“As a reference and legislative tracking tool for the U.S. Congress we publish the status of federal legislation, information about your representative and senators in Congress including voting records, original research on bills and votes, and congressional misconduct.” – Joshua Tauberer, Ph.D., Founder

What you can do on GovTrack.us
Use GovTrack to track bills for updates by getting alerts and understand the broader context of legislation through our statistical analyses. Read our original research on GovTrack Insider. GovTrack was the first to create comprehensive open data about Congress, and we have successfully lobbied Congress to make more and better legislative information available to the public.

Who we are
GovTrack is a project of Civic Impulse, LLC, a completely independent entity which is wholly owned by its operator and receives no funding in any form from outside organizations. We have no financers, sponsors, investors, or partners, nor do we have any affiliation or relationship (financial or otherwise) with any political party, government agency, or any other outside group or persons.

Help us open government.
Join the movement to make our government more open and effective. We pay our operating costs through our advertising revenue and crowdfunding (support us on Patreon; see our 2015 project on Kickstarter). We’re a small organization with four part-time staff members. Joshua Tauberer, an entrepreneur and technology consultant living in Washington, DC. started GovTrack as a hobby in 2004. He is the organization’s founder and president.

The post GovTrack.us – Comprehensive Open Data on Congress appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

We hosted this presentation in response to the recent news that Equifax’s database has been hacked, exposing the highly personal and confidential information of at least 143 million people in the U.S. – that’s close to half the U.S. population. Chances are you are one of them.

Equifax as you may know is one of the 3 major credit reporting agencies which collects and aggregates all our personal information and assigns a Credit Score which becomes part of a person’s Credit Identity. This score is used by almost everyone to determine how credit worthy we are. And It can have an effect on everything from getting a job, securing a mortgage, to the interest rates you pay on your credit cards, and merchant accounts.

The hackers were able to get names, date of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, credit card numbers and driver’s license numbers. In other words, they were able to get everything they need to completely steal your identity and credit rating. You’ve worked hard to build your credit profile, and your personal identity is very valuable. You need to do everything you can to safeguard your credit in light of Equifax’s incompetence.

This is serious cause for alarm as it relates to your personal financial future. Hackers can hang on to your data and use illegally to cause you financial harm years later. You must plan to remain alert to financial fraud for the long term.

If your information has been compromised by the Equifax breach, this could have an effect for the rest of your life.

We thank Castle Wealth Management for the following Tips For Safeguarding Your Financial Information:

Tips for Safeguarding Your Financial Information

The post Safeguarding Your Financial Information appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

—

According to Equifax, hackers targeted people’s names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and credit card numbers. Equifax will send correspondence by MAIL to those who were exposed. The company has put a tool on their website to check your potential impact and has made a free credit monitoring service available to those affected.

If your information has been compromised by the Equifax breach, it could be years before your data could be used illegally, so you must plan to be diligent for the long term. This includes reviewing your monthly bank and credit card statements along with your credit report for possible identity theft.

In the meantime, be wary of any emails you receive that are purportedly from Equifax and suggest you click on this or that link. The security breach is a perfect opportunity for fraudsters pretending to be from Equifax to prey upon the chance to steal your identity and compromise your computer’s security. The best thing to do, always, when you receive an email from any business who asks you to click on their link is to instead find the company’s website and follow any links you find there.

What can you do now?

1. Check your credit report at annualcreditreport.com. Consumers are entitled to one credit report from each of the three reporting agencies each year. We recommend downloading a report from a different agency every three or four months.

• Download a report from Experian today, TransUnion in January, and Equifax in May to monitor your credit year-round without charge.

2. Stop pre-screened credit offers to limit future exposure by calling 888-5OPTOUT (888-567-8688).

3. Place a CREDIT FREEZE on your accounts. While a credit freeze does not prevent current creditors from accessing your credit report, it does restrict the ability of new creditors to access your credit information. In other words, if you already have an account with your bank, an identity thief may still be able to open an account through your bank since that is not a “new” creditor.

• A credit freeze can temporarily be lifted and then put back in place if you are actively seeking credit.
• Take care of the PIN used when you freeze your credit as its needed to unfreeze the credit reports.

4. File your income taxes early each year and be sure to respond to any IRS correspondence immediately. Doing so will limit the ability of scammers to use your Social Security number to get a tax refund in your name.

• Scammers also use stolen Social Security numbers to apply for work, when arrested for crimes and infractions, to get medical care, and to steal benefits to which you are entitled.

5. If you discover you are the victim of identity theft, visit identitytheft.gov to report and start your recovery plan immediately.

—

The post The Equifax Security Breach appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

Disaster Planning—5 Things to Put in Your Financial Emergency Kit

by FINRA

FINRA is dedicated to investor protection and market integrity through effective and efficient regulation of broker-dealers. FINRA is not part of the government. FINRA is a not-for-profit organization authorized by Congress to protect America’s investors by making sure the broker-dealer industry operates fairly and honestly.

AUGUST 30, 2017

Hurricane Harvey’s destruction is a forceful reminder that you rarely have very much advance warning to prepare for natural disasters. For this reason, it’s important to assemble a financial emergency kit now, ahead of a crisis.

Before we go into the contents of a financial emergency kit, here are a few pointers on disaster planning.

First, make your financial kit part of an overall disaster plan. You can get started on the planning process by going to the Department of Homeland Security’s Ready.gov website.

Second, while you can’t guarantee that your kit will survive a disaster, you should keep it in an easily accessible—and easy to remember—location so you can access it quickly during an emergency. If you deplete items from your kit, replace them as soon as possible.

Finally, discuss with your family what you will do if you are separated, such as an agreed upon place to meet and how you will communicate with each other (phone, a shared voicemail or email box, social media, some other means).

Kit Essentials

You can decide how much you want to store in your financial emergency kit—and whether you want to make duplicates of contents and keep them in additional locations—but your kit should include these five items:

1. Cash and keys. Your kit should contain enough ready money to facilitate daily life for a few days. How much is up to you, but think about what you would need to pay for food, lodging and other necessities. Cash is king in most emergencies since you may not be able to access ATMs or other electronic forms of payment. Also pack a set of essential keys (including a spare to a safe deposit box, if you have one).

Tip: You can put a credit card in your kit for good measure, but don’t depend on it.

2. Contacts. Create a list with telephone numbers, emails or other contact information that includes family members, as well as key medical, financial and business contacts. All of this information can be stored electronically, too (with proper security precautions), but keep a paper copy in your emergency kit as well.
Tip: Now’s the time to check with your bank or credit union to see if they offer disaster assistance, which may include flexible loan payment options, forgiveness of late charges and other services.

3. Personal identification. After a disaster strikes, you may have to confirm your identity to obtain disaster relief services, file insurance claims, or get access to your property and financial assets. Keep essential documents that help establish who you and your family are. These include extra originals or copies of passports, driver’s licenses, birth and marriage certificates, adoption decrees, Social Security cards and military records.

Tip: Check your financial account information periodically to ensure that your financial professional will be able to contact you in case of a disaster. If you have notified your broker or adviser of any changes to your name or address, confirm that the correct change has been made to your account by examining the notification your broker will send you within 30 days of the change. Also, some firms may ask whether you would like to designate a secondary or emergency contact for the account whom the firm could contact if it cannot get in touch with you, or has concerns about the your whereabouts or health.

4. Paper or electronic copies of important financial records. A short list of financial documents to put in your kit includes mortgages, property deeds, legal documents such as a Power of Attorney and insurance policies. Also include recent financial statements for bank accounts, credit cards, brokerage accounts and statements related to investments that might be held outside a brokerage firm (such mutual funds or 529 college savings). If you access accounts or documents online, include a list of password hints. Also pack recent retirement account statements and your most recent tax return. A password-protected flash drive or file might be safer (and lighter) than hard copies—as long as you have a way to access the files.

Tip: Get information about how to keep your tax records safe from the IRS’s helpful resource Prepare for Hurricanes, Natural Disasters by Safeguarding Tax Records.

5. An inventory of your valuables and personal belongings. This will help you maximize the benefit from your insurance policies and will expedite the claims process. Assemble a paper, photo or video inventory, or a combination of these, and put it into your emergency kit. Save purchase receipts for major items or appraisals for valuable belongings. For your household items, walk through your house and write down what’s in every room. For major items, record make and serial numbers. While you’re at it, record the cost. Take close-up pictures of valuables, including details such as serial number tags. You can also videotape your belongings with a narrative description of the relevant information.

Tip: Understand what your insurance covers and what will be required to make a claim in the event disaster strikes. Your policy may treat disasters differently (for example, flood damage may be handled differently than fire or hurricane damage). Do you have the right kind of insurance to cover what you own? Do you have enough coverage? And if you have completed major modifications to your house or other real estate property, does your present policy cover them?

—

The post Financial Emergency Kit – Do You Have These in Your Kit? appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

socius / ‘so.ci.us / noun  1. partner, sharer; 2. companion, associate; 3. ally, confederate

The financial industry is not structured in a way to empower us to make better decisions for ourselves or our financial lives. The Financial Industry is based on sales and distribution of products, like a manufacturing industry not consultative advice like the healthcare industry. When hiring a Financial Advisor, are their interests aligned with yours? Are you being “sold”? “Transparency is the enemy of higher fees and higher revenue for fund managers,” declares Mr. Renz, who believes the investor is entitled to clarity and transparency from their Financial Advisors.

• Do you know if your financial professional is an “o” Advisor or “e” Adviser or why that matters to you?
• When was last time you had a second opinion on your investments and planning?
• Who is looking out for your best interests besides you?

If knowledge is power, then a lack of knowledge is a lack of power. If you would like to have an honest conversation about whether your investment portfolio and planning is aligned with your intention and purpose for your wealth, Socius Family Office will make the complex simple and transparent. Make the decision to feel better about your financial affairs today. Contact Mark Renz at [email protected] or 561.267.0507.

For a limited time, Socius Family Office would like to extend a special discount to FWCEL members for their proprietary Forensic Portfolio Analysis. Get a second opinion on your investments and planning and see what you can do to improve your position.

The post Making the Complex Simple: How the Financial Industry Works and What They Don’t Tell You appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

Financial empowerment starts with having your own financial identity. Even if your financial position is not what you would like it to be, having a full understanding of your situation can allow you to move forward and plan the future. Putting your head in the sand is not an option.

In  her discussion, Ms. Gannon laid out several recommendations for women, including the following:

• While you’re still married, go to a bank where you don’t have a joint account with your spouse, and get a credit card, open a bank account and checking account—all in your own name.

• Check your credit report and your credit score.

• Get a full understanding of your and your spouse’s financial position..

• Gather financial documents. Make copies of everything you can find such as insurance policies, brokerage and bank statements, pay stubs, retirement account statements, real estate documents, appraisals, etc. Hire a forensic accountant to help you uncover hidden assets.

• To propose a divorce settlement, you must know what you need or are owed. Create a budget and accounting of all assets and debts to understand what you are entitled to.

The post Thinking Strategically About Divorce – What Women Need to Know About Protecting Themselves appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

The post FAMILY FINANCES: The Importance of Inter-Generational Conversations appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

Catherine Zieman, CIMA®, CFP®, Vice President, Wealth Advisor in Palm Beach, Florida.

“If you do not ask the right questions, you do not get the right answers.” Edward Hodnett. 

Statistics show that 75% of the future wealth will be controlled by women yet 86% of women don’t know how to invest or choose a financial service. The good news is that by combining the right questions with your intuition, regardless of your age or life’s status, you can make the best choices regarding your financial well-being. And you don’t have to know everything about investments just become aware of the “red flags” and a few key terms. I will be happy to send you the guide book which will help you have an impactful meeting with your financial advisor just contact me at [email protected] or call 561-350-1230.

The post Key Questions to Ask Your Financial Advisor appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.

Elizabeth Varian from Webmaster for Hire urges: “Its highly important to keep passwords secure and STRONG to keep your online data and profiles free from hackers. Passwords should not be birthdays or anything a scammer can get off an over-shared social networking profile. Password Generators are a good option.”

Use the internet with caution and good judgment. If you receive an urgent email from a long lost relative on vacation who had a passport and money stolen, and needs money wired immediately, take the time to do some due diligence and check it out. Don’t fall victim to online scams. www.WebmasterForHire.us

The post Passwords and Financial Security appeared first on Foundation for Women's Cultural and Economic Literacy.