School and sports are now in full swing, vacations are over, and it seems like we are running full speed into the holiday season.

With so much on our plates it can be easy to forget to take care of the day-to-day stuff like budgeting and paying bills.

Why not try setting up automatic payments through your financial institution to cover expenses like utilities or credit card bills? Online banking is usually an easy way to accomplish this.

Often a bank or credit union will allow you to keep track of expenses, and will store your utility or credit card account information on its website. With just a few clicks of a button, you can designate how much money to distribute to each account and how often you pay.

Don’t have online banking? Most companies now will set up their own automatic bill-pay. Just contact their customer service line, or visit their website, and a representative will take your banking account information and will have your funds automatically debited in the amount of your bill.

Another way to make sure bills are paid on time and to track your expenses is by using a good old-fashioned calendar. Whether this is one you hang on your wall or one you store on your phone or computer, you can keep track of daily expenses, bill due dates, and income all in one location.

Use your calendar to plan ahead and monitor where you are spending your money. If you notice a lot of money being spent on one expense and don’t have enough money to cover your needs, make a change and give yourself a spending limit for items considered “wants.”

Make a commitment to yourself to save money, reduce debt and build wealth over time. Visit our website, www.okaloosasaves.org, or text “OKSaves” to 95577 to take the Okaloosa Saves pledge. (Standard data and message rates may apply.)

For more information, contact me at 689-5850 or jbreslawski@ufl.edu.

Jill Breslawski is an agent at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension office in Crestview.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Automatic payments can save people time and money

During your working years, your primary investment goal is generally growth — you need your money to grow so that you can eventually afford the comfortable retirement lifestyle you’ve envisioned.

But when you retire, should you change course and adjust your investment strategy from “offense” to “defense”?

Actually, it’s not quite that simple. To begin with, even while you are working, you don’t want your portfolio to be completely filled with growth-oriented investments, such as stocks.

If it were, you would likely be taking on a degree of investment risk that’s too high, because, as you may know, stocks will fluctuate in price — sometimes significantly.

And if you only own stocks, you could take a big hit during a market downturn.

That’s why you need to have an array of investments — stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit and so on. By spreading your investment dollars this way, you can give yourself more opportunities for success while reducing the impact of volatility on your portfolio. (Keep in mind, though, that diversification, by itself, can’t guarantee profits or protect against all losses.)

Now, let’s fast-forward to your retirement date. Once you retire, you may need to look at your investment portfolio somewhat differently — instead of “building it up,” you may now want to think of “making it last.” So, your first impression might be that instead of maintaining the diversified portfolio you had when you were working, you need to switch to predominantly “safe” investments, such as CDs and Treasury bonds, to reduce the risk of losing principal.

And such a strategy might indeed be effective — if your retirement were only going to last a year or so. But the chances are reasonably good that you could be retired for two, or possibly even three, decades.

If that’s the case, you will have to deal with a threat to your lifestyle that you might not have considered: inflation. We’ve had low inflation for several years, but that could change in the future.

Consider this: Even at a relatively low 3 percent inflation rate, prices double roughly every 25 years. And depending on your personal needs and spending patterns, your personal inflation rate might be even higher.

To protect yourself against inflation, you will find that investments such as CDs and Treasury bonds are typically not much help. In fact, in a low-rate environment, your returns on these investments may not even keep up with inflation, much less keep you ahead of it. That’s not to say they have no value — they can provide you with an income stream and help lower your overall investment risk.

But to defend your purchasing power, you will still need some growth potential in your investment portfolio during your retirement years.

Your exact percentage of stocks and other growth-oriented investments will depend on a variety of factors — your projected longevity, other sources of income, family situation, risk tolerance and so on. You may want to consult with a financial professional to ensure that your portfolio mix is suitable for your needs.

Many things may change in your life when you retire — but the need for investment diversification is not one of them.

This article was written by Edward Jones on behalf of your Edward Jones financial adviser.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Diversification is still important for retirees

When you retire, will your cost of living decline? Some of your expenses may indeed drop, but others won’t. Plus, you may have some new ones to consider.

So, all in all, it’s a good idea to think about ways to boost your retirement savings now, before you’re retired. And once you do retire, you’ll need to be adept at managing your income.

But whether saving today or planning for tomorrow, you should familiarize yourself with the key financial challenges you will face during your retirement years.

Specifically, consider these areas:

●Longevity: Obviously, the longer your retirement lasts, the more money you’ll need. And you could be retired for quite some time. A 65-year-old man, on average, is expected to live another 17.9 years, while a 65-year-old woman can anticipate another 20.5 years, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

With this type of potential longevity in mind, you’ll want to contribute as much as you can afford to your retirement plans, such as your IRA and 401(k), while you’re working.

Then, when you are retired and start tapping into your investment portfolio, you will need to create a sustainable withdrawal rate — one that doesn’t push you into the “danger zone” of possibly outliving your resources.

●Health care: Once you enter your retirement years, your health care costs are all but certain to rise, even with Medicare.

In fact, the average annual out-of-pocket health care cost for a household between 65 and 74 years old is $4,383 — about 11 percent of total household spending, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. And these costs rise substantially for those over 74.

To help cope with these costs, you’ll need a reasonable amount of liquidity in your portfolio.

●Long-term care: You may never need to stay in a nursing home or receive services from a home health care worker. But you are taking somewhat of a gamble if you don’t prepare for these long-term care costs — because they are high.

In fact, the annual average cost for a private room in a nursing home is more than $92,000, according to the 2016 Cost of Care Survey produced by Genworth, a financial services company.

Medicare typically pays very little of these expenses, but a financial professional can help you find an appropriate way of coping with these types of costs.

●Inflation: We’ve had low inflation the past several years, but it hasn’t gone away entirely, and it won’t disappear when you’re retired, either. Even a mild rate of inflation can, over time, seriously erode your purchasing power. To combat the effects of inflation, you’ll need to own at least some growth-oriented investments.

●Market volatility: The financial markets will bounce up and down during your retirement years, just as they did when you were working.

The big difference? You have less time to recover — and you don’t want to withdraw from your investments when their price is down.

However, you can help avoid this necessity by maintaining enough income-producing vehicles in your portfolio; these types of investments usually fluctuate much less in value than stocks and stock-based vehicles.

By being aware of these issues, both before and during your retirement, you can prepare for them — and preparation is key to managing your income, as it is in all walks of life.

This article was written by Edward Jones on behalf of your Edward Jones financial adviser.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: SHANKLIN: How to manage retirement income challenges

Thanks to our Friends of the Crestview Library, we have a Wii U!

Now, when students in grades six through 12 come on Fridays from 2-4 p.m., more players can play at the same time. “Super Smash Brothers Brawl” is projected onto the wall (which is larger than our television screen).

Ginny Dennison supervises Teen Wii. She and I put our heads together to get it set up the first time, and, of course, needed the students’ help. They were glad to give it and, together, we made a success of our Friends’ generosity.

Want to support our library by becoming a Friends member? Pick up a membership brochure next time you’re in the library. Memberships start as low as $10 for an individual.

Heather Nitzel is the Crestview Public Library's youth services librarian.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: NITZEL: Crestview library gets a Wii U