She Finally Understood Why Her Husband Was Fine With Debt

Happy Friday! Before you sign anything with a debt collector on the phone, there's a letter that can stop them in their tracks, and there's a tax deadline this week that catches self-employed people who've never owed one before. Plus, marriage and money coach Karen Hackman joins me to talk about the 18 years it took her and her husband to get aligned on money, and what finally changed it.

I'm Ralph Estep Jr., a licensed public accountant with 30 years in the business, and I'm joined by my cohost Juliet. We're live every Monday through Friday from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern on Becoming Financially Confident.

Here's what we got into today:

• A debt collector can call you seven times in seven days, but on the eighth call federal law says they've gone too far, and I walked through the 30-day written dispute letter that makes them prove you owe the debt
• If you're self-employed or get 1099 income, your estimated tax payment is due Tuesday, September 15, and I explained why the IRS penalizes you for not paying as you go
• Employer health insurance costs are projected to jump 8.2% next year, the biggest increase since 2003, so I talked through what to actually look at during open enrollment
• I shared why I love WalletHub for tracking spending and catching credit report errors, since the FTC found 1 in 4 people have one
• Karen Hackman from Money and Marriage joined us. She was married 18 years before she and her husband Wayne got on the same financial page, and she walked us through sinking funds, how a $4,000 credit card balance turned out to include two years of fraud nobody caught, and how she's teaching her daughter Charlotte the same lessons

Got a money question for me? Send it to me at becomingfinanciallyconfident.com/ . Or come watch us live every weekday at becomingfinanciallyconfident.com/live .

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Links mentioned in this episode:

becomingfinanciallyconfident.com/wallet

moneyandmarriage.net

Karen Hackman's booking calendar link

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Companies mentioned in this episode:

• YouTube
• Money and Marriage
• WalletHub
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
• Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
• Vanguard
• Fidelity Investments
• Amazon
• Amazon Prime
• Airbnb
• Booking.com
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• The Walt Disney Company (Disney)