From the cost of everyday items at the grocery store to the ins and outs of financial scams, Maureen Milliken has written about all that — and much more. What can she tell us about where our hard-earned dollars go, and how to hang on to them a bit longer? Milliken, a freelance journalist, writes the award-winning “It’s Your Money” column for the Ink Link Group and has years of experience writing about consumer issues.
This article has been edited for length and clarity.
By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew
Melanie Plenda:
First, let’s talk about your column. What was the inspiration for it, and what sorts of things have you been writing about?
Maureen Milliken:
I left the full-time journalism world that I'd been in for 35 years several years ago and was doing some freelance work. One of them, which I still do, is for a nonprofit credit counseling agency, writing web content. So I have become this expert on consumer economics from the consumer end, not the economist. I had all this knowledge and had nowhere to put it.
And a friend of mine, maybe four years ago, said, “I was having all these savings and great things,” and her credit score is 740 but she couldn't get it any higher. I told her your credit score doesn't have anything to do with your savings — it's about your credit and how you use it. And I think, “She’s a smart person with money, but doesn't know these things. And I bet a lot of other people don't know either, but I do.” So I asked Carol Robidoux, the publisher of InkLink — who I'd started doing some work for — if I can write this monthly column where I just explain this stuff to people that they should know about, hear about all the time, but really don’t understand?
Melanie Plenda:
One column you wrote that seemed to resonate with readers was about a financial scam. Can you tell us more about that?
Maureen Milliken:
One of the things I've realized is that most people — and I think it's human nature — think that they’re not going to get scammed.
A close relative of mine — she lives in Manchester, she has a Ph.D., she runs a three-generation household, she’s smart and did get scammed. It actually began with her Facebook page being hacked and her calling a help desk that looked like a real one that turned out to be a part of the scam. So in this column, I go through how it happened, what her reactions were, what happened, what the fallout was, and of course how to try to avoid this happening to you.
I tried to put it in a personal way that people would identify with because one of the biggest issues is the ways you can get scammed are just so devious and multiple. I felt that it resonated with people. I still get emails about it – it was a personal story about someone people could identify with.
Melanie Plenda:
Over the last few months, you’ve also been tracking the cost of items at the grocery store and writing about those changes. Can you tell us more about that?
Maureen Milliken:
I'm not really a good person with math, but I love making charts and tracking things. One of the big things I preach in my column is budgeting, and I think people are adverse to it for a lot of reasons, but it doesn't have to be some big, complicated, involved thing, and mine certainly wasn't. I have a certain amount I budget for groceries every month. I'm lucky, I live by myself, I don't have to worry about feeding aging parents or kids.
In the beginning last year, people would talk about the economy, and how grocery prices are going up. The more I thought about it — because I didn't really pay attention to the price of things because I would just as I went on through the month, and if I was running out of money, that's one less pizza that I'm going to order. Or go to my reserve coffee in the freezer instead of buying another pound of coffee.
So I thought it'd be kind of neat to just track my grocery items, or some of them — a variety of them — over the months, especially with the tariffs coming, and see what happens. It's not a big scientific study, and I say that in the study. It’s just a snapshot to look at one person’s grocery bill and see how it’s affected or how it changes.
It's just a snapshot to look at one person's grocery bill and see how it's affected or how it changes. I don't necessarily think my grocery bill is typical, but I don't think any person is typical. It depends on your household — what you like to eat. I thought, “I’m going to track a variety of grocery items over at least the next year every month and see how they change.” And maybe this will make you look at your grocery items with a little more awareness too — or maybe you just like looking at charts, and we'll like to see how things change.
Melanie Plenda:
What items are you tracking? And why did you choose these items?
Maureen Milliken:
I chose several produce items that I thought might be affected by the tariffs, or ones that people were talking about. So there's bananas, tomatoes, avocado, grapefruit and oranges. Then other things - eggs, milk, rotisserie chicken, coffee. cat food — because I have cats, and I figured a lot of people have pets, and they're buying pet food. Then things like dishwasher detergent, maple syrup, because of the Canada tariffs. So I tried to make it a variety that would give a picture where I'm not just looking at one item that might be affected by one type of tariff.
Melanie Plenda:
What do you hope people take away from all this?
Maureen Milliken:
I guess my hope is the same thing that I've hoped through my entire journalism career with anything I wrote — is that people coming away from reading something I've done will be better informed and have things to think about that will have an impact on their lives.
My dream would be that we stop hearing people on TV say, “My grocery bill has gone up, and I blame so and so for it” and start figuring out what they can do. And in all my consumer columns, I try to stress, “You're the one in control of your money. You're the one in control of your finances.”
When you talk about the economy, you're talking about your economy for the most part, and no matter how little or how much money you have, you're in control of your own economy. You may have to do things you don't like or hard things, and things may not work out, but there's not these amorphous forces that you have no control over. There are some, but you can control what you do and what you buy and how you spend your money. And budget — that's my thing. Everybody needs to budget.
Melanie Plenda:
What do you have planned for future columns?
Maureen Milliken:
I've started delving into the effects of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, because I think people really don't understand. My last column on it was what they really mean by no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, because it's not those things at all, what was going on with SNAP and what was going on with the Affordable Care Act. My next one is going to be about Medicaid — how it's affecting you personally as a consumer. I think people are kind of overwhelmed with what they're hearing and seeing and have no clue about the impact it has on them. Also I will continue to write about general things, like financial literacy because I don’t think people are really sure what that is or how it affects them.
Melanie Plenda:
Maureen Milliken, freelance journalist and author of the “It’s Your Money” column with the Ink Link Group — thank you for joining us.
“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.