Things To Do In SW Florida

By Ruth Sarreal | NerdWallet

Spring cleaning isn’t just for your closets or attic. It can apply to your finances, too. Taking the time to do a deep clean of your spending and deposits can help ensure you’re using minimal effort throughout the year to meet your saving and budgeting goals. Here are a few steps to take when you’re ready to spring clean your bank accounts.

1. Review account transactions from your bank

Look through your statements from the past few months for any penalties or charges that have been assessed by your bank. While some banks and credit unions have eliminated overdraft fees, yours might still be charging them. Some banks also charge an inactivity fee if you haven’t used your account in a while. Or your account might charge a monthly service fee.

If you’ve been charged an overdraft recently, try asking for a refund and consider what you can do to avoid those fees next time. Find an account that doesn’t penalize overdrawing your funds or charge any monthly or other fees. There are plenty of FDIC-insured banks that offer competitive accounts with no fees and no minimum requirements. read more

An overnight stay inside Cinderella Castle is part of a Walt Disney World vacation that’s a grand prize in a raffle that benefits the Orlando Magic Youth Foundation.

The winner also will receive breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table, the restaurant inside the castle, on check-out morning, a two-night stay at a Disney World deluxe resort for up to four guests, three days of theme park tickets (with Park Hopper Option), a seven-hour private VIP tour and round-trip flights for four people to Central Florida. The estimated value of the prize is $13,320.

The raffle is operated through alltroo.com. Forty entries can be purchased for $10, and there are multiple levels up to 8,000 entries for $500.  Donation or payments are not required to enter or win the prize.  A mail-in entry is available on the Alltroo website for participants who choose the no-donation option.

Among the fine-print information, available in full on the website: The travel package must be completed by March 31, 2025; the contest is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada who are of legal age; if the winner lives within 250 miles of Orlando International Airport, the airfare prize is forfeited; check-in time for the castle suite is 4 p.m. and check-out time is 9 a.m. read more

TALLAHASSEE — A federal appeals court Monday rejected restrictions that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers placed on race-related issues in workplace training, part of a 2022 law that DeSantis dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act.”

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the restrictions violated First Amendment rights.

“This is not the first era in which Americans have held widely divergent views on important areas of morality, ethics, law and public policy,” the 22-page opinion said. “And it is not the first time that these disagreements have seemed so important, and their airing so dangerous, that something had to be done. But now, as before, the First Amendment keeps the government from putting its thumb on the scale.”

The panel upheld a preliminary injunction issued in 2022 by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker of Tallahassee against the restrictions. The law was challenged by Primo Tampa, LLC, a Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream franchisee; Honeyfund.com, Inc., a Clearwater-based technology company that provides wedding registries; and Chevara Orrin and her company, Collective Concepts, LLC. read more

SpaceX is keeping its assembly line approach to launching rockets alive and strong with missions from both Cape Canaveral and California less than 24 hours since sending up four humans to space from Kennedy Space Center.

On the Space Coast, a Falcon 9 rocket with 23 of the Starlink internet satellites is set to lift off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:56 p.m. with backup options during a four-hour window that runs through 10:54 p.m. More backups are available on Tuesday during a four-hour window that opens at 6:28 p.m.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts an 80% chance for good conditions, which decreases to 55% in the event of a delay to Tuesday.

The first-stage booster for the flight is flying for the 13th time, and SpaceX aims to recover it with a landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

SpaceX Crew-8 launches after tense discovery of crack on hatch seal

This would be the 15th launch from the Space Coast in 2024, with all but one coming from SpaceX. read more

By Erin El Issa | NerdWallet

Millennials are a favorite societal punching bag for things like destroying industries — including diamonds and casual chain restaurants — and being cringe. But another gripe some have with Generation Y is that they believe millennials aren’t having enough kids, or any kids at all.

Of millennials who are opting out, many are doing so because raising children is simply too expensive. A new NerdWallet survey finds that just a quarter of parents of minor children (25%) plan to have more children and only 27% of non-parents under age 60 plan to have any children at all. Of millennials (ages 27-42) who aren’t parents, just 25% say they plan to have kids, while 61% don’t and 14% aren’t sure. When millennials who don’t have kids or plan to have kids were asked why, nearly 2 in 5 (38%) said it’s because the overall cost of raising a child is too high.

How much are millennial parents paying for child care?

One major expense parents may have to contend with, at least in the early years, is child care. According to the NerdWallet survey, millennial parents who pay for full-time child care — care at least four days a week — report paying $665.70 a month, on average, per child. Nearly a quarter (23%) are paying $1,000 or more a month, per child. read more