Category Archives: saving

7 Predictions For 2012

Posted on by
13

Many bloggers are posting predictions for 2012, so I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring.  Hopefully I’ll remember at the end of the year that I did this and will take the opportunity to look back and see how I did.

  1. President Obama will be re-elected – I don’t think Obama has done a great job while in office.  He ran in 2008 on a campaign of ‘change’ and began a ‘business as usual’ approach the first day he stepped into the Oval Office.  Regardless, the economy has improved, unemployment has gone down, and the Republican party is anything but united, which in my mind will add up to a second term for Obama.
  2. The tide will begin to turn on strategic defaults and underwater mortgages – Last I saw, roughly 22% of mortgages were underwater, and many of those homeowners have continued to choose to give their homes back to the bank.  I see both of these numbers slowing down for a couple of reasons.  First, I think the real estate market has finished it’s free fall.  Prices may not go up for awhile, but a stabilization in prices will take some of the fear of the unknown away.  Second, people that are paying their mortgages are gaining traction.  Simply put, if people make their payments while the value of their home remains stable, they will start getting closer to positive equity.  For those who have stuck with their homes for the last few years, this glimmer of a light at the end of the tunnel will reduce the temptation to ‘walk away’.  Third, low interest rates and an easing of the HARP program will make re-financing a continued option that can allow homeowners to more pay less interest.  Personally, I wish that one stipulation would have been (for those who have not suffered income loss) that in order to take part in this, you had to re-finance such that your monthly payment remained roughly the same, meaning that you would merely shift payment from interest to principle, thus providing more infusion of equity into the housing market.
  3. The Eurozone crisis will not go away but will get less attention – The financial crisis of the Eurozone created an enormous amount of volatility in the stock markets in 2011.  Positive news one day would send markets soaring 3%, only to have that entire gain wiped out the next day when negative news came back to the forefront.  This happened over and over again. I don’t expect the news to change much, meaning that we won’t see a ‘solution’ but we also won’t see any catastrophes, but even though things won’t change, I expect investors to start tuning out the news a little bit, reducing some of the market swings that have been tied to Europe.
  4. Blackberry will be history (or at least RIM will be) – Blackberry was once the darling of the smart phone industry.  You didn’t have a smart phone unless you had one.  Now, they’ve been passed by and many owners (myself included) are merely counting the time until they can upgrade (six months and two weeks!).  I expect that Research In Motion will either sell out or declare bankruptcy.  Carriers will continue support for legacy products and new devices could even roll out if another company purchased them, but I expect that RIM is done by the end of the year.
  5. Apple will either provide a dividend or make a giant, unexpected purchase – Apple is sitting on nearly a hundred billion dollars in cash.  Something has to give.  I expect that they would either start answering to investor pressure to release a dividend, but I have a feeling that they could shock the world with a purchase of a company or technology that nobody sees coming.  I have no speculation on what that might be (and no, RIM wouldn’t count!) but I have a hunch they want to show the world that they plan on continuing to make headlines even after the passing of Steve Jobs.
  6. Unemployment will continue to dip, the economy will continue to improve, the bottom line of businesses will get better, but consumer spending will lag – That’s a lot rolled into one, but I think the first three tie together.  What may surprise out of all that would be the consumer spending element.  Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I see consumers taking the opportunity to de-leverage (pay down debt) as part of a way to apply the extra income that would result from the other items mentioned (namely the reduction in unemployment).  While not everybody will follow the model, there are enough people who have gotten into debt either because of foolishness (taking advantage of easy credit and getting in over their heads) or necessity (having to charge expenses just to put food on the table), and people will take advantage of an improved opportunity to get out from under the burden of that debt as well as take measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again so much that consumer spending will not rise as fast as other key indicators.
  7. Discovery will pull the plug on Oprah – Oprah has tried to do something that no other person ever has, make an entire TV network work on the back on her brand name.  It hasn’t worked so far and despite a committment by her to get more involved, I feel it will be too little too late, and the OWN network will be bid adieu by the end of the year.

What do you think of the predictions above?  How would these predictions impact you?  What are your predictions for the rest of 2012?

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

Are Some Things Non-Negotiable?

Posted on by
4

Health insurance is expensive these days any way you look at it.  There’s no way of getting around the fact that you’re going to pay more for health care than you did even a few years ago.

I’ve seen a lot of advice on how to save money on health care costs to counter-act some of these rising costs.  One of the items that shows up on almost every list is to negotiate your bill.  In other words, try to get the doctor’s office to accept less than what they bill you for.

This sounds great, but I’m wondering how effective it really is.

Please Pay Here 3-14-09 19

In most cases when you have insurance, the provider bills at their standard rate, but agrees to take less of a rate when they participate with an insurance provider.  The mindset behind this is that by participating in a plan, they’ll ensure themselves business by offering their services to the insurance companies subscriber base.

Using a recent example, my wife had an epidural for her recent delivery of our second child.  The anesthesiologists standard billing was around $1,300.  But, the negotiated rate for that service was around $550, meaning that they had to essentially write off $750.  Our plan calls for a 10% co-pay, so the insurance company sent them a check for $495 and we had to cover the remaining $55.

It seems to me that they are not going negotiate with me on that $55 because they, in essence, have already been negotiated with by the insurance plan.

I can see trying to work with them had they been an out-of-network provider that we wanted to work with, in which case there would have been no negotiated rate and no pay-out by the insurance company.  In that case, we would have received a bill for the entire $1,300 and I could see them working with someone in that situation.  But not in our situation.

Am I off here or should I be trying to negotiate even these co-pays?  Has anybody had any success negotiating with their providers and if so, what was your insurance situation?

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2011 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive! -

How Recycling Gets Us Free Milk

Posted on by
5

Our city is part of Recycle Bank, a great curbside recycling program where the more you recycle, the more free stuff you get.

Since the program was instituted in our city a couple of years ago, not only has recycling gone up like 200%, it’s also given residents valuable coupons that can be used at local and online establishments.  Your recycling bin is weighed every week, and you get points based on the weight of your bin.  Those points can be redeemed for lots of things.  We’ve gotten free 2-liters of Coke products, discounts on yogurt, $10 off coupons on our annual flower purchases, and much more.
Milk

Lately, we’ve been taking advantage of a local market offering a coupon for a free gallon of milk.  Both my wife and I drink milk daily, plus our two year old loves it as well.  You’re limited to three free gallons a month. We go through much more than that, but three free gallons a month is still pretty awesome.

Note: This post was in no way solicited or sponsored by Recycle Bank.  I just think they’re awesome!  If it sounds good, then approach the leaders of your municipality about partnering up with them.  Free stuff plus more recycling.  Everybody wins!

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2011 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive! -

Do Banking Fees Make Sense?

Posted on by
12

For years and years, free checking accounts were the rule.  Any bank that charged a monthly fee was the exception.

Now, it seems the tides are turning.  Lately, many banks have been rolling out changes to where free checking gets eliminated without meeting certain conditions, usually by keeping a combination of an average daily balance or having a certain amount of money direct deposited every month.

People who don’t meet these requirements (and even some that do) are understandably upset.  After all, it sucks to have to pay for something that you didn’t used to have to pay for just a month ago.

But, does it actually maybe make sense?

One example I saw is that a bank will offer free checking if you have an average daily balance of $1,500.  This seems like a lot of money, and it is, but put it in perspective:

Would the bank rather handle one customer that has $1,500 balance or fifteen customers that each have a $100 balance.

In either case, the customers require resources from the bank.  They have computer entries.  They require statements to be sent out in some fashion.  Though much of the work done to manage accounts is automated, there are still computer resources that add up when you consider the hundreds of thousands of accounts that some banks manage.

At a certain point, the costs to the bank for a small balance customer may not make sense.  In fact, my guess is that the bank actually counts on a certain percentage of those smaller balance customers to close their accounts after they institute the changes.  From the banks perspective they come out ahead.

Let’s go back, then, to why would a bank have offered them at all?

I think back in the beginning it was to build loyalty.  The hope was that a free checking account could be, in essence, a loss-leader.  They could then use that money losing checking account to offer credit cards or other services that could lead to money making opportunities.  They could build loyalty so that when the customer started making more money, they could offer investment services, mortgages, etc.

That actually makes sense, too.

But, let’s face it, the days of loyalty when it comes to banking are over.  People leave banks for better rates or lower fees.  The web allows people to shop around for the best mortgage rates, the credit card with the lowest interest rate or the better rewards program.  In other words, the business model behind luring a customer in with a free checking account to make money down the line…is probably gone.

And so, then, appears to be the free checking account.

Have you been affected at all by free checking account changes?  Would you be able to meet the requirements if your bank instituted such a change?

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2011 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive! -

What’s The Latest With Amazon Mom?

Posted on by
4

It’s been a year since Amazon introduced their Amazon Mom program, where you got an extra 15% off baby items, including the biggest baby item expense of all: diapers!

I signed up a few weeks after the program was introduced and it has been an absolute lifesaver.  I’m curious, though, if anybody that signed up from the get-go knows what Amazon might be doing.

The initial sign-up granted you three months of the extra 15% off items in the subscribe-and-save program (which granted you 15% off to begin with, for a total of 30% off), as well as free Prime benefits so that you could enjoy free 2-day shipping on many items.   You could extend that for up to a full year by making regular purchases in the baby store.  This means that you could earn up to a full year of benefits.

Well, looking at my calender, I can see that we have a few weeks to go, but was wondering if anybody could chime in who was among the first to sign up, which according to what I could see, would have been about a week ago.  Knowing what’s happening will certainly help with planning whether we should buy a bunch of stuff before our extra 15% ends.

I guess I would see Amazon’s options as:

  • Allow more months to accumulate with the same benefits (extra 15% plus free Prime)
  • Allow the extra 15% to continue but remove the free Prime shipping benefits
  • Make you pay to be part of the program, which could get you the 15% and discounted Prime shipping
  • Let it expire altogether, in which case you’d be back to getting a maximum of 15% off
  • Something else

Anybody who’s initial year ran out have any insight on what Amazon is offering?

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2011 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive! -

Unsure What To Do With That Extra Money?

Posted on by
3

It seems that at least once a week, I read a post containing a question that basically says “I have extra money.  Should I do x or should I do y?”  The options are usually pretty financially sound things, like “Should I pay off my mortgage or invest?”  “Should I pay off my student loan or increase my retirement contributions?”  “Should I stash the money in my mattress or send it to Money Beagle?”

OK, so I’ve never seen that last one but the answer in that case is clearly: Throw the dog a bone!

In most cases, I first applaud whoever it is for thinking about making a wise decision.  In most cases, there’s no right or wrong answer. Many factors can go into making a decision, such as expected rate of return, inflation, debt aversion, etc.  They’ve all been covered so I won’t go into them here. Instead, I’ll go straight to the advice:

If you’re asking for help in picking between two options, then clearly both hold appeal to you.  If you’re really not sure what you will be happier with, why not try both options for awhile?

Take 50% of that extra money and grow your emergency fund.  Take the other 50% and apply it to your student loans.  Or whatever.  As long as the two things are either increasing your assets or decreasing your debt, we’re cool.  But, if you aren’t sure which is the way to go, go for both!

I figure that you’ll eventually get a feel for which one you want to concentrate on.  If, after a few months, you get more excited by the loan balance falling, then by all means go and tackle that loan.  If you start sleeping better knowing that you have a better emergency fund cushion, then go ahead and build that up until you’re sleeping a full eight hours.

Or, maybe you’ll find that splitting it up is exactly what you want to do, and you stick with that.

Either way, if you’re unsure of which way to go and they’re both ‘good’ options, try both.  My guess is that you’ll find your answer soon enough.

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2011 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive! -