Free Online Tool Supports Senior Money Management

The National Council on Aging has launched Budget CheckUp, a free online tool that gives older adults practical tips on how to create a monthly budget and manage their money.

A grant from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation helped fund the tool’s development.

“Many older adults live on a fixed income, which is challenging when the cost of living and inflation are on the rise. The Budget CheckUp can help them stretch their dollars every month,” said Josh Hodges, NCOA’s chief customer officer.

“The tool offers guidance on how to create a monthly budget and decrease expenses, and it identifies programs that can help pay for medications and utilities.”

Users answer questions about their goals, such as what expenses they’d like to decrease, whether they are retired or a full-time caregiver, what benefits programs they are enrolled in, their age, and household income.

Their responses generate a personalized plan of action to make the most of their budget. NCOA does not collect any personally identifiable information,

Marbles

from facing page is generally threequarters of an inch in diameter and is used for shooting the “mibs.” but users can create accounts to save their plans. The Budget CheckUp is one of NCOA’s suite of online tools that are part of the Age Well Planner (ncoa.org/age-well-planner), which also includes:

There are hundreds of variations of marble games. The classic game, ring taw, or ringer, was the most popular game in the United States. A 3-foot ring is drawn on the ground with 10-15 small marbles (mibs) placed within it. Players take turns attempting to knock them out of the ring from outside the circle.

In advance, players agree to play “for fair,” which means every player keeps their marbles. Or to add excitement and drama, many play “keepsies” (for keeps), where the player who knocks all the marbles out of the ring gets to keep all the marbles.

If the shooter does not knock a marble out of the ring, it remains in the circle. If a player then knocks your shooter out of the circle, they instantly win. If this does not happen, the player shoots from within the ring on their next play.

Marbles were very popular until World War II. The game waned as kids were drawn to TV (Saturday morning cartoons), followed by video gaming. A resurgence in the 1970s revived the game, or at least marble collecting, with large-scale collector competitions.

Several YouTube videos have good discussions of marble values that vary by type, production method, and age. A single marble can be priced from $1 to $100. You must know your marbles.

Marbles are now a nostalgic memory of the past. Few play today.

Doris Montag is a homespun historian and an exhibit curator who researches and displays historical collections of ordinary things, such as can openers, crochet, toy sewing machines, hand corn planters, powder compacts, egg cartons, and more. Contact or follow her on Facebook, HistoryofOrdinaryThings.

• Job Skills CheckUp, which offers older jobseekers tips on how to create a resume, interview, and find a job

• Medicare Cost Estimator, which helps older adults see how much various plans might cost, depending on their health conditions

• Falls Free CheckUp®, which empowers older adults to discover their risk of a fall

BenefitsCheckUp® (benefitscheckup.org), a separate tool, enables older adults to see if they may be eligible for benefits programs to cover daily costs such as food and healthcare.