fw: article on auto insurance

good Consumer Reports article on car insurance, Oct 2010 issue p. 34-37. p. 37 has a rating of auto insurers, broken down by claims-related problems, timely claim payment, & non-claim related problems.

Debit Card rule change might hurt Reward Checking

Ken, the guru of depositaccounts.com , wrote this article that there is a Fed Reserve rule change, that will lower the fees from a debit card transaction, that banks charge retailers significantly.

This could HELP consumers IF the retailers passed along part of any savings, which is probably doubtful (retailers will just take the savings as profit).

This could HURT consumers in that these fees the bank gets from debit cards are used to subsidize Rewards Checking accounts.

What will be the impact on options on how a consumer manages their Emergency / short term cash funds?

For liquid deposit account , my guess is that Rewards Checking, if still offered, will still offer the best rate. Currently, Rewards Checking is widely available at 3-4% at many small local banks & credit unions. This is superior to bank alternatives, including the deposit accounts of type savings, money market. It's also superior to a time deposit account such as a certificate of deposit (CD), even despite the inconvenience of a time deposit locking up your money for a period of time. I will keep my eye on depositaccounts, hopefully remembering to check in Dec 2011 & Jun 2012 to verify that Rewards Checking is still superior, aka the "least bad option" in this era of negative real interest rates for short term savers.

The other decent option imho is I Bond, a type of Savings Bonds from the US Treasury. I've yet to buy an I Bond, but am interested. Here is my limited understanding of I Bonds. Each person can purchase up to $10K per year, $5K in paper & $5K electronic. The I Bond updates its interest every 6 months, in relation to the US Gov's CPI inflation index. An I Bond is like a time deposit in that you must hold it for 11 months. After that can be sold, with a penalty of giving up the most recent 3 months of interest. After 5 years there is no 3 month penalty, & it can be held for up to 30 years. The interest income might be partially exempt from taxation (need to learn more about this aspect).

A key notion is that one can set up their FUTURE emergency fund through I Bonds. For example, if one bought $10K in I-Bonds by the end of May-2011, she would have $10K + interest available for sale quickly. It wouldn't be as liquid as a deposit account, but it shouldn't take much times (2 weeks?) to sell the bonds & receive the cash that you could put in a deposit account.

It's possible that best after-tax Rewards Checking rate available in your state declines to the point that it's lower than the comparable I Bond rate. In this case those who purchased I Bonds in prior years would benefit. It's possible that it could be beneficial to buy some I Bonds & hence "diversify" your Emergency cash between Rewards Checking & I Bonds.

article advises barbell weight training for fitness

interesting article on fitness. If true, this would be another example of conventional wisdom & industry marketing being bogus.

Tim Geithner incompetent work history

economist Simon Johnson article details Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner's incompetent work history. As of now, it appears Geithner is trying to block the possibility of consumer advocate/lawyer Elizabeth Warren to be the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency head, an organization that was Warren's idea! Johnson notes Geithner's blocking of Warren might be his "9th life" & for once Geithner's incompetence may hurt Geithner's career.

S Johnson's blog Baseline Scenario is bookmarkable.

Hiway Credit Union

a friend/existing customer highly recommended Hiway Credit Union, as a great bank for personal finance use. Dude said their rates are dece, the service is dece, & it's reassuring that one can go in & talk to a real manager at the branch.

After all the fraud in 2008-9 Banking Crisis, imho I feel like investigating Credit Unions more.

1 thing I worry about is if Credit Unions enjoy FDIC protection, or if they have an alternate protection, is it dece enough. Hit up the comments if u have a take on this issue.

Common Good Bank

Common Good Bank is a new type of bank, whose leader was interviewed by Thom Hartmann. IMHO, from the interview, their steez sounds similar to a credit union, but apparently their are some differences.

review of interstate bus service

review of interstate bus service

Garden of Life

Garden of Life website, vendor of food powder that my homie LA recommended. Dude is smart in general, is dude's hobby is to read up on nutrition & exercise. So I'm following the guy's advice.

Been taking this stuff Perfect Food Super Green formula, has 46 nutritious items, most of which would be impractical for me to buy at the local grocery (don't stock it) & eat otherwise, such as grass juice, kelp, obscure vegetables, etc.

Phone Scoop

Phone Scoop is a site the Radio Shack guy recommended, as a independent site that comments on mobile phone service & mobile phones.

I'll watch this site to see what happens to Boost Mobile. I'm a new Boost customer, but because of the crappy frequent dropped calls & "No Service 2F" outages, I'm gonna roll with $0.10/min for a while & "wait & see" if Boost actually scales up their infrastructure capacity, like they claim they're doing, to handle their massive increase in customers. The Radio Shack dude opined Boost will be able to scale up sufficiently within 2-3 months. Not sure if I believe it, but don't hate Boost enough yet to quit. Even no-contract Boost has the "switching cost" of having to cop another phone if I were to switch. Damn you switching costs!

Checkbook.com

Consumers Checkbook aka checkbook.org is a site with local metro area consumer info, published by the same Consumers Union group that publishes the magazine Consumer Reports.

Guidelines for consumer paperwork

Consumer reports has good articles 1 2 on how long & where you should keep certain types of paperwork.

running shoes: Reebok Boyleston Trail

I know some of yall or sneaker guru/fanatics, or running enthusiasts. Help me out. Did I win or lose here? What's your take (no Jim Rome)? Pls pontificate in the comments.

I've been walking or running in my neighborhood for exercise lately, since I've been too busy to play much tennis these days.

I went to the local Kohl's & they had about 20 diff types of running shoes, altho some were out of stock in my 10.5 size.

They had these Reebok Boyleston Trail, orig $59, on sale for $29. They seemed dece enough & comfortable when trying them on, so I was like "fock it, do it live" (no Bile O'Really), & copped. At home I searched the internets for user reviews, I couldn't really find much. I went for 3 walks or runs so far, comfortable with no blisters/problems.

I figure these Reeboks are dece enough for generic run/walk exercise. If later on I happen to get hardcore into running where I start doing 5K or 10Ks often, I figure I can research the market better, & get some serious running shoes, prolly having to buy from an internet retailer for selection & price (prolly around $100?). Currently I average 1 or 2 5K races per year, I'm not a hardcore runner or an enthusiast.

WalletPop

personal finance site WalletPop

Loremo diesel car

The homie G Jr told me about this German company Loremo, that has a diesel gasoline powered car to hit the mass market in 2009.

cost: 20K Euro or less
mileage: 87 MPG or 157 MPG (depending on car's HP)
safety: despite being lightweight car, Loremo says the car is very safe
seats: 2+2

This is very interesting to me, I hope they hit the mass market in the USA.

Just think if Peak Oil cause gas prices to triple to $9/gallon. A Loremo driver AT WORST would still have a similar gasoline bill as a typical 2008 car driver with $3/gallon gasoline.

G Jr said he's waiting for a hybrid electric/gasoline car, which would get similar fuel cost as the Loremo.

Question: how is tiny Loremo possibly more innovative than the big car companies like Toyota? Possible collusion between Big Auto, Big Oil, & Big Corporate Welfare ReThuglican Whores? No Art Bell just in case.

As the resident Automotive guru among my commenters, Ambassador I need you to opine here homie. Is Loremo for real or a pipe dream [||]?

smoke/CO2 alarm

I needed to replace my smoke alarm. A relative who recently copped a house, said his home inspector recommended this model, "Kidde Nighthawk Smoke, Fire & Carbon Monoxide Alarm", item #143036 model #900-0102-16. I copped from the local Lowe's for $40 incl tax.

FreeTechBooks

I stumbled upon this FreeTechBooks, which has legally free .pdf-style text books on computer science/engineering/math/etc.

Zillow

I stumbled upon this real estate site Zillow.

You can put any random US address, & if it has the data, it will show you the tax appraiser value, Zillow's own estimate value, & the square footage.

I tried a few random addresses for a few different states, & each home showed up, with at least some data.

This is pretty informative & interesting. OTOH, it's another invasion of privacy.

Airline flight shopping guide

A good airline flight internet shopping guide. There are some new sites/functionality available that I haven't heard of.

Property Room

FYI on this site Property Room, which is an eBay-like site where the police sell off the stuff they seized.

My friend told me that his friend that sells PCs, was buying laptops for $110 that under 2 years old & "worth" at least $250.

Clark Howard

Clark Howard is consumer advisor, & talk radio host (site). Apparently from quickly looking at the site, you can freely download the show as mp3 podcasts as well. I barely know Howard's work, I just caught a few minutes on the car radio. Howard seems very insightful on many consumer topics.

Of course, we don't get any education on house mortgages, insurance, etc. Also, many of these companies are buying off politicians, so that they don't adequately regulate them. Organizations like Clark Howard or Consumer Reports are the only voices with good advice for the consumer.