How I foiled an online scammer

YOU have probably gotten at least one e-mail from a person offering to send you lots of money from some faraway place. Just for the fun of it, I responded.

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Pyramid scheme case thrown out

CASHBACK loyalty card program Lyoness has won a case against Australia’s competition watchdog, which accused the company of operating a pyramid scheme.

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ANZ hikes home loan rates

ANZ has joined its rivals in jacking up home loan rates, meaning all four big banks have now hiked rates independently of the Reserve Bank.

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Banks’ rate hike frenzy continues

ALL four of the big banks have hiked their variable mortgage interest rates, spelling pain for Australian homeowners.

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$1300 AIDS drug undercut by 99 per cent

A DRUG company rivalling Martin Shkreli’s has seized on the furore over the jacked-up $1300 price of a lifesaving HIV pill, offering the same for $1.30.

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TripAdvisor rocked by bribery claims

MILLIONS of travellers rely on its reviews, but TripAdvisor has been rocked by allegations of bribery and sneaky tactics by a serviced apartment chain.

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Aussie stocks soar 1.8pc at open

THE Australian sharemarket has rallied almost 2 per cent at the open, following upbeat global leads.

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NAB hikes home loan rates

NATIONAL Australia Bank has hiked mortgage rates, becoming the third major bank to hit consumers with higher costs to accommodate stricter capital rules.

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NAB joins rate hike frenzy

NAB has joined Westpac and Commonwealth Bank in hiking its variable rate home loans by 17 basis points.

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Brodheadsville preschool to close due to state budget impasse

“We really don’t want the kids to become pawns in the game,” Growing Place’s Executive Director Lisa Eick said.

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Has Macca’s just turned the corner?

COULD this be the start of a new era? Fast food giant McDonald’s has defied expectations to do something it hasn’t managed in two years.

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What No Social Security COLA Could Mean for You

Social Security isn't getting a cost-of-living adjustment next year, and that could affect more than just your benefits.

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The Secret to Getting a College Kid to Start Investing

Einstein was wrong — there is a force more powerful than compound interest (and perhaps even gravity itself): The pull of a teenager toward her laptop during a group chat. Here’s how to explain the importance of investing to a reluctant young person. Photo: Zenely Martin Rios

I am 28, and my sister is 19. That kind of age gap presents positives and negatives.

One clear positive for me is that I always have a young person around to help me make sense of an increasingly confusing world. What’s so great about Vine? Why does everyone dress like they’re going to a music festival 365 days a year? What does it mean to be “on fleek”? Am I on fleek? (I’m definitely not.)

I feel like I can tap into the zeitgeist of the coolest people at any time. That is invaluable. I have a direct, honest pipeline into the mind of a college sophomore. In this regard, my sister does not treat me like a parent, and it’s great. I wasn’t cool in college, but I can be now!

On the flip side, being nine years older automatically thrusts me into the position of being a semi-parent. This can be challenging and frustrating. I feel obligated to pass down my hard-won wisdom regarding fake IDs (not worth it), buying and cooking your own food vs. getting a meal plan (worth it), and investing (sooooooooo worth it).

Unfortunately, it’s that last point that has caused me the most consternation. Starting a few years ago, I got it in my head that my sister should be investing in the stock market. All the research shows that the earlier you start, the better off you are, and most of that research references someone starting when they are in their early 20s. What if she started investing at 15? She’d be so wealthy, so early!

I had to make it happen. So, one day a few years ago, while my sister and I were both living at home, I came back from the library with The Bogleheads Guide to Investing. I marched into her room and presented her with the book.

“It’s time for you start investing! Read this book, it explains everything.”

“What?”

“Investing. Getting your money to work for you.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“You got, like, $3,000 at your bat mitzvah.”

“I don’t want to spend that.”

“It’s not spending, it’s investing. Let’s say you buy 10 shares of Company X, and their profits improve so that–”

“I’m bored.”

“Yeah? Well, did you know that Albert Einstein said the most powerful force in the world is compound interest?”

[She gives a blank stare, slowly turns back to computer.]

It turns out Einstein is wrong. The most powerful force in the world is the pull a teenage girl feels toward Facebook when she is in a group chat with her friends.

I would repeat this process every few months, with the same result. But recently, after years of trying, I was able to finish my Sisyphean journey and convince my sister to open a Roth IRA. I felt like Jimmy Carter at the Camp David Accords. Maybe even better, since Carter wasn’t worried about Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin losing focus to Angry Birds.

Here’s what I learned along the way:

Be Patient

Environment is everything. Statistically, kids are likely to take after their parents. This applies to religion, eating habits, exercise habits, and pretty much anything else you can think of. So, it would make sense that it applies to their attitudes about money as well.

If your parents are secretive about their finances, spend a lot of money to keep up with the Joneses, and talk about how they don’t have much in their retirement accounts, then you probably will be the same way. My parents were pretty amazing at raising their kids, but they were not the best financial role models. It’s hard to develop good money habits when you’re in that kind of environment, so I don’t blame my sister for being uninterested in saving.

I realized that half the battle was simply waiting for her environment to change. If I harassed her too much when she was in the comfortable cocoon of her childhood bedroom, she might get so annoyed that she’d shut out my future efforts. Sometimes, you have to just be patient.

Lead by Example

When I still lived with my parents, I once spent $3,000 on a new laptop. My old one still worked fine, but it couldn’t run Starcraft, iTunes and a Web browser all at once. And what if I wanted to start making hip-hop beats? (Yes, this was a legitimate concern at the time … don’t ask.) I needed a computer that could handle top-end music software.

I ended up getting a very fancy computer. I loved, it but it’s never a good idea to spend almost a third of your net worth on a depreciating asset. If someone had told me then that my money would have been better spent buying index funds, I would have ignored them.

But, as I matured, I made it a point to show my sister that I was changing my ways. I have manually fixed that computer up over the years, and it’s still chugging along to this day. I don’t conspicuously consume. When I get a new job, or a raise, I tell my sister about how I’m excited not for the latest electronic DJ gadget (seriously, don’t ask) but for the ability to contribute the max to my 401(k). I would show her how I was doing with my Mint app, trying to get across that not everything about investing is boring and gray.

It might not seem like much, but she clearly looks up to me in other ways, so little steps like this matter. If you can change the direction of a boat by one degree, it will end up on a completely different course after a while.

Find Out What Sparks Their Interest

My sister loves reading, but it became clear that there was a better chance of Warren Buffett converting his portfolio to penny stocks than my sister reading a whole book on investing.

Instead of trying to get her to read novels, I started sending her less technical, more lighthearted, investing-related blog posts. This helped change the tide. The first time she mentioned that she enjoyed something she read in a post I sent her, it was tough not to let flow the tears of joy.

It turns out that blog posts are a lot more handy for someone who likes reading but has a short attention span. While that got the job done in this case, there are a lot of ways you can spark someone’s interest in investing. Is the kid a bleeding-heart type? Maybe they’d invest through services like Lending Club, Prosper, or Kiva, where you can make loans to real people who might not have access to it through traditional means.

Would they invest if they had the discipline to set aside the money? Show them how they can carve out money to invest by using a budget or automating their savings. Slick, easy-to-use budgeting software from a site like You Need a Budget or Personal Capital would be perfect for this kind of thing.

Even if investing as a whole bores them, do they get excited thinking about owning a few companies they love? Maybe they’re the kind of person who sees a new Apple product launch announcement and thinks, “I’d buy some of that stock if I could get it right this second on my phone.” A free trading app for their smartphone like Robinhoodwould be perfect for this person.

Strike While the Iron’s Hot

Once you move out of your parents’ house, it can feel like getting cold water dumped on you. My sister went to college, got a job, saw how much work you have to put in even to make $9 an hour, and slowly, her wheels started turning. My gentle prodding to get her to invest was met with less scoffing and more curiosity.

As I saw this shift happen, I knew I needed to put on the full-court press. I managed to work little tidbits about investing into almost all of our conversations, and I started to make progress!

This kind of tactic early on could have rubbed her the wrong way, but not anymore. Saving was on her mind. But, not surprisingly, she still had plenty of reservations.

The main holdup was that it seemed like a lot of work and she was busy. She has a job, she’s taking a full course load and she’s preparing to go study abroad. Investing seemed intriguing, but wasn’t worth her effort to figure it all out and set it up.

That’s when the next phase of the plan went into effect.

Satisfy the Desire for Instant Gratification

In a world where people are increasingly used to getting what they want, when they want, even taking a few hours a month to manage your finances can seem daunting.

That being the case, once my sister expressed interest in investing, I changed my approach from “you have to invest, figure it out, it’s not that hard” to “give me your information and I will literally do everything for you.” Suddenly, she was totally on board. Once I offered to be her full-scale concierge service, for free, she happily parted with some of her savings and told me to invest it.

While my sister and I are keeping this all in the family, there is a host of tools to help people like me convince their loved ones that investing is not that hard. If I was too busy to manage things on my own, I wouldn’t hesitate to use a service like Betterment or Wealthfront.

Both are low-cost services that make it easy to start investing. Plus they have intuitive, well-designed interfaces that make tracking your money a breeze. Each one has pros and cons, but there is no pro like being able to say, “Pick up your iPhone, dump your money into one of these services and let a bunch of very smart people make you wealthy,” to get an apathetic teenager to pay attention. Just a few minutes of their time and they don’t have to worry about their investments for 40 years? That’s instant gratification.

Of course, nothing is as painless (for my sister, anyway) as the system she and I use, where I have complete access to all my sister’s accounts and do all the grunt work, from transferring money out of her checking account to eventual tax-loss harvesting. This is why I wire a few hundred bucks into my account every month for my troubles. (Don’t worry, I’m kidding. And even if I wasn’t, this post is too long for her to ever read this far.)

Summing Up

The whole thing is a little bit like starting a workout routine. Some people are motivated to go to the gym, even when it’s snowing outside and they have to walk uphill a mile to get there. Others will never turn off Netflix unless you drag them, kicking and screaming, to a spin class.

The same thing applies to investing. Some are born and raised to save and have an intuitive sense of the benefits of compound interest. They will invest on their own. Others need to be coaxed along using the steps I outlined above. In my experience, young people need prodding more often than not, so it’s best to get familiar with how to handle it.

And while it can be tough to see day-to-day gains from working out, it’s always comforting to know that you are taking care of your body in the long term. The same thing applies to investing. Once you can get someone to see that it’s not that hard, they will usually keep at it. As long as it’s relatively painless from the signup period forward, smart people will realize that they’d be silly not to start saving for the future, no matter how old they are.

The post The Secret to Getting a College Kid to Start Investing appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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9 Ways to Find Temporary Work in Retirement

Whether you need a paycheck to pad your savings or want to meet people, a short-term gig can be a good option.

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Best Cheap Car Insurance Options

Whether you have a set of shiny new wheels or a decaying rust bucket, cheap car insurance is a must for staying legal on the road. The good news? You have more control over factors that influence your auto insurance rates than those that affect other types of coverage, such as life insurance or home insurance.

The No. 1 key to finding affordable car insurance is to find and compare cheap car insurance quotes in your area, which you can do by entering your ZIP code below:

Enter Your ZIP Code:

If you’re looking for a deeper dive into cheap car insurance, this guide covers four of the best cheap car insurance companies. I’ll also cover lesser-known discounts, discuss what kinds of auto insurance you really need, and outline several strategies that will help you save on car insurance in 2015, no matter what insurer you choose.

Best Cheap Car Insurance Companies

The four auto insurance companies below have quality coverage and are traditionally some of the most affordable options around. But remember — due to a number of personal factors, your mileage may vary when shopping for cheap car insurance. Instead of blindly picking from this list, make sure you shop around before buying a new policy.

• Nationwide
• State Farm
• Travelers
• Progressive

How I Chose the Best

To pick the best cheap car insurance companies, I narrowed the field to auto insurers with a nationwide reach so you can benefit from the most inexpensive coverage no matter where you live. From there, I obtained a quote for “Marie,” a married 40-year-old woman from Columbus, Ohio, who drives a 2006 Honda Odyssey. I focused on three no-frills, inexpensive coverage options:

• State minimum liability coverage: In Ohio, that’s $25,000 in bodily injury liability per person, $50,000 in bodily injury liability per accident, and $25,000 in property damage liability.
• State minimum liability plus $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident in uninsured and underinsured bodily liability.
• All of the above, plus comprehensive and collision coverage with $1,000 deductibles.

I also considered how easy the quote process was, including how long it took to get a quote for each company and how much personal information Marie had to give up, as well as available car insurance discounts. Though “cheap” is king in this study, I also looked at the company’s financial strength rating as measured by A.M. Best. Finally, I examined the company’s rankings in the latest J.D. Power customer service satisfaction survey as a tiebreaker in cases where results were close.

Nationwide

Nationwide delivered some of the lowest quotes for my driver, Marie, especially for the most basic coverage. Marie would pay just shy of $28 a month for state-minimum coverage, and only a couple dollars more than that to add uninsured and underinsured motorist liability. Her total topped out at just under $51 a month with $1,000 deductibles for comprehensive and collision insurance. Nationwide also offers at least 15 discounts for drivers to keep quotes as low as possible.

The company also had a straightforward quote process that took only four minutes from beginning to end. To get a quote, Marie didn’t have to fork over her Social Security number, but she did need to input her phone number. Nationwide suggested three straightforward coverage options (minimum, standard, and premium) that were easily customizable.

True to its name, Nationwide auto insurance has a national reach, and A.M. Best gives it a superior A+ rating for financial strength. However, with the exception of the north-central U.S., the company is rated at the middle or bottom of the pack for customer satisfaction in J.D. Power’s annual survey.

State Farm

State Farm’s quotes were low, but not the lowest Marie received. She would pay just shy of $33 for state-minimum coverage, $35 to add uninsured and underinsured motorist liability, and $63 with $1,000 deductibles for comprehensive and collision insurance. The company offers at least a dozen known discounts.

State Farm’s quote process was a bit more detailed than most, taking about five minutes from start to finish. Marie had to input either her Social Security or driver’s license number to complete the process. Like Nationwide, she was given three tiers of coverage (basic, premium, and a level similar to her current coverage) that were easy to tweak.

State Farm is the nation’s largest auto insurer, with 18,000 agents spread across every state. It ranks consistently well for customer satisfaction, rating above average in most of the regions of the J.D. Power survey. It also gets A.M. Best’s top marks, A++, for financial strength.

Travelers

Travelers offered very low rates for Marie: just $31 for state-minimum coverage, $34 to add uninsured and underinsured motorist liability, and only $47 to include $1,000 deductibles for comprehensive and collision insurance. The company offers roughly a dozen known discounts, including for defensive driving and low mileage.

Another strong point: The quote process with Travelers was very easy, taking only about three minutes from start to finish. Much of the information was pre-filled with the most likely answers, and no Social Security number was required. A nice “People Like You” feature also gave Marie an idea of whether she was choosing coverage that others in similar situations would pick.

Travelers auto insurance is available across the U.S., and the company has 12,000 agents. It gets A.M. Best’s top marks, A++, for financial strength. Unfortunately, it earns uneven rankings in the J.D. Power survey. While New Yorkers are particularly satisfied with Travelers, the company earns mediocre or poor marks for customer satisfaction in the rest of the regions where it’s ranked.

Progressive

With Progressive, Marie would pay a reasonable $37 a month for state-minimum coverage, $40 to add uninsured and underinsured motorist liability, and just $48 to tack on comprehensive and collision insurance with $1,000 deductibles. The company has at least a dozen known discounts, including breaks for insuring multiple vehicles, good students, and military personnel.

Like Travelers, Progressive’s quote process was quick and painless, clocking in at just three minutes. The company is fairly aggressive in marketing its insurance bundles, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to add other coverage types if you need them (or click “no thanks” if not).

You can choose to see quotes by basic tiered levels, or you can opt to see coverage similar to what you already have. If budget is king, you can also name your price and see what it will get you. A coverage checker warns you when you’re probably buying too little insurance — or too much.

Progressive has a national reach and more than 30,000 agents. It’s all over the map in the J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey, but is in the middle of the pack in most regions. A.M. Best gives it a superior A+ rating for financial strength.

Where to Find Car Insurance Discounts

Once you’ve seen some rates, you need to dig in on exploiting discounts — the key to cheap car insurance rates. Many car insurance companies have discounts that go beyond bundling or insuring multiple vehicles, and some of them are less obvious than you may think.

Driving schools

Driving education is an often overlooked discount opportunity. Teen drivers are very expensive to insure, but one great way to lower that burden is through defensive driving training.

Drivers who have passed an accredited driver’s ed class or defensive driving training are eligible for up to a 10% discount, according to DriversEd.com. Plus, if you’ve recently received a ticket, enrolling in a defensive driving course can prevent the premium hike on your insurance (though most companies only let you do this once every 12 months).

Defensive driving courses cover topics such as traffic laws, drug- and alcohol-impaired driving, and inclement-weather driving and are often available online or at commercial driving schools. Courses for defensive driving can be found through your DMV or through local community centers.

In fact, defensive driving education is required in at least 15 states including Texas, Nevada, New Jersey, Virginia, Oklahoma, Oregon, New York, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Louisiana, North Carolina, Illinois and Mississippi.

After completing a defensive driving course, participants will receive a completion certificate that can be presented to insurance companies in order to qualify for a discount. Depending on the insurance company, drivers may also have to retake the course and be current on their certification in order to continue receiving the discount. Classes are flexible and offered on a consistent basis, however, and learning defensive driving skills is an easy way to save money and become a more comfortable driver.

If you aren’t the only person covered on your auto policy, consider getting all the drivers on your policy to take a defensive driving and you can be eligible for additional discounts.

Good student discounts

These discounts are typically given to drivers under the age of 25 who are enrolled full time at a high school or college/university and are maintaining at least a 3.0 grade point average or are on the honor roll or dean’s list.

In order to prove satisfactory academic achievement and receive the discount, students need a current transcript or a letter signed by a school administrator. Students who are home-schooled can present standardized test results, such as SAT or ACT scores, that are within a desired percentile range depending on the insurance provider in order to qualify.

Good grades can continue helping students save money even after school is out because some insurance companies extend this discount to post-grads for a limited time.

• Related: Student Guide to Car Insurance

Safe-driver discounts

Drivers with a clean driving record, a standard that is determined by each individual insurance provider, are eligible for hefty discounts.

Although there is no universal definition of safe driving, insurance companies generally mean avoiding collisions and accidents for which you can be found at fault and avoiding moving violations such as speeding, driving under the influence, or reckless driving.

Having a clean record can not only give you a discount on your insurance, it can save you a lot more money in the short term.

Resident student discounts

These discounts can be offered to students attending college more than 100 miles away from home. They are intended to be used exclusively by those students who are not planning to drive the insured vehicle while at school but may use it while they are home for vacations.

Other discounts

• Most insurance companies have active-duty military and veterans discounts.
• Discounts exist for car alarm systems or other safety equipment.
• Many insurers will even lower your rate if you pay your annual premium upfront or automate your payments.

Ask companies for a full list of discounts while you’re shopping, since they may not publicize all of them.

Major Car Insurance Types

Though companies offer several more nuanced options and add-ons, the three major types of auto insurance boil down to:

• Liability coverage
• Collision coverage
• Comprehensive coverage

Liability coverage

Liability coverage, required by law in most states, covers the other driver’s personal injury and property damage in a crash where you’re at fault. Importantly, it does not cover your own injuries or property damage. Buying only liability insurance is always going to be your cheapest option, though not necessarily the wisest. Sometimes it makes sense to carry only liability coverage, and sometimes it doesn’t. More on this in a minute.

You’ll probably see your liability coverage written like this on your quote or car insurance policy: $50,000/$100,000/$50,000 (or 50/100/50). That means you have $50,000 in bodily injury coverage for each person, $100,000 in bodily injury coverage total, and $50,000 in coverage for property damage. Each state requires its own minimum amount of liability insurance for you to stay legal.

Buying the bare minimum is tempting since it will keep your rates as low as possible. Unfortunately, that’s a bad idea — a bad crash can mean your costs will easily surpass low state minimums, and then you’ll have to pay up. If you don’t have the money, that will leave your other assets vulnerable.

Collision coverage

There is also collision coverage, which covers the damage to your car sustained in a crash. Most commonly, this covers crashes when you’re at fault, but it may also pay in certain circumstances when another driver is at fault, or in scenarios not covered under your other policies.

The cost of your collision coverage will largely depend on your car’s value, but you do control the deductible — the amount you pay out of pocket before your insurance company picks up the rest of the tab.

Comprehensive coverage

True to its name, comprehensive car insurance covers almost any car-related calamity you can think of minus damage resulting from a crash. Instead, comprehensive policies pay for things like auto theft, damage from severe weather, or needed repairs after a late-night rendezvous with a disoriented deer.

Comprehensive coverage is meant to complement collision coverage, not replace it. Like collision coverage, the cost will depend on your car, but you control your deductible.

What Types of Car Insurance Do I Really Need?

Comprehensive and collision coverage seem like a smart choice, but they come with a much heftier price tag than liability-only insurance. If you took out a loan to pay for your car, you probably don’t have a choice — your lender will require proof of comprehensive and collision coverage. And dropping comprehensive or collision coverage isn’t a good idea for anyone without the savings to pay for repairs out of pocket.

But there are situations when opting only for liability makes sense. For instance, if you drive an older, paid-off vehicle that you can easily fix or replace, keeping only liability coverage can mean significant savings. Comprehensive and collision coverage may also be overkill on any car you drive sparingly.

To see how much I would save on auto insurance by nixing all coverage but liability, I plugged my own stats into a quote generator. I’m a married female in my early 30s driving a paid-off 2011 Hyundai Sonata. I live in a small Southern city, have a clean driving record, and average 12,000 miles a year. A policy with 50/100/50 in liability, as well as comprehensive and collision policies with $250 deductibles, would set me back $45 a month. Dropping the comprehensive and collision policies would bring my bill down to just $24 a month.

Would I do it? No, since my car is still relatively new and would cost a significant sum to repair or replace. But let’s say I have a beat-up 2004 Nissan Altima with 150,000 miles on it. Replacing it would probably only cost about $2,000, a sum I could cover with my emergency fund if my car was totaled. Suddenly, cutting my car insurance bill nearly in half by dropping comprehensive and collision coverage makes a lot more sense.

Bottom line: Liability coverage is your cheapest option and will keep you legal on the road, but dropping collision and comprehensive coverage might be a risky move if it would be a major financial hardship to fix or replace your car after an accident.

Other types of coverage

There are a number of other coverage types and add-ons, some of which may be required in certain states. Of particular note is personal injury protection, which pays your medical expenses after a crash.

There’s also uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, which means you won’t be left on the hook after a crash where the other driver is at fault but doesn’t carry enough (or any) insurance and can’t afford to pay. Other add-ons pay for rental cars while your car is being fixed and for roadside assistance.

If you’re trying to keep your bill low, personal injury coverage probably isn’t a smart buy as long as you have a good health insurance plan — there would be too much overlap between the two policies.

However, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is a decent bet, especially in areas with a high percentage of uninsured drivers. It’s also fairly inexpensive: Adding both options to my GEICO quote boosted my monthly bill by only a few dollars.

As for other little add-ons, consider skipping them. If you can cover the cost of a rental (or borrow a car from a friend while you’re in a jam), rental-car riders are unnecessary, and a AAA membership is often a better deal than roadside assistance coverage if you have an older vehicle.

What car insurance is required in my state?

Each state has different requirements when it comes to car insurance. Many simply require liability insurance (both bodily injury and property damage). Others go a step or two further, requiring add-ons such as personal injury protection and uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, here are the kinds of insurance each state requires as of September 2015, as well as the minimum required amounts of liability insurance. The only state that does not require liability insurance is New Hampshire; however, that state still mandates that you show you have sufficient funds to meet state requirements if you’re at fault in a crash.

	Types of insurance required	Minimum required liability insurance (bodily injury per person/bodily injury per accident/property damage liability, in thousands)
Alabama	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/25
Alaska	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	50/100/25
Arizona	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	15/30/10
Arkansas	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection	25/50/25
California	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	15/30/5
Colorado	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/15
Connecticut	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	20/40/10
Delaware	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection	15/30/10
District of Columbia	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist	25/50/10
Florida	Property damage liability, personal injury protection	10/20/10
Georgia	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/25
Hawaii	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection	20/40/10
Idaho	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/15
Illinois	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/20
Indiana	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/10
Iowa	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	20/40/15
Kansas	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/10
Kentucky	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection	25/50/10
Louisiana	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	15/30/25
Maine	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist, medical payments	50/100/25
Maryland	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	30/60/15
Massachusetts	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	20/40/5
Michigan	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection	20/40/10
Minnesota	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	30/60/10
Mississippi	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/25
Missouri	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist	25/50/10
Montana	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/10
Nebraska	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/25
Nevada	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	15/30/10
New Hampshire	Uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist, medical payments	25/50/25 (minimum available in NH, but not required by state law if you show sufficient funds)
New Jersey	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	15/30/5
New Mexico	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/10
New York	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist,wrongful death	25/50/10
North Carolina	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	30/60/25
North Dakota	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/25
Ohio	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/25
Oklahoma	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/25
Oregon	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/25
Pennsylvania	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection	15/30/5
Rhode Island	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/25
South Carolina	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist	25/50/25
South Dakota	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/25
Tennessee	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/15
Texas	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	30/60/25
Utah	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, personal injury protection	25/65/15
Vermont	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/10
Virginia	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist, underinsured motorist	25/50/20
Washington	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/10
West Virginia	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist	25/40/10
Wisconsin	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability, uninsured motorist	25/50/10
Wyoming	Bodily injury liability, property damage liability	25/50/20

 

Six Tips to Find Cheap Auto Insurance

Now that you know what kind of car insurance you need, it’s time to do a little more legwork to get a good deal.

Certain factors that affect your car insurance rates are largely beyond your control. These include basic demographics such as your age, gender, marital status, location, and job.

But other factors, including what and how you drive, are easier to change. And everyone can comparison shop, exploit discounts, and consider bundling policies to find the cheapest car insurance companies, too.

Tip #1: Shop around

It’s a no-brainer, but it always pays to shop around for cheaper car insurance. Instead of wasting time making endless phone calls or filling out the same information on dozens of websites, save time by using an online quote tool. Online quote tools help you get a quick snapshot of potential rates from several auto-insurance companies at once.

The results of your search can surprise you. Don’t assume a certain provider will be the cheapest auto insurance company because it was the case for your family or friends. So many factors affect your rate that you’ll never know which company will come out on top until you compare apples to apples. Use the tool below to start your search. Not every company will appear using our quote tool. GEICO, in particular, only quotes prices via its own website.

Enter Your ZIP Code:

 

Tip #2: Bundle policies

Many car insurance companies will give you a discount if you have other policies with them. For instance, you may get a break on car insurance if you use the same provider for life, home, or renter’s policies. Bundled policies are convenient, too; you’ll be dealing with only one bill and one company.

A note of caution: Don’t automatically assume bundles will save you money. Companies that offer only auto insurance may offer compelling discounts to keep your business. Sometimes that means you get cheaper car insurance if you keep policies with separate insurers.

Tip #3: Boost your deductible

Your deductible is what you pay out of pocket before your insurance covers the rest of the cost to fix or replace your car. A plan with a $250 deductible will generally cost more than one with a $1,000 deductible.

For a real-world example, I plugged my own stats into a quote generator from Progressive, changing only the deductible to see how it would affect my rate. As mentioned earlier, I’m a married female in my early 30s driving a 2011 Hyundai Sonata. I live in a small Southern city, have a clean driving record, and average 12,000 miles a year.

With a $100 deductible on comprehensive and collision coverage, I would pay roughly $120 a month. Raising that deductible to $250 brought my bill down to about $100 a month. A $500 deductible reduced my monthly bill to $90, and a $1,000 deductible pushed it down to $82. That means I get to hold onto $456 a year if I go with the $1,000 deductible instead of the $100 deductible — not a bad sum.

However, raising my deductible is a good move for me only because I have $1,000 set aside in an emergency fund to cover the higher deductible. If you don’t have cash stashed away to pay the higher deductible in case of a crash or other calamity, raising your deductible isn’t the wisest move. Also keep in mind that factors such as your age and driving record will affect how much raising your deductible will save you.

Tip #4: Drive a low-risk car

Powerful, sporty luxury cars are always the most expensive to insure. These cars have the power to go extremely fast, and insurance companies know their drivers are more likely to get into trouble. These cars also cost a lot more to fix and are attractive targets for thieves — all situations your insurance company wants to avoid.

The most expensive 2015 car to insure, the 600-horsepower Nissan GT-R Nismo, will set you back about $3,574 a year in car insurance, according to Insure.com. Right behind it are a slew of high-powered or luxury rides including the Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Convertible, Dodge SRT Viper, Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet, and Audi R8 5.2 Spyder Quattro, all of which still top $3,000 a year.

If you don’t have six figures to drop on a car, here’s some good news: Family-friendly vehicles including minivans, sedans, and smaller SUVs cost the least to insure. Their drivers tend to be more careful, ultimately filing fewer claims. These vehicles are simpler to fix and they aren’t quite as tempting for thieves.

The cheapest car to insure, the Jeep Wrangler Sport, will set you back only about $1,134 a year in premiums. The Jeep Patriot Sport, Honda CR-V LX, Dodge Journey SXT, and Honda Odyssey EX-L are similarly easy on the wallet.

Ultimately, the choice is yours, but a less-glamorous ride can help you nab cheap auto insurance.

Tip #5: Change your driving habits

Insurance is all about risk. If you get a speeding ticket every month, your bill will skyrocket. If you’ve had a clean driving record for years, you will have cheaper car insurance. Unfortunately, cleaning up a spotty driving record can take time.

A quicker way to save that’s often overlooked? Simply drive less. Consider your options carefully: Can you carpool? Work from home? Use mass transit or even move closer to your job? All of these options can help you save since less time behind the wheel means less chance of a claim. Be sure to tell your insurer about your new habits, though.

Tip #6: Maintain good credit

It may seem unfair, but the vast majority of car insurance companies look at your credit score to help determine your rate. If you have good credit, your insurer assumes you’ll be more responsible behind the wheel. Bad credit means you’re statistically more likely to file a claim, insurers say.

According to consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, a rock-bottom credit score could mean you’ll pay double, triple, or even quadruple over someone with a perfect credit score.

This controversial practice is illegal in four states: California, Hawaii, Maryland, and Massachusetts. If you don’t live in those states, you’ll want to work on raising your credit score in your quest for cheap auto insurance.

It’s Time to Save on Car Insurance

Ready to get started? A little legwork now can save you big in the long run. And remember to re-evaluate your car insurance at least annually. Your own changing circumstances and old-fashioned competition always have the potential to hook you a cheap car insurance policy.

Now that you know what you need and how to save, compare rates from several car insurance companies to start your search. Our streamlined quote tool can help you get multiple cheap car insurance quotes quickly.

If you want to learn more about car insurance, check out some of The Simple Dollar’s past articles on the subject:

• How Much Does Car Insurance Cost?
• Best Car Insurance Companies of 2015
• Do You Need Rental Car Insurance?
• Steering Clear of Car Insurance Scams

The post Best Cheap Car Insurance Options appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Who Knew You Could Make $200K in a Month by Scaring People?

When’s the last time you went to a haunted house? While you were screaming your head off, did you give any thought to how much money the haunted house was earning off your fear?

Probably not. But like the zombies popping out of dark corners, the numbers may shock you.

David and Nathan Polanco make an incredible $200,000 in one month scaring people at their two Fear Overload haunted houses, reports The Hustle. The California brothers, 29 and 23, charge $25 to $40 for individual tickets.

Want to Open a Haunted House?

If you love all things spooky and Halloween, running a haunted house might sound like the business for you.

Before you invest in thousands of gallons of fake blood, though, take an insider look at their business, as provided by The Hustle:

• The startup cost was significant: $200,000. If you’re wondering how a 16- and 22-year-old came up with that kind of money, the article explains: “David used money he’d raised from a drop-shipping venture he’d started in college. He sold that business and used the proceeds to invest in a catering company and haunted houses.”

• They weren’t profitable until their third year, so this probably isn’t the industry for you if you want to get rich quickly.

• Though the haunted houses are only open from October 2 to November 1, they rent their buildings year-round and start working again each summer (designing sets and hiring actors).

• Once the scare season is over, they each take home around $100,000 — not counting the extra money they invest back into the business.

Pretty impressive, right? Though most of us probably don’t have $200,000 to invest in a haunted house, it’s always inspiring to see how people have turned their passions — no matter how unusual — into profitable businesses.

To learn more about the Polanco brothers and their scary biz, visit The Hustle.

Your Turn: Do you love Halloween? Would you enjoy scaring people for a living?

Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.

The post Who Knew You Could Make $200K in a Month by Scaring People? appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Ten Surprisingly Simple Strategies for Saving Money on Food

The big strategies are useful to think about, but it’s often the little specific tactics that you add to your routines that make a big difference. Whenever you find a little step you can take that just changes your normal routines a little bit to save you some cash while still giving you the non-financial results that you want, that’s a big victory. When that change also has a few additional side benefits, that’s an even bigger victory.

Here are ten little tactics that Sarah and I use (or have used in the past) in our food routines at our house. These aren’t grand strategies – instead, they’re just little tactics that will save a dollar or two without changing the desired results, or tactics that cost the same but provide some other benefit that will save a few bucks down the road.

1. Buy roasts on sale, then have the meat counter grind the roast for you (or get your own meat grinder).

Back when we lived at our old apartment, we lived just a couple of blocks from a small little grocery store with a meat counter. That grocery store always handed out flyers with their specials on it and there was usually at least one special from their meat counter.

One day, I had the realization that when I bought ground beef to make hamburgers or meatballs, I was essentially just buying a roast that had been ground up. After that, I started watching the flyers more carefully and waited for a sale on roasts. When one came up, I went to that store, bought the roast, and asked the person behind the counter to grind up that roast for me, which she was happy to do.

That simple move gave me several pounds of ground beef for far less than the normal price. All I had to do was go home and separate that large quantity into three or four batches and wrap those individually and pop them in the freezer for later.

There are two approaches to this. One, you can buy a relatively low quality roast at a very low per-pound rate compared to ground beef, which will give you decent hamburgers. On the other hand, you can buy a high quality roast at a per-pound rate that’s comparable to what you would pay for ground beef, which will give you unbelievable hamburgers when it’s ground up. Either way, you’re saving money – you’re either getting very cheap ordinary burgers or very reasonably priced gourmet burgers.

You might not have access to a store that will grind a roast for you (most meat counters will do it, but maybe you don’t have that advantage). If that’s the case, consider buying your own meat grinder for home use. If you use it even a few times to convert a large roast into ground beef, you’ll start to see savings.

2. Know what nonperishable foods you eat regularly and stock up big when they’re on sale.

Right now, in our pantry, we have somewhere between 20 and 30 boxes of whole wheat angel hair pasta. It’s our go-to pasta for “spaghetti night,” which is probably the most popular meal night at our home.

Since it’s basically never going to expire, it makes sense to just watch the price on the store brand whole wheat pastas and when it goes on sale and gets really cheap – which it does about once a year or so – we buy a ton of it. Enough to probably leave the checkout person wondering if we’re sane.

Sure, we’re dropping $50 on dried pasta, but it’s going to last forever and we know we’re going to use it. If we eat angel hair pasta once every two weeks, which is probably lower than our average, 26 boxes will last for a year. If we buy them all at once, then we don’t have to add pasta to our grocery list for the next year – all we have to do is pull it out of the pantry when we want to use it.

3. Whenever you make soup, make plenty of it, then freeze the remainders in individual containers.

One of our most frequent family meals in the fall and winter is soup cooked in the slow cooker. We’ll add most of the ingredients in the morning, turn it on low, let it simmer all day, add a couple more ingredients sometimes at the end of the workday (like pasta, for instance), and put it on the table, often with a nice side salad and a roll.

The thing is, we have an awfully big slow cooker. It’s a six quart beast, which means that it holds far more soup than our family would typically eat.

So why do we fill it to the brim each time we make soup?

The simple answer is that it ends up saving us a lot of money and time. Because we’re making so much soup, we can buy ingredients in bulk and really double down on any fresh produce that’s on sale or that happens to be coming in from our garden, like the arrival of pumpkins in the early fall. This means a big batch of soup is really cheap… but it doesn’t go to waste. We take the leftover soup after our family dinner and put it into individual freezer- and microwave-safe containers, which we label with some masking tape and then freeze. These individual containers make for quick lunches for months afterward.

For these kinds of freezer- and microwave-safe containers, I like to use GladWare soup and salad containers. You can have enough soup in one for a hearty single serving lunch and you can pull them directly from the freezer to the microwave, heating a bowl of soup from a frozen chunk to a hot lunch in just a few minutes with a bit of stirring. It’s even faster if you think ahead and let it thaw in the refrigerator for a few hours before sticking it in the microwave. Plus, the containers are reusable – they go right through the dishwasher and are ready for another round of soup.

It’s easy to make a big batch of soup or stew or chili. It’s easy to take the extras and make individual bowls, and then those bowls make for amazing convenience food when I need it.

4. Shop at ethnic grocery stores.

If your town has some ethnic grocery stores, consider shopping there for some of your grocery needs, even if you don’t regularly enjoy foods that you associate with that particular ethnicity.

Ethnic stores often offer incredible discounts on staple foods associated with that particular ethnic style of cooking. For example, in an Asian grocery store, you’re often likely to find huge discounts on rice, as it is a backbone staple of many Asian cuisines. In a Latin American grocery store, you’ll often find incredible discounts on a variety of dried beans, often in bulk. Ingredients like these can be used in an enormous variety of ways.

Even in large supermarkets, you can often find lower prices on the same item by carefully checking out the ethnic foods aisle. Those items are often packaged differently, but the prices are lower. I often find bags of rice at a much cheaper price in the “ethnic” aisle, for example.

My strategy, when I’m buying staples and spices, is to ask myself if these items would be available from an ethnic grocer. If they would be, I usually make an effort to stop there and find those foods, because I usually save so much that the extra effort is worthwhile.

5. Make a “smart” grocery list before you go.

As I’ve explained many times on The Simple Dollar, one of the most effective ways to save a ton of cash when you’re shopping for groceries is to make a meal plan for the next several days first and then make a grocery list directly from that meal plan. (I often even start before that by downloading a grocery store flyer and using that to figure out meals that are based around the sale-priced items.)

This takes some time up front, but you get back most of that time by having a grocery list in hand in the store. Rather than wandering down the aisles, staring at the shelves, and adding random items to your cart, you just follow your list and add just those items.

A little trick that makes this even easier is to build a “smart” list. When you start making your list, make several headings, like “dairy/eggs,” “frozen foods,” “meat,” “fresh produce,” “breads,” and so on. Those headings should match up with specific areas in your grocery store. That way, you can have a list of all of the items you need to get in the frozen foods section all at once and a list of all of the items you need from the meat section all at once and so on. That way, your shopping trip is just a walk from section to section of the store, where you know all of the items you need to grab in that section.

I’ve found time and time again that the less time I spend in a grocery store, the less money I spend there because I have less time to be tempted by unnecessary purchases. A “smart” grocery list like this makes a grocery store visit about as fast as humanly possible. Even with the additional time required to make such a list, so much time is saved with an organized list that you end up saving a bit of time overall and you definitely save a lot of money.

(You can combine this with the ethnic grocery store strategy by having a separate section on your list for that store.)

6. Buy rotisserie chickens, then save all of the scraps for other uses.

Many stores sell fully-cooked rotisserie chickens for roughly the same price as whole uncooked chickens. These are actually a pretty good deal for the price, as they provide well-prepared chicken at a price per pound that’s very agreeable.

When you take the chicken home and enjoy it, though, there are always a bunch of pieces left behind. Bones, gristle, and some small leftover pieces of meat and skin remain, and it’s tempting to throw them away.

Don’t. Those items still have value.

Take all of them and put them in a slow cooker. Add enough water to cover the pieces with about two inches of water on top. Add any leftover vegetables you might have on hand, like onions or bell peppers or carrots. Add a few dashes of ground black pepper (or even whole peppercorns) and salt. Then, just let this simmer all day on low in that slow cooker.

At the end of the day, get out a strainer and a large bowl, then strain the contents of the slow cooker, allowing the liquid to pour into the bowl. That reserved liquid is chicken stock and it can be used for many, many delicious things.

It can form the backbone of soups – for instance, just add noodles and you have chicken noodle soup. You can use it to cook some amazing rice or make polenta. You can use it to make amazing dumplings, or add a bit to things like mashed potatoes to add unbelievable flavor. Chicken stock has incredible utility.

You can do almost the exact same thing with the leftover center bone from a beef or pork roast, which would then make beef or pork stock.

Not sure what to use this stock for right away? Put it in a freezer bag and save it for the future. It thaws easily and then can be used for whatever purposes you might have in mind at that later date.

7. Similarly, save all extra vegetables and clean vegetable scraps for other uses.

You can do almost the exact same thing with leftover vegetables, whether the scraps are cooked or not. Save the scraps for a while, dump them all in the slow cooker, add a bit of salt and black pepper, cover it with water up to your second knuckle, and then simmer all day long. Strain what’s left and the liquid you save is vegetable stock, which is perfect for all kinds of uses.

My personal strategy is to just save all of our vegetable scraps in a gallon freezer bag in the freezer. Whenever we have new vegetable scraps, I add them to that bag.

I also keep a second freezer bag for perfectly fine vegetables that were simply in excess. I save things like a bit of extra chopped onion in this bag, while in the other bag I’ll use pieces of onion I might not have otherwise eaten.

The “less edible” bag – the one with the scraps in it that I wouldn’t eat – is what I use to actually make stock. All of the flavor is extracted from the scraps along the way, but the oddly-textured parts are strained off and tossed into the composter. I like using vegetable stock as the liquid in stir frys as well as the liquid when cooking rice or steaming vegetables. It adds a lot of extra flavor for very little cost.

The bag of normal scraps? I use that for soups. I eat a vegetarian diet, so these vegetables form the entirety of a delicious soup. I’ll add some stock to a slow cooker, add in a bunch of those frozen vegetables, and allow it to simmer for several hours to make a rich and hearty vegetable soup. I could, of course, easily add meat to this – ground beef, chicken, or almost anything else.

It’s really easy to start a freezer bag or two for leftover vegetables and keep adding to those bags. All you’re doing is choosing to scrape those bits into the freezer bags instead of into the trash. Later, you have all you need for making soups and making vegetable stock, which can provide a delicious backbone for all kinds of meals.

8. Use stale bread to make breadcrumbs or croutons, or use stale tortillas to make tortilla chips.

If you ever find yourself with some dry, stale bread that has just dried out a little too much for you to eat otherwise, don’t simply toss it. What you have there is bread that’s already gone through some of the first step of making bread crumbs or salad croutons, so take advantage of it.

Bread crumbs, which are used for countless dishes, are made up of dried bread that’s been pulverized to a powder, so just let the bread dry out further, then break it into pieces and then turn it to a powder in your blender or food processor. If you have dry bread and want to hurry this process along a little bit, you can simply spread out the slices on a baking sheet and toss them in the oven along with whatever the next item is that you’re cooking in the oven.

What about croutons? The process is similar. Just take dry bread, cut it into cubes, and then mix the cubes with some olive oil and a few spices. Spread these cubes out on a baking sheet and bake them at 350F for thirty minutes. I often bake these at the same time as I’m baking something else to maximize the usefulness of the oven.

Tortilla chips are the same way. If you have leftover dried flour or corn tortillas, just cut them into wedge shapes, spread them on a baking sheet, and spray them with a mix of two parts lime juice and one part oil. Bake them at 350F for about fifteen minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through baking. These homemade tortilla chips are amazing!

9. Make bulk “quick meals” in advance for the week on Sundays.

This is one of those strategies that you can take to whatever level works best for you.

On the simplest end of things is doing something like hard-boiling a dozen eggs and peeling them on Sunday, then filling up an egg carton with them and leaving that egg carton in the fridge. Each day, grab two of them and eat them on your way out the door for an extremely quick and protein rich breakfast.

From there, you can ramp things up as you’d like. You can prepare a bunch of single-serving meals, using the reusable containers mentioned earlier, and put some of them in the fridge for the week (and maybe put a few others in the freezer).

There are lots of possibilities here, like making salads for each one, but try things like making a huge batch of pasta with marinara sauce and splitting it among all of the containers, or even make something like a ton of breaded chicken strips or squares of lasagna (make a pan of it, allow that pan to cook and then cool, then cut it into squares or rectangles that fit in your containers).

The goal is to have easy meals you can grab and quickly microwave, but they’re made yourself so that you have control over the ingredients and the costs.

10. Eat a meal before you go to the grocery store.

This is such a simple tactic, but it’s one that has saved me lots of money over the years.

Again and again, I find that my worst grocery store splurges happen when I walk through the aisles when I am hungry. When I’m feeling that way, everything looks delicious and a lot of those items find their way into my cart.

I’m far better off going to the grocery store feeling pleasantly full – as full as I can be without feeling overfull or uncomfortable. When I feel that way, many of those foods that looked delicious when I was hungry don’t look nearly as good.

If I go to the store equipped with a grocery list while feeling full, it’s very easy to just follow that list and buy only the things I find on it. That means that I’m spending far less at the grocery store and filling my refrigerator and freezer and pantry and cupboards only with things I actually need instead of unnecessary food items that I might never even use.

Not only does it save money, it’s also good for my health.

Final Thoughts

A family’s food budget is loaded with many, many ways to save money without adding much time to the overall equation. Many of the frugal strategies I use for saving money on food might cost a little bit of time, but they usually end up saving time later on meaning that the time cost becomes a non-factor and instead I can focus on the pure savings.

As with all things, pick and choose the strategies that work for you. Not all of these things will be perfect for your situation and your life, but I’m willing to bet at least a few of them are, so be selective and just try out those that make sense. If you find that they save you a few dollars a week without adding any extra effort to your life, that’s a definite victory!

Good luck!

The post Ten Surprisingly Simple Strategies for Saving Money on Food appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Consumers let down by lazy banks should switch

Rachel Lacey

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Banks must make it easier for customers to switch bank accounts, according to the Competition and Markets Authority.

Banks must make it easier for customers to switch bank accounts, according to the Competition and Markets Authority.

Following a detailed investigation into the personal and business banking sector – worth an estimated £16 billion – the CMA has concluded that banks do not have to compete for customers.

Consumers let down by lazy banks should switch

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Banks must make it easier for customers to switch bank accounts, according to the Competition and Markets Authority. Following a detailed investigation into the personal and business banking sector – worth an estimated £16 billion – the CMA has concluded that banks do not have to compete for customers. According to the authority 57% of people have held their personal current account for more than 10 years, while 37% have not switched in more than 20 years. This low level of switching is in spite of the Current Account Switch Guarantee, launched in September 2013, which requires banks and building societies to complete switches in seven working days. In 2014 just 3% of people moved their current account. The CMA said customers worry that switching accounts will be time-consuming and high risk. Overdraft users are the least likely to switch, despite heavy users standing to save up to £260 a year by moving to a bank with lower charges. The average current account user meanwhile can expect to save in the region of £70 a year. If the market was functioning properly, the CMA said, users of accounts that were either expensive or of sub-standard quality, would switch to more competitive providers. A lack of competitive pressure is causing problems in the business banking sector too, with more than 50% of people looking for accounts in the small and medium sized enterprise (SME) market, choosing the bank they have their personal account with. More than 90% stay with that account once their period of free banking runs out and a similar number also go to their business bank account provider if they are in need of a loan. In order to rectify these problems the CMA has proposed a number of potential remedies. These include: * Making banks raise awareness of and improve consumer’s confidence in the current account switching service * Make it easier for people to compare current and business bank accounts by making Midata available to consumers. The Midata service lets you access your banking history at the click of a button and input that data into a comparison site to work out exactly which account would offer you best value for money. * Requiring the creation of an online comparison service for SME accounts as this does not currently exist * Improve information sharing between credit referencing agencies, banks and financial advisers to make it easier for SMEs to shop around for business loans. Alasdair Smith, chairman of the retail banking investigation said: “Despite some encouraging developments, particularly in the shape of challengers that have entered the market in recent years, for too long banks have been able to sit back and take their existing customers for granted. We don’t think customers will truly benefit from a more competitive market until they can compare accounts more easily and feel confident that they can switch without risk.” Paul Pester, chief executive at TSB, agreed with the CMA’s findings and described the investigation as a “once in a generation opportunity that could fix the market, once and for all, for the benefit of all consumers.” However the consumer champion Which? was less impressed. Executive director Richard Lloyd explained: “The CMA inquiry has to bring about better banking, but these proposals don't go far enough. The CMA's own evidence is that consumers are disengaged from the banking market, so better information and nudges to switch will not be enough. The regulator now has six months to find more radical ways to promote switching, improve information for consumers and punish those banks who fail to treat customers fairly.” Among the changes Which? would like to see are forcing banks to help customers who rely on unauthorised overdrafts, alerting customers before they go into the red and improving compensation for bad service.

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The Local Cheapskate’s Guide to Washington, D.C.: How to Explore the Capital for Less

I’ve lived in Washington, D.C. for five years now. I was super poor for four of those years and only mostly poor for the other one. But that hasn’t stopped me from truly enjoying my adopted city.

Washington, D.C. is a wonderful place to experience on a shoestring budget. Here are my top eight tips for living it up on the cheap in our nation’s capital.

1. Get Comfy on the Metro

If you’re spending most of your time in the city, there’s no need to rent a car. The D.C. metro, paired with a good pair of walking shoes, will take you to most corners of the city.

Plan out your route and get an arrival estimate with the official metro trip planner or a handy app (I use this one).

2. Consider a Less Central Hotel

The metro also extends outside of the city and into the suburbs, where hotels are plentiful and more affordable.

Save some money by choosing a hotel or Airbnb near a metro stop. Then, ride the train in each morning with the commuters.

Metro stops appear on Google maps as blue icons around a white “M.” Find the one you’re looking for and then type “hotel” into the search bar to pull up nearby places to stay.

One note of caution: Like any big city, D.C. has some sketchy areas. To get a sense of how safe a neighborhood is, visit the D.C. crime map.

3. Look for Special Events

D.C. is home to a huge array of live events throughout the year, and many of them are free!

A handful of helpful Twitter accounts will help you find free activities while you’re in town. Check out Free in DC, Washington City Paper and Cultural Tourism DC.

While Twitter tends to be good for events happening in the next week or so, check out this calendar to get a sense of what’s going on a few months out.

Big annual (free) events include the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the National Book Festival, the Cherry Blossom Festival, the White House Easter Egg Roll and Passport DC (a citywide event the celebrates cultures from around the world).

4. Stop by Lesser-Known Smithsonians

We all know about the National Gallery and Museum of Natural History, but the Smithsonian Institute includes 15 other museums and galleries in the D.C. area.

Hidden gems include the Renwick Gallery (don’t miss Ghost Clock!) and the National Postal Museum (home to Owney, the now-taxidermied mascot of the railway mail service).

5. Check Out the Millennium Stage

The Kennedy Center hosts a free performance each day at 6 p.m. Millennium Stage performances range from Navy brass bands to interpretive dance troupes to traditional sitar players.

6. Get Outside

One of my favorite things about D.C. is how much greenery is packed into such a densely populated area. In addition to the parks scattered throughout the city, you’ll find biking and walking trails that skirt the river and venture into the surrounding forest.

The C&O Canal and Rock Creek Park are excellent places to start. Roosevelt Island is also worth a visit. On the small island in the middle of the Potomac River, you’ll find trails and monuments to the nature-loving President Roosevelt.

If you like your nature with a side of civilization, check out the Botanical Gardens or the National Arboretum. Both are pretty low-impact in terms of activity, but you’ll still see a wide variety of foliage right in the city.

7. Visit the NPR Headquarters

If you love National Public Radio as much as I do, you’ll get a kick out of touring their headquarters in Washington, D.C. Tickets are free (though you should reserve ahead of time to get a spot), and tours are offered each weekday at 11 a.m.

As an added bonus, you’ll finish your tour around lunchtime. As you walk back to the metro, you’ll run into a fleet of food trucks that show up to feed the office workers in the area. Grab a cheap, local lunch from one of the trucks and then camp out in a nearby park to eat.

8. Sign Up for Some Deals

Of course Groupon and LivingSocial offer deals in Washington, D.C. (LivingSocial is even headquartered here and puts on an eclectic array of live events in the area.)

A local deal site, Specialicious, also offers coupons. Sign up a few weeks before your trip to snag deals on things like paddle boarding in the Potomac, discounts on private museums and vouchers for interesting restaurants.

Your Turn: Have you visited Washington, D.C.? What are your favorite, affordable activities in the city?

Lyndsee Simpson is a freelance writer and editor in Washington, D.C. This weekend she’s tracking down the champagne truck and pretending to understand modern art at the Hirschorn.

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