New Online Financial Resources

Squared Away periodically alerts readers to information online that might be useful to them.  These three crossed the transom in August:

• Natural disasters quickly turn into financial disasters. On Hurricane Katrina’s 10^th anniversary, the National Endowment for Financial Education and other organizations have released a guide, Disasters and Financial Planning.  The guide includes tips on how to insure properly against hurricanes, floods, or forest fires and how to hire contractors to make repairs after disaster hits.
• The U.S. Social Security Administration posts a raft of brochures online to explain everything from how to get your newborn’s Social Security number or replace your old one (citizen or non-citizen, international students) to disability information for veterans. There’s also information on federal benefits many people may be unaware of. For example, low-income Medicare enrollees can apply for extra help – up to $4,000 per year – to pay for their prescription drugs. Many of the brochures come in multiple languages, including Somali and Vietnamese.  Click here to see the full list of publications on socialsecurity.gov.
• The Center for Financial Services Innovation’s Consumer Financial Health Study sorts Americans into four financial states: “unengaged,” “tenuous;” “at risk,” and “striving.”  They’re characterized by typical behavioral characteristics of how they handle – or fail to manage – their finances. For example, the unengaged typically “do not know how much their monthly debt payments are.”