Owner: Beyond the Consumer URL:http://beyondtheconsumer.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:26:47 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Personal finance, consumerism, and business news. Site statistics:Click here
Discover motiva 2007-08-26 22:38:00 I found an ad for the Discover
Motiva card interesting. The ad focused on how the Motiva card gives a reward by paying you a month of your interest if you pay your bills on time for 6 consecutive months.The actual benefit is slim. They're just offering a slightly lower APY across the entire year by waiving the interest for 2 months. What struck me is that the really encourage (and happily assume) that people are going to be carrying balances on their credit cards, thus enticing them with this deal. I also found myself wondering if there really were so many people out there who can't pay their bills on time 6 months in a row. The idea of "paying your bills on time" as a reward suggests that many don't, in fact, pay on time.
Bush on the subprime market 2007-08-31 13:34:00 If you haven't read/heard Bush's recent address on the subprime mortgage market, I suggest you take a look. While I'm not a Bush fan, I do like his general plan better than, say, Hilliary Clinton's. At least he doesn't just come out and say that he's going to funnel our tax money to pay people's mortgages.Here are what I think are the highlights:This market has seen tremendous innovation in recent years, as new lending products make credit available to more people. For the most part, this has been a positive development, and the reason why is millions of families have taken out mortgages to buy their homesHmm, but isn't that also why we've got this problem in the first place? There are really only 3 things that make a home (and the loan for it) more affordable and thus increasing homeownership overall.1) Home prices drop2) The loan price drops (lower interest rates)3) The median income increasesNone of these happened. The only thing left to do, then, is to extend the repayment
Entertain yourself for less 2007-08-30 11:52:00 When I think of things to do, I also consider how I can save as much money as possible doing it. If anything is too expensive I decline. With all the inexpensive or free entertainment out there, there's little reason not to plan ahead to maximize your savings. Here are some tips for entertaining on the cheap:Museums and zoos: Not many people bother checking their museum and zoo schedules before planning a trip there. Almost all of these institutions have sponsored days where you can visit for free. Sometimes this is once a month, but often it is once a week. Just avoid the gift shop.Movie Theaters: Going to a movie with a spouse on a Friday evening can easily cost upwards of $50. Many are also getting into the dining business, attaching restaurants to their buildings and serving pricey entrees. Check around to different theaters for their pricing. Everyone knows about the cheap matinees, but many also have an even lower price for the early morning crowd. Have a big breakfast that morn
The wine debate 2007-08-30 09:00:00 We've all heard that drinking a glass of wine a day is good for you. The limit, I've read, is 2 glasses for an adult male and 1 glass for an adult female per day. It is supposed to do all kinds of nice things to your body and to your heart so long as you consume it in moderation.I'm sure there is a debate on this, but as big wine drinkers I was interested in how this would impact our budget. Let's assume that we can stomach a cheap $10 1 liter bottle of red wine. If we each consume 6 oz of wine every night over dinner (that's 1 glass apiece) we will have emptied 2.5 bottles a week, or 10 bottles a month for a total of $100.Ouch. Over our lifetime (assuming we live to, say, 75) we will have spent $54,000 on wine. That's just the glass of wine over dinner! That's an opportunity loss of $500,911 assuming 8%.Of course we could also save the money and buy all the wine at the back end. Given 2% inflation, each bottle will cost $24 and we can buy 20,871 liter bottles of cheap red wine.
Balance out your utility costs 2007-09-25 13:59:00 Gas and electric costs vary wildly throughout the year. According to government sources, these costs will be even higher as natural gas and electric prices increase. This can turn an already tight budget into a catastrophe, or at least a very lean winter. Who needs bigger utility bills near Christmas time? I sure don't.The easy solution is to adjust your bills and save the difference. You can call your electric/gas company and just ask over the phone if you don't have your statements for a full year, how much it cost you each month. Add them together, divide by 12, and you get an average cost of these utilities throughout the year. This becomes your monthly payment. During the months where your bill is lower than your average, the excess goes into a savings account. During the months that it is higher, the shortage comes out of that account.This stabilizes your budget and any increases in cost (or accidental overuse) can be more easily managed.Also do whatever you can to lower your c Read more:Balance
Perpetuating the lie to college students 2007-09-25 10:24:00 I had high hopes for "Nanny Diaries" after about 20 minutes into the film. The story is this: a young woman graduates college with no idea what she wants to do as a career (shocking), bombs out at an interview, and by chance lands a job as a nanny for a rich family. This is a comedy so naturally the mommy is the typical white wealthy woman who lives off her workaholic husband while shopping and chatting with her friends all day.But there were some hints of some real interesting social commentary that I had hoped would make this movie a real diamond in the rough. Sadly, I was disappointed.We start off with the young woman lying to her mother about her new job, because as we all know if you don't get a high paying job right out of college you must be a failure, right?So she becomes this nanny, and ends up having a pretty good time except for the stuck up mom she has to deal with. She also meets a guy in the building, and during all this we get bombarded with the idea that people who wor
Cribs recalled 2007-09-25 09:47:00 A series of cribs were recalled
recently. Many news sources have been reporting that the cribs were defective in some way. According to the CPSC report, they were not. Consumer Affairs has a decent summary and you can read the full announcement at CPSC.gov. There is also a video (the video is a little weird - they have a little intro and then images of the crib with an incorrect installation and how the babies could get caught, then about 2 minutes of a video of a baby sitting in a completely different crib for no apparent reason while a mom operates the drop-down door).In short, these cribs failed because of improper assembly. The CPSC has been exemplary in its efforts to inform consumers of the issue. However I disagree with their public statement."A crib is one of the few products that's actually designed for a parent to leave a child unattended. When there's a problem of this magnitude with a crib, there's a huge breach of trust with the manufacturer," she said.Yet the cause of Read more:Cribs
Bill Mauer on cheap goods from China 2007-09-25 09:41:00 After about 1:20 this video does get good, so grit your teeth through some of the flopped jokes. Nice commentary, Bill. Read more:Mauer
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How much more invasive can advertising get? 2007-09-24 08:58:00 Ads seem like one of those subliminal things that you don't realize you're being subjected to unless you concentrate on it. If you don't watch TV, though, a major source of advertising is not being delivered to you and if my own experience is any indication, you become much more aware of advertising.It is indeed everywhere, from your TV to your mailbox to your commute to work to your email when you get there. Ads direct us towards specific products and services, especially those produced under large easily recognizable brand names. Of course, because of the advertising (which is expensive) all of these products naturally have an inflated price compared to their actual worth.That's a good enough reason for me to focus on small businesses and generic products, but ads are also evolving as technology allows them to be adapted to the individual consumer. The most glaring example of this is the all too common grocery store "club" membership whereby a store (or rather the corporate offic
FNBO's new rate is under lock and key 2007-09-21 16:14:00 FNBO Direct, an online bank that the bulk of my savings is in, currently offers 6.0% APY on its savings accounts. That is a limited offer, and the offer is set to expire on September 28. Next week!No one seems to know what the new rate will be after that. I called customer service and inquired with one of the reps and they couldn't tell me. She implied that she didn't even know herself, so it is possible that FNBO is keeping a tight lid on the news.The logical rate for them to return to is 5.25%, the same as the rate before the promotion. But there are two problems with that. First is the Federal rate cut, which could trickle down to lower the rate on savings accounts. Second is that they may undercut their previous rate in order to make up for a little on their promotion. Then again, cutting it below 5% would put it below average and may encourage too many customers to transfer their money elsewhere.What I found interesting was that they are still advertising the rate with less than
Food Stamps to buy junk? 2007-09-21 11:59:00 I was in the store behind a woman in line with 2 kids. What I saw made me search out more information about food stamps, food stamp fraud, and shopping behavior. This family bought a couple gallons of milk with food stamps. It took quite a while, because not only did they have to fill out their little ticket and run it like a check through the machine, they had to run it as a separate transaction. You see, I don't think the government would be happy knowing they gave food stamps to this family if they knew what else they were buying.When I sought out program requirements, I had to ask myself whether or not this particular family looked like someone who would qualify. Assuming she was married, she must have a household income of less than $1,613. The woman in front of me wearing nice clothes, sipping a Starbucks-whatever, and talking on a brand new Treo/Blackberry-type cellphone certainly didn't look like she was insolvent.I suspect I had witnessed Food Stamp fraud.Here's a little ex Read more:Stamps
At what point should magazines be paying us? 2007-09-21 09:28:00 I have decided not to renew my subscription to Parenting Magazine. Though we do not have any kids, I thought it would be a good idea to subscribe for various reasons, one being that we wanted some magazines for weekend morning reading material. Money Magazine was among my initial purchase, but that also will not be renewed. The articles in it are fairly fluffy and although sometimes entertaining, there is far more useful information elsewhere.Anyway, the reason that I will not be renewing Parenting is that it not only contains very few real parenting tips, but it is almost entirely a mechanism of product advertisement. All magazines have ads, but even the articles in Parenting are usually little more than cleverly disguised product placements. Nearly every "solution" in any article involves the purchase of some commercial product. Even the recipes, which should be fairly inoculous, suspiciously include brand names or processed/frozen goods.I can ignore the blatant disregard for the mal Read more:point
How to ruin a household brand name 2007-09-21 08:58:00 I have discovered 5 easy steps to taking a million dollar brand name and run it into the ground so it not only loses credibility, but becomes synonymous with the exact opposite of its original intention.Step 1: Create a fantastic concept and sweep it nationwide. Base your concept on giving folks tips on making beautiful household decorations, foods, and crafts out of everyday items. Become so popular that your very name brings to mind a do-it-yourself can-do attitude and quality and sophistication. Be the model by which all domestics aspire to.Step 2: After your reputation is established, begin licensing your name to mass produced merchandise sold in big box stores known for low quality cheap goods sold largely to low income markets. Add a shred of credibility to the project by at least selecting colors, patterns, and themes.Step 3: Abandon the DIY attitude and focus on themes that encourage people to buy more mass produced products instead of making things on their own with everyday h
Don't like late fees? Try paying your bill 2007-09-20 12:39:00 Are you upset that credit card late fees are staggering and out of control? I'm not. Sure, I've carried a balance in the past. I even had some significant credit card debt. But I've never paid a late fee. Why? Because I pay my bills.Right now, the late fee on a Discover card is $15 on balances up to $500 and $39 on balances over $500. For billing periods after Oct. 1, the late fee will be $19 on balances up to $250 and $39 on balances over $250.I understand that late fees for these cards are pure profit for these companies and they are ridiculously high, but you only get charged when you don't pay on time. With all the buzz surrounding these fees there has to be a huge number of people paying their bills late.That’s a real stiff penalty to pay for being as little as one day late...when consumers mail in their payment seven to 10 days in advance and they still get hit with a late fee, something is really wrong.The problem here is that there is no way to verify when your bill arriv
Are homeowners entitled to a bailout? 2007-09-18 11:00:00 According to Sheila in this Fox News article, you bet taxpayers should bailout homeowners facing the possibility of not paying their bills.Do I agree? Heck no. Here's Sheila's letter (emphasis added by me):We were shocked to learn that our mortgage is going up nearly $500 a month. We knew that buying this house a couple of years ago would stretch our finances to the limit, but we really wanted our kids to attend this school district so we decided to bite the bullet and keep to a very strict budget in order to make this work.We both have jobs, but there’s no way we can come up with another $500. And home prices have really come down since we bought our house, so if we have to sell, we’d probably take a loss.I’m just sick over this. I heard that President Bush has announced a program to help people like us. What can you tell us?They "bit the bullet" and stretched their finances to the max with a home they could not afford by signing a loan with an introductory interest rate so th
Are you prepared for a power outage? 2007-09-13 09:20:00 A small hurricane slammed into Louisiana last night, because Louisiana hasn't had enough of them yet. Over 75,000 homes went dark. As I live to the west of Louisiana, we were also watching this little storm tumble its way through the Gulf of Mexico. A popular financial blogger, AllFinancialMatters, was right in the middle of it.So what, if any, provisions do you keep should you have an extended poweroutage
? When flooding occurs, there is also the possibility of contaminated water. The basic supplies that we keep on hand at all times include:A battery powered flashlightCandles, matchesOil burning lamps and a few containers of oilSmall bottles of water (we have about 15 in our fridge that we always refill - we like to drink water)Gallon jugs of water in the garage, we have a few of thoseCanned foodsThese are the supplies we always have. They would tide us over for a few days if we are stuck without water/electricity. This is all we keep on hand, unless there is a major hurricane defini
Don't trash blank pages in your bill 2007-09-13 07:13:00 This is probably a no-brainer, but I am guilty of improperly disposing of some of my private information. Occasionally when I receive a billing statement from So-and-So Corporation, they will leave a blank
page at the end - or a page with unimportant information. Sometimes I shred them, sometimes I just ball them up and toss them.But you need to always shred these documents. On one I noticed that my full name and account number were displayed on the header of the page. Not good information to have out there. On another I noticed the name and account number in tiny print at the bottom corner, not where you would expect to look, but there it was. So far I have yet to see account information on the bill itself, but I would not put them passed adding at minimum the account number to the originating address portion of the return envelope.So now, as a precaution, I shred the entire bill - envelope and all - except the main pages that I keep for filing.
Collecting unclaimed property 2007-09-12 13:17:00 States hold onto unclaimed properties on behalf of the owner. Such property
includes life insurance policies, tangible goods, and unclaimed employment paychecks.You can search online with just your name to find out if you have any unclaimed property by going to http://unclaimed.org/ or http://missingmoney.com/. I did a search myself and discovered a $300 paycheck from an old employer that we had, for whatever reason, not received. Though we have not yet gone through the process, we are going to file a claim tonight and I will post a review.Be very wary of scams, however, as this information is public and various firms may try to charge you to claim your money. The state comptroller will charge you a small fee (my state charges 1% for up to $5,000 and 1.5% above, zero for less than $100). Some however will try to get up to 10% out of you, or charge you to do the search. Don't fall for it - the information is free and filing your own claim is easy and cheap (so far as I can tell, it can Read more:Collecting
Are speculators a blight in your neighborhood? 2007-09-12 12:12:00 There is a house just down the street from ours that has remained vacant for over 2 years. I say over 2 years loosely, because it has been vacant since we moved into our house. It is a nice looking house - if it were taken care of. The yard is dead and only the weeds grow (it is mowed by a mowing service every other month or so). 2 large trees in front of the house are overgrown and lay partly on the roof, leaving the whole thing a dark blotch on the street. It's the kind of house that you always would think was haunted when you were a little kid. But instead of being an old rundown house, it's one less than 10 years old.It once had a for sale sign, but was apparently purchased sometime last year. The sale sign is gone, but it remains empty. Undoubtedly the back has been broken into, because if you walk by and look in the windows you can see that kids have spray-painted on the walls (fortunately not gang related, more like funny cartoon pictures). It is supposedly worth $200k, but of
Unecessarily complicating a simple product 2007-09-11 09:22:00 I just bought a new wall clock. It's a pretty typical clock - the analog kind with a second hand and a quartz movement, battery powered, in the back. As you can expect, these clocks take a AA battery and last, well, forever.Not anymore. Whoever made this clock thought it was too simple. So they added a small LCD indicator on the back to set the date/time/zone so that it would automatically change to a new time during daylight savings time. Because really, turning the gear on the back of the clock is more work than the average consumer can do twice a year.But they were too lazy to actually make a new clock with this fantastic design, so they just screwed on a MORE complicated LCD box that is simply wired into where the original AA battery. Now it needs 2 AA batteries. AND the LCD box needs its OWN small lithium battery (those coin-like batteries).So we went from a simple quartz timepiece with a AA battery to a quartz timepiece with a second LCD clock attached to the back that now requi
Product registration cards 2007-09-11 08:11:00 Buy any electronic device and you are likely to find with the warranty card a product registration card. After my wife recently bought a toaster oven she asked me whether she should fill it out and send it in - to make sure she could use its manufacturers warranty if needed.It is interesting that, either by good placement or how it looks or is worded, people assume they must fill out the product registration card in order to validate their warranty. The top portion does look pretty authentic, asking for the date of purchase, retail store, serial number, model number, name and address and phone number. Then the registration card gets ridiculous, diving right into a survey of what kind of hobbies you enjoy and what magazines you would be most likely to subscribe to.But if you look closely, somewhere on the card in really fine print (below the other fine print) it says the card has nothing to do with the warranty.So unless you feel like dishing out your address and phone number so the man
Looking for a fuel sipping hatchback? 2007-09-07 20:26:00 We're getting more hatchbacks in the US that are great on gas mileage. Unfortunately, most of them were already being built but still not available here. Take for example the Smart car, which has been wildly popular in Europe and has only recently planned on releasing in the US.I saw a hatchback in the neighborhood where I work and LOVED it. It's a great looking little car, and it appeared to have a Ford brand on it. Curious, I checked the Ford website. Nothing. Maybe I was wrong?So I kept seeing this car, and finally I got fed up and ran after it while at a stoplight and caught the brand (the owner likely thought I was psychotic) - yep, it's a Ford. Huh?Turns out Ford only sells this car outside the US. Our own domestic brand sold us out! Here she is: the 2007 Ka. Here's an English review of the car. FACTS AS A GLANCECAR: Ford Ka rangePRICES: £7,095-£9,995 [exc. Streetka] - on the roadINSURANCE GROUPS: 2-6 [exc. Streetka]CO2 EMISSIONS: 147-189g/kmPERFORMANCE: [1.3] Max Speed 104
Can you become too obsessed with your debt? 2007-09-07 10:15:00 Probably.So my wife and I were sitting down last night discussing a few of our current money problems. Namely, a couple a medical bill forced us to dip into our emergency fund and we have a follow-up that is going to cost us again. We still haven't replenished our emergency fund, mainly because I haven't taken our debt repayments to reimburse it. Instead, I've been nickel and diming the fund to slowly bring it back up - using any spare income we have.Needless to say, our fund is not back up to $2,500 yet. Actually, it is $1,900 now because of that bill. This new bill will set us back another $600. Ouch. Not a good month for the emergency fund.Of course this discussion lead to how we are going to repay our emergency fund and pay our upcoming medical bill. We have very different approaches.1) Her plan. She wants to take our debt repayment amount (about $1,200) for this month and pay these medical bills with it. That will of course cover the whole thing and bring our emergency fund bac Read more:obsessed
I think my bank stole 54 cents from me 2007-09-06 14:39:00 There has finally been a resolution to my auto financing problem. To sum up, the bank decided I didn't have insurance charged me for some of their own, a total of $83.87 that they helped themselves to out of my last payment without telling me (thankfully I always check my payments online).After faxing over the appropriate paperwork showing no lapse in insurance coverage, it took 33 days to get it corrected - oddly, a day before my next payment was due. $83.87 has been credited to my account and correctly applied to the balance of the loan (the interest was unaffected).But here's the thing. The insurance payment they took left me with an inflated principle from 8/3 to 9/5. An inflated principle $84 more than it should have. Thus this next payment in which they are going to charge me interest, based on the 33 day billing cycle, is going to be more than I should owe. By my calculation that is a full gain to the bank of 54 cents.I wonder why it took a whole month to get the problem corre Read more:think
Charged for bill pay? Let the bank pay you 2007-09-06 08:55:00 I was being charged $7/mo for online bill pay by my brick & mortar bank. For a long time it was worth it. Bill pay is just plain convenient. But now online bill pay has come to be expected from any major bank.Some have started to offer free bill pay to all their normal checking. I thought seriously about switching to one of those until I took a look at my existing account with the online bank ING Direct.ING Direct has a checking account with free bill pay and 4% interest. That worked out for me! Since I keep a lot of money reserved for annual bills, I have a bit of cash sitting in the account at any time. By transferring the amount of my bills from each pay check and then paying them from ING, I also get to earn a little interest on my bill before it gets sent out. Now that the system is running smoothly, I see that I am earning about the same that my old bank was charging me.This is how banking should be! Read more:Charged
The obsession with department store cards 2007-09-06 08:04:00 It seems like just about every retail store, big and small, is getting into the credit card business. This is no surprise. All a store needs to do is team up with an existing issuer, negotiate a percentage, and hawk the card in their stores to their hapless customers. Who wouldn't want to have a hand in a 30 billion dollar cookie jar?These cards, as well as their VISA counterparts (which most of them are converting to anyway) represent clear profit. The benefits are immediate. I will use Target as my example, since I recently witnessed something there that surprised me.Target originally went through Household Financial, as I recall. Now apparently they have either a new division or their own in house financing called Target National Bank. Anyway, by teaming up with a bank they can negotiate or eliminate many overhead charges associated with using plastic at their POS stations, namely interchange fees. Further they get to earn interest on the purchases long after the sale is finished f
Complain about bad loans, then advertise them 2007-09-05 12:57:00 My local paper loves the subprime mess. They love reminding us that people took out horrible loans, ARMS, IOs, and that the resulting foreclosures are affecting the economy overall as well as the housing market. Not a day goes by that we don't get an article about it. At face value, it looks like the paper is doing its best to educate the public about these bad loans and the consequences of buying more house than you can afford.Yet on their website right below the articles, on EVERY page (literally every page) they post advertisements for - you guessed it - bad loans. They are just random feel-good numbers with links to creepy lending sites asking for your social security number and other personal information with things like: $250,000 loan for $650 month! 4.9% interest rate!Um, even at 4.9% a $250k loan at $650/mo would be paid off...well...never. A $650 payment would be adding around $250 to the balance of the loan every month. After 30 years you'd end up owing like $400,000.The sa
A real saver... 2007-09-05 12:15:00 This guy makes $20,000 a year. I consider him rich. Why? Because unlike most people, he is set to retire with more money than he earned during his working years. In a safe portfolio he is looking at an income of around $40k not including social security. If someone making $100k/yr lived by the same principles, let's say, we can safely assume they would have a few million in the bank (adjusting for inflation) to draw from for retirement.This just doesn't happen enough. Though we can attribute some of this man's earnings to wise stock investing, the meat and potatoes of this story is that the man saved. He didn't spend all of his income and he likely did not dig himself into debt (though the article doesn't say, this man is from a generation that frowned on debt so I safely assume he has little to none). You save your money and make it work for you, not borrow it from a bank and pay them for the privilege. That is how you build wealth. That is how this man making $20k a year has mor
How much do we spend on wheels? 2007-09-05 11:55:00 Bankrate.com has a brief article about how much our cars cost us. We have a figure here of about $28k for the average brand new car. Americans typically trade cars every 3-5 years.A car is an incredible waste of money. Between the age of 30 and 60, the averages show that we will spend over $170,000 on automobiles. What's really upsetting is that after you've spent all this money on cars and you're 60 years old you have nothing to show for it. Maybe some photos. All your cars are sitting in junk heaps.Is it worth it? Why do you buy a new car? Why do you waste so much money on something that you will probably sell in 5 years and have nothing to show for?
UPDATE! Collecting unclaimed property 2007-09-28 16:42:00 On September 12 I reported that I had located $300 in unclaimed money with the state comptroller. Any time a company owes an individual money, they have to turn it over to the state for safekeeping.You can search online with just your name to find out if you have any unclaimed property
by going to http://unclaimed.org/ or http://missingmoney.com/. I did a search myself and discovered a $300 paycheck from an old employer that we had, for whatever reason, not received.In fact, this turned out to be an old paycheck that was never delivered. We found our information, printed out a form and filled it out, and mailed it in with the appropriate requested identification (copies). On Sept 28 we got a check from the state! A small 1% fee was subtracted, not at all bad considering there were expenses involved in collecting, holding, and mailing the money (although they could also have earned money on it -via interest-, but it is also possible that they are legally prohibited from doing so).We tol Read more:Collecting
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