Boomer and Retirement Weekly Reader – Super Commercials Edition

I’m writing this while watching the “Big Game.” In reality, I’m watching the “Big Commercial”, three plus hours worth, periodically interrupted by 11 minutes of actual football action. I wonder how much a Bud Light would cost without all of the advertising expense?

This was actually a busy weekend in the financial planning department.  First, I reached my annoyance limit on being reminded by our Quicken 2007 software that Intuit would disable a lot of its functionality on April 10. This is the ultimate in consumer abuse and is apparently the only way that Intuit can generate new sales. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of options for a system that provides all of Quicken’s functionality. So I found a special on Quicken 2010 at Costco, with a discounted price plus a $20 off coupon that came in the mail. If you are a Quicken user, look for that deal. Even if you aren’t a Costco member, you can buy it online. For the first time we are using the Home and Business edition of Quicken so that it will be easier to track income and expenses associated with our online businesses.

My hope is that someday I will find a web-based money management system that offers all of the functionality of Quicken combined with the security of the online bank sites. Right now I am experimenting with Mint, free web-app which provides most of what we need except for the ability to initiate or record transactions. Quicken now owns Mint so I suspect that an integrated product may be in the works.

This weekend we also downgraded our satellite TV package at our lake house. Over the past few months we have tried some “free” upgrades offered to us. The problem is that free upgrades automatically transition to costly upgrades if you don’t call to cancel.

Speaking of cost savings, Business Week published an article on fifteen ways to cut spending in retirement. The interesting thing about the suggestions is that most of them should also apply to not yet retired baby boomers.

Finally, don’t forget to peruse the offerings at this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.

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