insurance

Not free to be poor

Posted 1 week 6 days ago by Philip Brewer

Personal Finance, Lifestyle

Bench in herb garden

Nobody wants to be poor. It's a dangerous and constrained position to be in. But there are people out there (me, for instance) who are relatively happy to live at a fairly low standard of living. Choosing to live at a low standard of living means you don't need to earn as much money--which opens up a huge range of possibilities that ordinary people don't have. The way society is organized now, though, that's not a safe option.

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Things to insure, things not to insure

Posted 6 weeks 2 days ago by Philip Brewer

Personal Finance

Dentist extracting tooth circa 1943

Insurance is all about spreading the risk. A bunch of people buy insurance against the risk that a few of them will be the ones who get hit with a big bill that they couldn't pay. The model works fine for house fires and car crashes. However, it's a terrible model for ordinary, predictable expenses. Here's some tips on picking what to insure and what not to insure.

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The Costa Rica Lesson: Awwwwwww They Got Me

Posted 6 weeks 4 days ago by Jabulani Leffall

Life Hacks, Lifestyle, Art and Leisure

All Aboard?

Get Travel Insurance before you go anywhere. Have and not need it. No really trust me.

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Refactor your budget categories

Posted 9 weeks 1 day ago by Philip Brewer

Budgeting

Budget pie chart

There are a lot of budget templates out there. Any will serve the purpose, and if you've got one that's working for you, that's a good enough reason to stick with it. If you don't have a budget, though, or if you're going to be changing your budget categories around for some other reason, I've got some thoughts on what makes a good category.

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Rebuilding After A Disaster: Create A Home Inventory Now

Posted 17 weeks 5 days ago by Thursday Bram

Real Estate and Housing

House destroyed by Hurricane Katrina

It seems like, every other week, there is some natural disaster threatening people’s homes. Worrying about that sort of thing has lead me to be a little more prepared than I might be otherwise. I’ve got an emergency plan, I’ve backed up my hard drive, and my cats’ carrier is easily accessible. Now, I’m starting to focus on what might happen after a disaster. The key to starting over again seems to be knowing what you might need to replace. Insurers will insist on such a list, for instance. So, I’ve been developing my own home inventory.

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AD&D Insurance: No Good, No Bad, Just Ugly

Posted 33 weeks 4 days ago by Nora Dunn

Personal Finance

lottery ticket

Accidental Death And Dismemberment insurance. Wow – doesn’t that sound just lovely? I mean, at least Life insurance has a euphemistic name (they call it “Life” insurance, not “death” insurance, which is really a little more apt). Disability, Critical Illness, and Long Term Care, although accurate in name, aren’t quite as ugly in description. But Accidental Death & Dismemberment (thankfully rolling off the tongue easily by more commonly being known as AD&D) is just ugly, and in more ways than one.

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When to drop collision coverage on your car

Posted 37 weeks 1 day ago by Philip Brewer

Frugal Living, Cars and Transportation

Wrecked car

A few years back, I got a tidy little lesson in exactly what collision coverage is. We'd had a car damaged in an accident, damaged pretty badly. So, it wasn't a surprise when the insurance company called and said they were going to total the car. Fortunately, we checked over the paperwork they sent.

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Don’t Cash That Insurance Check; It May Not Be Yours

Posted 40 weeks 11 hours ago by Linsey Knerl

Consumer Affairs

Did you get an unexpected payment from your insurance company? Health insurance overpayments and mispayments make up for billions of dollars in wasted funds every year. And while the majority of the payments go directly from the insurance company to the medical provider (the doctor, hospital, ambulance service, etc.), there is still a large percentage of this money being paid to patients.

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Book review: The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need

Posted 45 weeks 1 day ago by Philip Brewer

Personal Finance

This is the perfect book for a Wise Bread reader. It covers just about everything we talk about here--life hacks, investing, frugality--and does it with insight and humor. (And not just a little humor. If you're at all interested in money, this book is hilarious.)

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Save your Lunchmeat: Insurance for your Fridge

Posted 46 weeks 2 days ago by Linsey Knerl

Food and Drink

We often protect our computers, TV’s, and sound systems with special power strips to protect against power surges. Most families I know go the extra mile to stain-protect their living room furniture against stains. Have you really stopped to consider investing in protection for the food in your fridge?

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Critical Illness Insurance For Wise-Bloggers

Posted 46 weeks 4 days ago by Nora Dunn

Personal Finance

critical illness

Cancer, heart disease, and stoke are the three big illnesses we suffer from these days. The irony is, due to medical technology we are more likely to live from these three than die! This is good, of course, no doubt about it. But we live…at what cost? Literally?

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Did Office Max hire an accountant with an I.Q. of 62?

Posted 1 year ago by Paul Michael

Filed Under: Consumer Affairs

Dunce

I think I may be losing my grip on reality.

Recently I received four coupons in the mail from my local Office Max. Two coupons were for $10 off a purchase of $10. I'm not the best number-cruncher but I figured that meant I got two $10 items for free. I was right. I strolled into Office Max, picked out two $10 items (pack of batteries, paper supplies) and after tax the grand total came to around $1.40 for $20 worth of product.

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Being asthmatic just got more expensive

Posted 1 year ago by Andrea Dickson

Filed Under: Health and Beauty

Feeling wheezy? Asthma attack coming on? Reaching for that inhaler? Let's stop and think about the CPP (cost per puff). Oh, it may not seem like much now, but that will all change soon.

The cost of an albuterol inhaler is going to nearly triple, due to the repatenting of the propellant used in the most common drugs used to reduce the inflamation associated with an asthma attack.

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Is This Job Worth It?

Posted 1 year ago by Troy Hadley

Filed Under: Career Building

This post technically isn't about me. It's about a friend, a lousy job situation, and soliciting feedback from our readers for a friend of mine.

Tiffany is an engineer who works for a small start-up. She makes a very good salary, has benefits, and doesn't have a particularly heavy workload at the moment (her company is building a product, so the work comes in fits and starts, so she's been chilling for a couple of months while the hardware is being built). Anyway, Tiff is kind of bored right now, but otherwise OK. She's the only female in her office, and works with about 12 men who are much older than she is (she's 27, they're all about 45-57).

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