Personal Finance News

Lita Epstein

I joined the ranks of the uninsured last year when I entered the 55+ band and my small business group insurance rates jumped $500 per month to $1,200 per month with a $5,000 deductible. I could no longer justify the cost of that insurance. I would have to pay $19,400 out of pocket before getting one cent of coverage. I do carry a supplemental plan through AARP, but couldn't even qualify for individual health insurance through AARP's insurer with my pre-existing conditions.

I was in a small business group pool in Florida when I saw this outrageous price jump. Florida's small business pool does include anyone who files a Schedule C and runs a business, even if that business only has one employee. I'd gotten my insurance through this pool for three years prior to dropping it.

By Guest blogger Claire Robinson

Are you a soda or seltzer fiend? If you buy a lot of packaged fizzy drinks, there's a cheaper -- and greener -- alternative: The Soda Club. Soda Club lets you make your own flavored or club soda at home, with water straight from the tap. Special flavor packets mimic all the big-brand favorites: cola, lemon-lime, orange, grapefruit, Dr. Pepper/Mr. Pibb flavor and more.

Here's how it works: You invest in a countertop machine and a few reusable plastic bottles. You also buy exchangeable CO2 canisters, which infuse water with bubbles, and any flavor packets you'd like. When the CO2 canisters are empty, the Soda Club picks up them up and ships you new ones.

A starter kit package for the machine, some flavor packets, two 1-liter bottles and a couple of CO2 canisters costs about $100 (cheaper if you don't want flavors). As you use up the C02, you'll pay $30 for a 2-canister swapout. My husband and I kept track, and one canister gave us about 50 1-liter bottles.

So what's the bottom line? Plain soda water comes to about 30 cents a liter. The flavor packets are $5 for 12 liters, so an extra 42 cents -- a total of 72 cents a liter for flavored soda. So if you're buying $1-$2 smaller lunchtime bottles or fountain sodas from vendors, there's a huge savings. A 12-pack of soda cans is about 4 liters, so if you're buying 12 packs of cans for more than $3, Soda Club is also cheaper.

Welcome to WalletPop's new book club, where we will have an author-in-residence to give us a peek into a new book and be on hand all month to answer reader questions. Our inaugural writer is real estate expert Alison Rogers, who was the founding editor of the New York Post real estate section and a licensed real estate broker. The following is an excerpt from her book, Diary of a Real Estate Rookie, which was called "must reading" by the Wall Street Journal and a "Witty bunch of horror and success stories mixed with real advice for other Realtor newbies" by Newsweek.

Putting in a Lowball Offer
As a working real estate agent (and failed flipper), a question I get all the time from potential buyers is: "How low can I go?" They always ask this in the abstract, as though there's one number that's the absolute answer which I can somehow tell them over the phone-which is roughly like calling your doctor and saying, "Hey, I think I'm having a mild stroke, which medicine should I take?"

So let's go through some general negotiating principles to work with your specific situation a little better. In general, there is a zone where a lowball offer is insultingly low. Some real estate gurus would argue that that's okay, you should go ahead and make ridiculous offers, because if you're willing to ask a gazillion people you'll finally run down one exhausted one who will capitulate. Then, hey, it's like you won the lottery.

One problem with that strategy: I don't generally think it works. I tried it in New Jersey, and it didn't work for me. For one thing, anybody so broke that they might actually face losing their house is so broke that bankruptcy's a viable option. [After I wrote my book Rookie, from which this excerpt is adapted, the phrase "jingle mail" – where homeowners walked away from their properties, leaving the keys in the mailbox for the bank- became popular slang.] Anybody else is probably going to have a middle-class sense of money and entitlement, and they're probably going to delusionally think their house is worth way more than it is. (Perhaps, dear buyer, you've met one or more of these sellers.)

According to NewScientist, if Americans want to save their economy, they should go on a diet. Not only that, but ecologists say that "the apparently looming energy crisis could be averted if US residents cut their calorie intake."

On the surface, this sounds like it could be contradicting plain economic reason. The U.S. must consume more, not less, to save the economy, right? But is that long-term thinking in the face of higher food and energy costs?

The scientists who tried to bring their point across, David Pimentel of Cornell University and colleagues, showed how a few relatively simple changes can save energy. A lot of it. Changes include improvements in farming to more efficient bulbs, reduced transportation distances, cutting on packaging and more.

Fine, you say, what's that got to do with my diet?

I've complained before on WalletPop about how everyone and their brother expects a tip these days. A tip jar at the dry cleaner? A tip jar at Starbucks after I buy a $4.00 coffee??? I'm sick of everyone expecting tips for merely doing their jobs, and someone at Einstein Bros. Bagels agrees with me.

I stop there several times a week for coffee, and am used to the tip jar on the counter. On occasion I drop something in, but since their coffee is self-serve, I don't feel too obligated to contribute. And today that all changed... I paid for my coffee and told the employee to throw my change in the tip jar. And he said they didn't have one anymore.

What? Sure enough, there's even an official sign on the counter, telling customers that no tips are to be left because Einstein Bagels wants their employees to offer good service all the time. The employee reinforced what the sign said, "Management doesn't want us to give good service just because we're getting a tip. They want us to be nice to all the customers."

Someone has heard my plea. Thank you to those at Einstein Bagels who made this decision. I know a tip is just a buck here and a buck there, but it's nice to know that a company believes a customer should get a good product and good service because that's what they pay for.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.