this morning, windy weather is keeping power crews busy. we will tell you which areas are hardest hit. to our north they are getting slammed by snow up to a foot in new york and maybe double that in some of the suburbs. it's friday. that means our mind over money segment is back. we have five terrific experts on hand to take your financial questions from taxes to credit to mortgages. the number to kuehl is 202-432- 9045. good morning, everyone. i'm andrea roane. thanks for joining us. it is friday, february 26th. and as i said, a mind over money friday. so let's meet our panel of experts who are anxiously waiting for your calls. james warden and thomas are talking taxes. dan kaplan can help with mortgages or refinancing.

randy beeman has advice on saving for college and ernest burly can help you with budgeting. we can also help you get out of credit card debt. call anyone of them on that. the number is 202-432-9045. they will be taking your calls for the next hour. start to dial now. all right. here's howard with the latest on the high gusty winds. >> high wind warning until 6:00 p.m. but the northern area seeing more than down south. quantico only 20 or so. fredericksburg the same story. but delouse is 52. national 47. baltimore 46. 39 leesburg but gusting in shenandoah in the 50s unbelievable there. look at the snow. some of it is rotating down. before i go i will hit the live doppler 9000 hd. we have an area of snow in and around baltimore coming through parts of columbia now. we will go to frederick county

with the light stuff. howard county in to northern prince georges, northern anne arundel this stuff has been fairly moderate piling up a little bit and blowing around, too. watch out north of 32 especially to around route 100 back to 29. in parts of howard county a little misscy right now. we will come back and talk about the weekend and the winds and maybe another storm in the seven day. right now step out of the way and toss it to my colleague, angie goff. hello, everybody. a few traffic alerts to kick off the 9:00 a.m. hour. be-- begin with 270. taking away left lane for drivers. slow to from the scene to the split. to the map in frederick maryland, route 15 is closed between ingel burger road and 806. we have an overturned tractor- trailer and i want to remind you they are checking the weight of the trucks and the buses and because of the high wind advisory out if you don't

meet the requirement you are not going to be able to travel that way. moving to virginia. good morning. 66 eastbound the trip is slow 123 to 495. tacking on an extra 10 to 15 minutes for that. as we move over to arlington. weather-related issues. a downed tree at military road where it meets 31st and wires in the roadway at south glebe and 19th. watch for road crews. avoid the area if you can. 295 southbound we have some debris in the road. apparently a truck lost a lot of dirt but overall notice the green cars looks like going northbound and southbound. the traffic flows just fine. that's the latest. now, back to you. the wind could make it crowded inside of some fairfax county classrooms today. because of the high winds, fairfax county public schools will not use any portable classroom trailers today. everyone will be inside the building as a safety precaution. with high winds expected all day long, power crews are

trying to keep up with downed trees and lines. right now pepco is dealing with 79 outages that could affect over 2700 customers. dominion has 3100 outages in northern virginia. bge has 5700 outages. many are in anne arundel county and smeco in southern maryland has four outages. and we are tracking the progress of some of those power crews. 9 news reporter alex trevino is in mclean, virginia with more. good morning, alex. >> reporter: goodgood morning, andrea. the big story is broken trees on people's yards. it is hard not to miss in mclean. a lot of limbs on people's yards and one can only suspect it is due to heavy winds. we know 320 families in this neighborhood are currently without power. strong winds took down a tree and landed on some wires at langley high school in the middle of the night which is just behind the neighborhood we

are at. the crews from dominion virginia power company replaced the wires only to have another tree topple over the same section of repaired wires. yep, new wires go up and then they come down again. so crews waited for this morning to replace the broken wooded cross arm and restring the wire at that section of the high school for safety reasons. the school is operating on a generator until the power is restored. so they have some lights, just no heat at this point. very intense situation. this wind storm is causing in northern virginia. remember, if you see some downed lines, stay away. report them to your power company. we're live in mclean, alex trevino, 9 news now. a tractor-trailer accident shut down all northbound lanes of 270 this morning. state highway officials say a banana truck overturned coming from the outer loop at 4:00. the bananas weren't the big

mess. instead a fuel spill from the tank that broke open. all of the wind and snow are having an impact on air travel this morning. at reagan national, over a dozen flights were cancelled. most to the new york area as well as flights to montreal and ottawa in canada. out of dulles the first three morning flights to newark is cancelled. while at bwi a bunch of cancellations on southwest. check your airline's website before you head out the door. of course you can stay on top of traffic and airport delays, weather related or otherwise at wusa9.com. just click on the traffic tab. and as angie mentioned, maryland officials are keeping an eye on wind conditions at the chesapeake bay bridge. two-way traffic was banned yesterday because of the winds. it's a huge safety measure especially for trucks. thing have been operating normally this morning but conditions could change at any moment and if you are not the right weight you may not be able to cross. are your tax receipts in

total disarray? it is time to get organized. we have tom vice president of taxation of the american institute of certified public accountants. aapologize if that are. >> no problem. >> thanks for joining us. the number is 202-432-9045. and tom, you want us to consider whether we should itemize or do standard deductions, why? >> a lot of people in the past felt they itemized and got more in deductions that way and it makes sense. now the standard deduction is indexed to inflation. it is $11,400 for a married couple filing joint. if you are over 675, which a lot of us are getting there it is $1,100 for each person over 65 and if you bought a car this year you add the sales tax on top of that for a deduction of sales dax. >> how do you decide if one is better than the other. >> unfortunately you have to run the number both ways and

see which is greater. but as the post world war ii generation gets older, they are paying their mortgages down. so the big deductions that normally would kick you in the itemized deductions are things like state and local income tax which are fairly high in in the maryland district and virginia areas. but also the mortgage deduction and as that mortgage deduction goes down, as you start to pay off your mortgage you may find the standard deduction is to your advantage. >> reporter: james you might be able to help. you are offering a free seminar. tell us about that. >> it will be held at zion church at 903 division avenue in northeast washington tomorrow from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00. and it is financial empowerment. we will talk about tax deduction strategies, how to get out of debt, talk about financial strategies, how to prioritize your finances. so it will be an insightful, and very informative event.

>> are you finding that your clients are organized, they do have all of their receipts together and they are ready to get down to business? >> most of them are. frankly they save a lot of money if they do. you should be paying a professional to put your receipts in order. if you have it in order you will save a lot of money and lot of frustration on the part of the preparer. >> reporter: we talked about key deductions that shouldn't be overlooked. obviously the earned income tax credit, appliance, energy efficiency. what are other key deductions people shouldn't overlook. >> the purchase of a vehicle as stated. the sales tax, as long as the vehicle doesn't cost more than $49,500. and enhance obviously and not cash contributions. salvation army, goodwill, amvets, value village those types of deductions people overlook a lot as well as educational credits.

>> okay. looking for the job, tom and james are taking those questions on taxes at 202-432- 9045. we have a lot more mind over money to come. stay with us.

and we are back with the mind over money experts. dan, what kind of calls have you been getting about people having trouble paying the mortgage? >> we have gotten a couple of

calls about that. and what i try to advise everybody is you have to be pro active. work very hard on keeping the payments current and staying up with them. if they are running in to problems you have to be pro active. contact your mortgage lender. talk to them about your situation. they can hopefully give you advice. it may lead toward a loan modification but take control of the situation. >> great advice from dan. now, over to howard with advice about our weather. hang on tight. we still have winds that are gusting 50 plus in spots. that will be the case today. a little snow shower activity, especially north and east of town. winter weather advisory until noon. tomorrow, breezy, not windy but breezy and 43 and then sunday, 45. you see the flake. that's a threat of few flurries or light snow on saturday in to sunday morning. so this afternoon, wind warning. snow showers in a couple of spots. gusts 40 to as much as 60 but the 60 gusts in the higher elevations earlier. highs in the mid-30s with a

west wind. the same with the higher gusts. windy and cold tonight. the winds die down a little bit. northwest 15 to 25. down to the 20s to around 30. and then tomorrow, the saturday, partly sunny, breezy, 4 to 45 with a west wind at 10 to 20 miles an hour. here's the wind warning. counties in light blue with advisories to the south and the east because the winds aren't as strong. some southern areas might go to an advisory sooner than 6:00 p.m. up north we are seeing impressive gusts. you'll notice winchester at 52. it is 41 baltimore. down to the south, fredericksburg only 25. richmond, shenandoah valley regional airport only 24. gusting to 36. with a lot of snow flying in garrett county. a ton of snow in the mountains out west. the latest wind gusts down to 39 at dulles. 52 winchester, martinsburg 44. a lot of gusts earlier in grant county, west virginia to 67 miles an hour and not only do we have the wind but we have

some snow. this is a monster. some heavy snow on the backside long island to connecticut but in pennsylvania moderate to heavy snow at times and some of that has come down toward maryland. go to live doppler doppler hd and see the bands in northeastern maryland and to the north and east here. take you to the columbia region and howard county, coming out of mount airy and southern carroll county. moderate snow over to bwi. here's 695. this is route 1. watch out there for maybe some slippery spots along with the blowing of the snow around. elsewhere things are fairly quiet, even a few flurries made it across anne arundel and calvert county and across the bay. let's go look at the computer and talk about the seven-day forecast. as we see the storm winding down. we will have temperatures -- i hate when that does that. temperatures warming up in to the 40s as we go other the weekend. saturday night as we said there could be a snow flurry or two.

as we get in to monday we will warm to the upper 40s and then by wednesday a possible coastal storm. i know you don't want to hear it but we will be watching for that. >> all right. howard, thank you. our next guest is here to help you get your financial house in order. i have been talking with him and he said i'm on track. ernest is the owner of money management, easy as 123 and he's a certified financial planner. a pleasure talking with you. a few minutes we have been chatting here and you have already given advice to callers. you got off the phone with a guy with credit card issues. >> i'm not going to say his name but his spouse has a lot of credit cards and they are store cards. visa and mastercards are accepted in all of these stores so there is no reason to have more cards. >> you get the 10% savings when you open the card. >> it is not because they are your pal, it is because they

know they will make more than 10% discount on you in the future. because you are going to leave a balance and charge more and get you in trouble. they know they will make more money on you. they give you a 10% carrot to try it out. >> you don't like us to use visa, american express, mastercard. >> you call it fantasy money. >> it is like basically you are taking a loan when you do that. so if you swipe the card for a $50 dinner you are taking a loan for that dinner. i call the debit card reality money because when you swipe that card you are taking the money directly out of your account. if this had been a credit card no money comes out of the account. debit card it comes out of your account. that's reality money and you spend more when you debit, too. so cash is even better but discipline yourself, use a debit card and when you use your deb kit card put it in your check register to balance

your account every month. >> in his book, ernest gives you this whole lineup of your expenses, money coming in and out. you say it is important to know that, but do i really need an ernest burly to help me through this. is it as easy as one two three. >> it is. this is what i call mimo. i like acronyms money in versus money out. you have to control your cash flow. to you have write it down. if you don't write it down you don't know where your money is going and coming from. i spoke to another caller that had a lot of debt but she never wrote down a budget or tracked her expenses. that's the first thing. track the money coming in versus the money coming out and live on a budget. talk to him at 202-432- 9045. not only how to keep your money going in and out the way you want it but protecting your assets and lifestyles. give ernest a call. we'll be right back.

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isn't enough to avoid dental problems. [ male announcer ] act total care mouthwash rebuilds enamel and fights plaque where brushing can't. [ woman ] to help avoid dental problems, act daily. our guest says think 529s to save for college for your children. randy beeman is here to explain. she a financial adviser from the wise investor group and dan kaplan, senior mortgage consultant at monument bank in

bethesda. thanks for joining us. >> randy, let's start with the 529. explain to folks at home who may not know what it is how it can help you? >> it's a plan that instituted specifically to help you put away money for college. it could be for your children. it could be for someone else's children, a nephew or even yourself. but the benefit is that you put the money in to it and it grows in a tax-deferred basis until you need it. when you take it out as long as you use it for qualified college expenses you are not paying tax when it comes out either. >> it is a great deal for parents. what are the best ways for parents to approach this? >> most states have their own specific 529 plan and it's probably for most people the best way to do it is they can go to the state program of through a financial adviser. but you don't have to use your specific state program. if you like the program in another state you can use that one, as well. the key is to get started and start to put money in. a little bit at a time or $50 a

month. it adds up. >> paying for college is a huge expense. another expense is buying a mortgage and getting a house. we saw home sales up in the fourth quarter. what are you thinking looking ahead. what kind of calls have you been getting for mortgages. >> i think 2010 will be a better year for real estate than 2009. as you mentioned, there was a bumpup in home sales. we hope to see it continue. the combination of factors that really go in to something like that are all positive. home prices are down. so the affordability index is greater than it has been in a number of years. interest rates remain low. not historically low figures but really good interest rates. so that combination of the two, plus the work force being highly employed in washington, does make for a good mix for 2010. >> you mentioned interest rates, freddie mac just reported the average last week was 5%, a little higher but we

are tracking around historical lows. but the fed has been spending a trillion dollars in the mortgage market which has been keeping the mortgage rates low and that's ending next month. what do you think will happen to rates after that end? >> i think the tax credit has been gravy for a lot of people. i think all the key ingredients for home affordability are still there. there's po ten national at some point down the road interest rates will go up, but there are natural market forces in play that at least in the near term, 2010, 2011 i think rates will be low. chairman bernanke said last week the time is not right to raise interest rates. if we do that it will slow down the economy and make things terrible for everybody. >> how long do you think -- how much more time do you think that people have a to make a deal on a house for the tax credit? >> it expires inning aweeks so if they want to do it, do it

now. >> it is mind over money friday. the phone number is 202-432- 9045. taking your questions. free financial advice. give us a ring.

again we want to thank our guests for participating in this week's edition of mind over money. our panel isn't going away. they will take your calls for the next 30 minutes. ask james about the tax seminar. talk to ernest about planning your lifestyle and keeping it. great group of people. howard? >> we still have pretty many snow showers toward columbia and bwi and anne arundel county. winds are still howling. that will be the case. slowly dying off this afternoon. not a bad weekend. monday looks good and next wednesday, wilter is not over yet. watch for a possible coast alp don't hate me ladies. >> we love you, howard.

thank you for watching the news continues 24 hours a day at wusa9.com. j.c. and howard will be back at noon. until then have a great day and a great weekend. >> bye-bye.