Search Results for: topic tag payments

Layaway

My husband and I are considering a move to Arizona. Among the excitement about the adventure of living in a new state, I am anxious to have a gas clothes dryer again. I am not even a little bit dreading shopping for new appliances. Sears is running a commercial offering layaway on major appliances and it makes me a little nostalgic. My family took advantage of layaway a lot while I was growing up. With layaway you could put a deposit down on your purchase and make payments at agreed upon intervals until the purchase was paid for. When the … Continue reading →

Money in Marriage

The concern for many today is ‘Money, money, money’ to quote the Abba song. Yes we saw Mamma Mia a few weeks back, can you tell? With the current economic situation the way it is a lot of people are worried about money, coping with day to day expenses and the prices of basic items rising all the time, banks looking shaky and the share market in a slump. As well as those struggling to support families, it also affects those with retirement funds and investments as they see what they thought was a retirement nest egg shrinking before their … Continue reading →

Kinship Foster Care

My last two blogs defined kinship adoption and discussed its advantages and disadvantages. This blog is about the related topic of kinship foster care. Some estimates say that nearly half of the children in foster care are living with relatives. This is very hard to measure, as many families may be taking care of grandchildren, nieces or nephews informally. As with kinship adoption, the major advantage of kinship foster care is that the children are with someone familiar instead of being further traumatized or frightened by being placed with strangers. Many children also find living with relatives to be less … Continue reading →

Author Interview – Don Miles

Today we are joined by Don Miles, author of the new book “Cinco de Mayo.” Don, thank you for joining us today. I understand you wrote this book to clarify the historical events leading up to Cinco de Mayo and to educate readers on the actual importance of the day. I’ll admit, I was one who thought it was the Mexican Independence Day. Can you help me understand the historical sequence of that time period? a. Mexico had just finished its own civil war between liberals and conservatives, 1858-60. b. Conservatives lost, but emptied the national treasury before their leaders … Continue reading →

Adoption Tax Credit

Many people who hear how expensive adoption is do not realize what a dramatic difference the adoption tax credit makes. The tax credit for adoption is $10,000. This is not a deduction where you deduct adoption expenses from your taxable income. This is an actual credit, meaning you pay less money in taxes. For most people, that means you will be getting quite a refund! This one-time tax credit is available to those who adopt internationally as well as those who adopt US infants or US children in foster care, unlike the ongoing monthly subsidies for medical or psychological care … Continue reading →