dsmWealth: January 5, 2023

BY STEVE DINNEN

Karla Urwitz is packing her bags for a flight next week to Cairo, Egypt.

To be fair, Urwitz is a professional traveler. She owns BWK Travel, bwktravel.com, and is jetting to Egypt to size it up as a destination for her clients. It doesn’t hurt that she gets to explore the pyramids amid 70-degree daytime temperatures. At this time of year, she’s booking a lot of trips to Jamaica and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. And of course, Mexico is open for business. (The country worked hard to avoid shutting down during the pandemic.)

“I think people are more comfortable and tired of hiding,” Urwitz said of a rebound in travel.

Cruising is also seeing an uptick, she said. COVID-imposed restrictions and masking have pretty much fallen by the wayside. Tapping into the cruise market, American Airlines offers seasonal nonstop service from Des Moines to Miami, the jumping-off point for cruising. Take care when booking; these flights, which operate only on Saturdays to and from Miami, can run as little as $567 or as high as $1,680. Allegiant also has direct flights to Fort Lauderdale with Monday and Friday departures.

Des Moines residents are also spreading their wings farther abroad, Urwitz said. She has booked two groups to Italy and another to Denmark. She has also seen renewed interest in Japan, which at this time last year was battling COVID and managing the Winter Olympics.

Urwitz has seen zero interest in China, perhaps for good measure. It's experiencing a surge in COVID. (I personally have spoken with three Chinese nationals living in Des Moines, and all report COVID is rampant among their family members back home.) The United States is in the process of reintroducing compulsory preflight COVID tests for people traveling from China.

Colombia is a “little iffy,” said Urwitz, and at this time she said she would not recommend travel to Cuba.

Cuba aside, Des Moines people are traveling. And they're heading for the sun; for proof, just check the departure board at Des Moines International Airport. Fully a quarter of its nonstop destinations are to cities in Florida. Add in Sun Belt destinations in Arizona, California and Texas, and the total rises to one-half.

Travel Insurance a Must for Your Next Adventure
BY STEVE DINNEN

CFAR. Don’t leave home without it. This is travel insurance, the “Cancel For Any Reason” variety. Given the upheaval possibilities presented by weather, airline meltdowns, civil unrest and a rolling pandemic, it’s wise to consider such coverage before your next journey starts. And it doesn’t have to be a far-off adventure, as we have just seen with Southwest Airlines and their year-end scrubbing of 15,000 flights nationwide that stranded millions of travelers.

CFAR gives the widest range of coverage for insurance on disrupted travel. But there are dozens of variations, offering insurance for canceled or delayed flights, lost bags, disappearing hotel reservations, medical care and evacuation, and even transport of your mortal remains should things turn out badly.

Karla Urwitz, operator of BWK Travel in Des Moines, highly recommends medical coverage when traveling abroad. After all, health insurance coverage in the U.S., including Medicare, does not extend to foreign lands.

Set Financial Goals for the Year Now

BY ANDREW SCHWARTZ FOR INVESTOPEDIA

It is important for everyone to reset their personal finances and their goals for the new year.

Did you make any resolutions concerning your personal finances last January? If so, how did you do? Did you attain your goals or miss the mark? While the days leading up to New Year's Eve are often spent reflecting on the year gone by, the following days should be spent reflecting on the new year, reviewing your financial scorecard for the past year, and then looking for ways to improve.

The good news about New Year's resolutions is that you get a fresh crack at them each year. Here are some financial moves that you should resolve to make in the year to come.

1. Calculate your net worth
If you haven't already done so, the start of the new year is an opportune time to determine how much you're worth financially. Calculating your net worth is a key step in assessing your financial health and reaching your financial goals.

The resolutions that you need to make will become more obvious after doing this calculation. Looking closely at all your assets and liabilities helps to create a clear picture of where you are prioritizing your current spending and saving and where you may need to make changes in those habits.

READ MORE.

Eight Ways to Protect Your Nest Egg

BY RYAN HOGG FOR BUSINESS INSIDER

The alarm bells are sounding on the U.S. economy and many economists expect a recession in 2023. That means it's time to take action to protect your finances. Insider spoke to five personal finance experts to uncover the key steps to help you bulletproof your finances ahead of a rocky new year.

1. Build an emergency fund. The experts advised building up an emergency fund to cover your expenses if you lose your job. Such a fund would ideally cover three to six months' worth of expenses, they said. The average American household spent nearly $67,000 on expenses—things like housing, food and transportation costs—in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So for the average household, the emergency fund would need to be between $16,750 and $33,500.

2. Trim a few regular expenses. Thinking hard about everyday expenses can help you find savings. Such an exercise often requires the least effort and bears the most fruit, said Cameron Huddleston, an author and director of Carefull, a security service for elderly people's finances. Bundling your car insurance and home insurance together, finding a cheaper cellphone or internet plan, reducing the number of streaming subscriptions you have, and making your own coffee and lunch rather than buying them every day can prove to be easy wins for cutting regular spending.

READ MORE.

Looking for new personal finance podcasts? Investopedia shares some of their top listens from financial pros such as Dave Ramsey and Clark Howard.

Goldman forecasts 2023 might be the best bond market in the past 14 years, according to Yahoo Finance,
The silver lining with inflation: lower tax rates. NBC News shares how tax brackets are changing for 2023.

dsmWealth is published on the first and third Thursday of each month and updated on dsmMagazine.com.

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