月別アーカイブ: 2016年6月

Congratulations! You are getting married soon, and you are caught up in a whirlwind of planning activities. There are so many details to consider that you may forget one important detail that applies if you are changing your name — applying for a new Social Security card.

Social Security uses your earnings history to calculate your benefits. The 35 years in which you earned the most (adjusted to account for wage changes over time) are used in the benefit calculation. If you forget to notify your employer and the Social Security Administration (SSA) about your name change, any W-2 forms received after the name change may be incorrectly recorded and your Social Security benefits may be incorrectly calculated.

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You may not even be aware of the problem until you retire and find your benefits to be lower than you expected. It could take some time to straighten out years of earnings filed under the wrong name. Your benefits may be delayed as a result, or even reduced if the correct earnings cannot be established.

How do you apply for a new Social Security card after a name change? The SSA does have an online service, but unfortunately, you cannot use it to apply for a new card. You will have to either send an application in by mail or bring it in to your local Social Security office, along with the necessary supporting documents.

To receive a new Social Security card, documents are required to prove identity, citizenship, and the legal basis for the name change. For a name change, your new card will be issued with the same number as your old card.

In the case of a name change, you will not need to establish citizenship unless citizenship was never established in the first place. If you do need to establish citizenship, the most common documents to use are either a passport or a birth certificate showing U.S. origin.

Suitable identification documents include a U.S. passport, U.S. driver’s license, or a non-driver ID card issued by a state agency. All documents must be originals or copies certified by the issuing agency — no notarized copies or photocopies are allowed. Driver’s licenses or non-driver ID cards must be current. While passports or state issued IDs are preferred, you may be able to use other ID cards such as employee, school, or military ID cards that contain relevant information. Contact your local Social Security office if you are not sure that a particular ID is suitable.

To prove that your name change is legal, you will need to provide the documented proof of your marriage. Note that proof of name change status is necessary for any name change reason (decree of divorce, Naturalization Certificate, etc.).

Check here for further details on the required documentation for your new card. Under the “Type of Card” category, select “Corrected.”

If you are part of a same-sex couple and planning to change your name, the same rules apply. Thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, same-sex coupleshave the same options as opposite-sex couples in determination of Social Security benefits.

Be sure to include the SSA in your wedding plans to avoid problems when you retire. They may not send you a gift for your reception, but you will receive your “gift” down the road with a smooth transition into your retirement benefits. That is much better than an engraved gravy boat.

Let the free MoneyTips Retirement Planner help you calculate when you can retire without jeopardizing your lifestyle.

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Planning a wedding is intimidating, stressful process. Reading the following article in its entirety will help you plan a successful wedding.

When you are planning your wedding festivities, alcohol needs to be a consideration as to what type you want to serve, and what type will be the most cost efficient. Ask the venue about which alcohol service options.

If you plan on doing the catering yourself, look to wholesale markets such as Sam’s or Costco to buy supplies. This will enable you to save quite a bit of money. You can also see if your friends to chip in with food costs.

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When planning speakers for your wedding, have them rehearse the material before you so that you can make sure everything is appropriate. There will be many different generations at the wedding, and what may seem funny to a younger person may not be humorous to an older crowd.

Use someone’s property for a wedding.

Do not avoid eating just so your wedding dress fits. You are going to find yourself dehydrated and get dizzy by rushing weight too quickly prior to your wedding. You don’t need to faint during the altar.

The first thing to consider when you have to think about is the person you marry. This lifelong decision is one that should not be rushed into. Think about this person and what things will drive you crazy, as well as the things that will drive you up the wall.

Look at samples of past work before hiring a makeup artist you are considering for your wedding day. Is the makeup style pleasing to you? Make sure it is something you love it. You do not want to be an hour before your wedding with all parties involved.

Instead of spending too much for a large wedding cake, try getting multiple tiers of mini-tarts or cupcakes. These arrangements are typically much cheaper and affordable. Guests can serve themselves or even take a party favor of sorts.

Make sure the lights at your wedding reception venue have dimmer switches. This may seem like it’s trivial, but the option should be there if you prefer to have low lighting for your first dance, and switching to brighter lights for the remainder of the event. Check out the venue about these specific options before picking one.

It could get stained or wrinkled while hanging in your closet.

If the guests are going to enjoy a meal consisting of multiple courses, use small dishes of candies to keep guests amused while they wait. You can also offer crackers, thin crackers or any other type of little treats.

Ask someone to borrow an item to wear something of theirs on your wedding day.

Silk flowers make great alternatives to various other flowers that you can purchase for your wedding.

You possibly want to think about fusing two or multiple menus together making the best of both families and comfortable for everyone present. You can add little twists in different food items, or even edible wedding favors.

Despite all the hard work involved, keeping this advice in mind will help your big day go smoothly. These tips should have helped you have more fun with your wedding planning.

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Whitney Houston’s numerous awards, stunning red-carpet dresses and other personal affects will be up for grabs come June 24 and 25 in an auction held by auction house Heritage Auctions and sanctioned by her estate.

“The [Houston] family actually reached out to the president of our company, ” says Garry Shrum, director of Entertainment and Music Memorabilia at Heritage Auctions. “We had worked with a good friend of theirs, David Gest. He knew us and liked what we did and told the Houston [family] about us, and my colleague Margaret Barrett and I went out to New Jersey and listened to what they wanted to do. We gave them some ideas, they gave us some ideas, and we came up with this 119-piece collection that’s basically a retrospective of Whitney from the beginning, from when she first started singing after she left being a background singer for Chaka Khan and Lou Rawls. We have her passport from the beginning, all these various awards and outfits, all kinds of cool and groovy things.”

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The most buzzed-about item on the internet is her intricate, one-of-a-kind Marc Bouwer wedding dress, which she wore to wed Bobby Brown in 1992.

Some of the more unique and sentimental items include weathered passports, a jacket given to Whitney by her father emblazoned with her childhood nickname Nippy, and aDisney coloring book entirely in Japanese. “Her and Michael [Jackson], they loved Disney stuff,” Shrum says. “She colored these pages and then autographed it. To get something personal like that, it doesn’t happen very often.”

“This is probably going to do half a million or more,” Shrum predicts. A portion of the proceeds will go to a charity of the family’s choosing.

“It’s a unique opportunity for her fans to actually get personal things that were very close to her coming directly from the estate,” says Shrum. “Usually you pick up odds and ends that were given to fans and fans end up selling them with [Heritage Auctions], but when you get something from the estate, it’s so personal and it has such strong provenance and the backstories that the family has given us to put with the pieces are even more exciting.

Beyond her glamorous wardrobe and treasure trove of awards, Whitney Houston left behind an even greater legacy. “Her music’s going to last more than a lifetime,” Shrum says. “A hundred years from now, ‘I Will Always Love You’ will still be a song that people shake their head when they hear it.”

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