buyers and renters, and how a wife got her family out of $40,000 in debt.

5 Questions When Shopping for a Brokerage Account
What you need to know.

What Is a Robo-Advisor and Is One Right for You?
A different type of financial advisor.

Higher prices squeezing both renters and would-be homeowners
A housing shortage in parts of America is leading to higher prices.

A ‘good wife’ who secretly got her family $40,000 in debt shares how she climbed back to even
You can climb back, too.

Tuesday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: 401(k) mistakes for new grads to avoid. Also in the news: 6 financial questions you’re too embarrassed to ask, why you should scatter your bank accounts, and 5 facts that prove Americans don’t know anything about managing money.

New Grads, Don’t Make These 401(k) Mistakes
Plan carefully.

6 Financial Aid Questions You’re Too Embarrassed to Ask
We’ve got answers.

Why You Should Scatter Your Bank Accounts
Don’t keep it all in one place.

5 Facts that Prove Americans Don’t Know Anything about managing money
We need to get better at this.

Are you afraid to look at your finances?

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Credit counselor Linda Humburg understands why many of her debt-burdened clients don’t want to open their mail. What bothers her, though, is the sheer volume of untouched bills and collection notices that some bring to their first counseling appointments.

“The shoeboxes (full of bills) don’t make my heart drop as much as the grocery bags and garbage bags,” says Humburg, counselor manager for FamilyMeans Financial Solutions in Stillwater, Minnesota.

Not wanting to confront unpaid bills is a perfectly understandable, if unfortunate, reaction to a bad financial situation. And it’s not just people in extreme debt who might be afraid to look. Many people avoid checking their credit scores or using retirement calculators because they’re afraid of what they might find.

The problem is that delaying action usually makes matters worse.

In my latest for the Associated Press, the high cost of living in denial.

Monday’s need-to-know money news

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Today’s top story: 4 keys to successful debt consolidation. Also in the news: Credit card startups want to get in your wallet, financial must-do’s for newlyweds, and the best ways to get a big credit card bonus without going into debt.

4 Keys to Successful Debt Consolidation
Put those cards away.

Credit Card Startups Race for Space in Your Wallet
One card to rule them all.

Ask Brianna: What Are My Financial Must-Do’s as a Newlywed?
Starting off on the right financial foot.

The best ways to get a fat credit card bonus without going into debt
Timing is everything.

Q&A: Social Security benefits for spouses can pump up household income

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Dear Liz: I have a friend who has a selfish, controlling husband. When talking with her recently, she told me she got only $300 a month from Social Security based on her work history while her husband gets $1,800. I told her she should be getting $900, half of his monthly amount, as a spousal benefit. I guess he thought if she got more it would reduce his check. I told her the $900 would be in addition to the $1,800 he gets.

She has been collecting her smaller benefit for seven or eight years. Does she have any recourse? I doubt he would take her to the Social Security office but maybe her daughter would.

Answer: It sounds like the husband’s greed has cost this household tens of thousands of dollars in lost benefits.

Spousal benefits (and divorced spousal benefits) do not reduce the primary worker’s check. This benefit, as you correctly told your friend, is available in addition to what her husband gets. Spousal and divorced spousal benefits can be up to half of the primary worker’s benefit. The amount that spouses and divorced spouses get is reduced if they start benefits before their own full retirement ages.

Your friend can’t get back the years of benefits she missed out on, but she should ask the Social Security Administration to switch her to the larger benefit. She can contact the administration at 1-800-772-1213.

The death of a student loan co-signer could have financial ramifications for the borrower. (Colleen Riemer / For The Times)

Q&A: When a student loan co-signer dies

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Dear Liz: I have a friend who recently died after co-signing a student loan for her son. She was making the payments. Does that loan go to her son now to repay?

Answer: Possibly. Another possibility is that her estate is on the hook.

It all depends on the loan agreement, which varies from private lender to private lender. (We know this is a private loan because federal student loans, which have many more consumer protections, do not require co-signers.)

In many cases, nothing happens if the other borrower takes over the payments and continues to make them on time. Some lenders, however, have a contract clause that makes the balance of the loan due immediately. In the past, lenders also could consider a death to be an “automatic default” that could seriously damage the living borrower’s credit. Fortunately, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau pushed lenders to change their policies on new and existing loans so that co-signer deaths no longer trigger such defaults.

If you’re close to this young man, you should urge him to check the contract and to contact the lender.