Money Talks Blog by Oxford Planning Group

With summer winding down, now is the time to revisit your long term financial plan and to review them for any necessary adjustments. Touch base with your financial advisor and make sure you’re on the right track to meeting your financial goals.

1.      Re-evaluate income and cash flow.  Raises, job changes and unexpected home costs are just a few of the factors that impact your income and cash flow.  Re-evaluate current income to plan monthly expenses and savings as well as making the most advantageous retirement savings decisions. Monitor your spending patterns and current budgeting practices within the scope of your long- term savings strategy.

2.      Family Security.  This is one of the most important decisions you can make to invest in your family’s financial security.  Examples may include proper insurance coverage and polices in place to reduce or eliminate financial risks when faced with sudden or unexpected loss.  Security may also include starting or re-evaluating college savings plans (planning ahead for your kid’s futures relieves some of the financial burdens and gives them a head start entering college or the workforce.) 

3.       Proactive tax planning.  With the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, you may need to adjust your tax projections.  By remaining proactive about your tax planning, you will determine how much money you’ll need for upcoming tax payments.  Taxes are such a significant annual expense, it’s important to understand the best strategies to reduce your taxes and avoid expensive mistakes that could cost you.  Effective tax planning allows you to make smarter financial investments, helping save you money in the long run. 

Financial planning is ongoing, and we’re here to help!  

This post provided by Howard Tech Advsors

Have you ever signed up or logged in to an app and bypassed creating a new account by using your Facebook account? Most likely, you were in such a rush to create an account with this third party app that you just kept clicking “Ok” and “Next” through the instructions.  When you use your Facebook account to sign up for another app, you are giving that app access to the information in your Facebook account. This can include your friends, your location, your work, your photos, your groups, your birthday, and even your contact information.

If you haven’t reviewed these apps, now is as good a time as ever to look at what apps can access this information.

HOW TO LOOK AT YOUR THIRD PARTY APPS

Once in Facebook, click on the down arrow next to the question mark in the upper righthand corner. Then, click on Settings. In the left, you will see towards the bottom of the list, “Apps.” When you click on “Apps,” you’ll see all of the apps you have permitted access to your Facebook account. By default, “your name, profile picture, cover photo, gender, networks, username, and user id are always publicly available to both people and apps.” (Learn why here.) Some of the apps require this information. You can select what other information you give the apps access to, including your friends list, birthday, education history, hometown, and current city.

CHANGE WHO CAN SEE THE APPS YOU USE

At a minimum, you should edit your “App visibility” settings or who on Facebook can see which apps you use. This is important in protecting your identity, especially if some of your apps have confidential information. If you are searching for vacation rentals on AirBnB, you may not want the “Public” to know you are planning a 2-week vacation to backpack through Europe. You can tighten the security settings to “Only Me.” For apps such as Instagram, you want your friends to see your photos, so you can loosen the visibility settings to “Friends.”

DISCONNECT FROM ANY APPS YOU DON’T USE

This is the easiest and safest practice. If you aren’t using and don’t plan on using it in the near future, simply remove it. In the future, you may be prompted to create an account with the app. Maybe your perspective will differ from before and you’ll be intentional with your app selection.

BE (MORE) IN CONTROL OF YOUR PRIVACY

Nobody really knows where your information goes once you click, “Like,” or connect. Even if you read through the many, many, many pages of every security policy from every app, tool, website, and third party vendor, you still can’t be 100% certain your data isn’t spinning off in to some cosmic database for anyone and everyone to view. Take ownership of your privacy by being intentional with what accounts you create. Anything worth having (access to) takes time and shouldn’t be done hastily.

 “What apps have your personal information?” posted by Howard Tech Advisors By: Michelle Pelszynski on March 22, 2018

Happy New Year!  As we enter 2018, we are seeing another surge of identity fraud.  Clients are receiving emails from their banks and other institutions that look real, but that are in fact “phishing” to commit fraud or identity theft.  

The methods used by those committing fraud varies and is constantly changing.  Many of these methods are quite advanced, requiring that we all stay vigilant in our efforts to avoid fraud.  Here are some common things we recommend to all our clients to help avoid credit fraud;

1) Check your credit report several times per year and pay attention to any unusual activity or activity that you did not initiate. 

2)  If you receive a call from your bank or credit card company regarding anything about your accounts, pause, then tell them that you will call them back.  Feel free to ask their name or department.  Never call back on a number the caller provides.  It may be a fraud.  Look up the information yourself, either on the back of your card, the web or off one of your statements.  Then call the main number you have on record to speak with someone at your bank or credit card company to confirm what the call is about.  If the call is legitimate, they will know exactly what is needed and if it was not a legitimate call, then you have avoided an incidence of credit fraud.

3) Next, if you receive an alert from your bank or credit card company by email, never follow any of the links in the email -  log into your bank separately on your own.  These emails often look very legitimate and the average person might not be able to tell if they are a fraud or not.  Once you log into your bank or other agencies’ web site, you will generally see the alerts are posted right there online.   If it’s easier for you to call your bank, do that.  Just mention to the person you speak with that you received an email and wanted to check on it by phone.  

Our goal is for all to have a safe and wonderful 2018.  If you have any questions about any of the above information or how Oxford Planning Group, LLC can help you be more secure with your financial planning and investments, please contact us.  If you would like a copy of our “Credit Report Agency Contact Info and Frequently Asked Question” just send us an email and we’ll be happy to provide you with that information.  https://oxfordplannng.com/contact-us