Don't Leave Money On The Table: Home Insurance

This is the first of what I hope will become a series of short articles about claiming all the benefits you are entitled to – be that discounts, freebies, or whatnot. I’m not going to go to the length of, say, extreme couponing, but I have found there are often discounts or bonuses you can easily take advantage of that can save you money without making major changes in your spending patterns or behaviors. Since this is the first article in this...

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This Is The Stupiest Tesla Story Ever!

So there is apparently a company that does nothing but break apart products and see what they are made of. They must hire only stupid, easily impressed people, based on their comments about a Tesla they took apart. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102111095 "In breaking apart a Tesla, IHS found the head unit alone holds nearly 5,300 individual components, more than four times the number of parts in an iPhone 5s." Shocking! Just shocking!!! Who would...

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How To Reduce 401(k) Fees (Part 2): An Example

Last week, I wrote about my work in restructuring the money in my 401(k) to move into funds that had a lower expense ratio. When I was done, the weighted average expense ratio, meaning, the amount I actually pay based on the amounts I have invested in each fund was 0.749%, down from the 1% range I had before. That's not too bad, but I wanted to see if I could do better. So this week, I took a deeper look. For this analysis, I looked not only at...

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How To Reduce 401(k) Fees (Part 1): An Example

I've written before about how mutual fund fees, in the form of expense ratios, can really cost you in your 401(k). While an expense ratio of 1% or so may not seem like much, over the course of 25 to 30 years, it can cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost returns. Look at the below table. If you have a starting balance of $25,000, get an average 7% return, and pay 0.5% in fees, after 35 years, you'll have $227,000. But look at what happens...

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Tesla Owner Tracks Stolen Model S With Tesla Phone App

I came across this story and just love it! A woman's Model S was stolen. She called police and then remembered that the Tesla phone app can track that car, providing it's location and speed. They scary thing is that, as the police chased the vehicle, she could see it reached speeds of 100 MPH. Yikes! I would be so nervous watching my $100,000 car being driven like that. The police eventually stopped the car by using spike strips. What I didn't...

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