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3 ways consumers waste money

22.06.09

Horror stories of $2,000 phone bills are rare, but thousands -- even millions -- of people could be wasting money on outdated telephone services.

For Jennifer and Carlton Monroe, 34 and 38, their home is both their castle and their prison. They bought the 1920s Craftsman in 2005 for $280,000. But it needed work -- leaving them today with $170,000 on a home-equity line of credit (HELOC), along with $222,000 on their mortgage. Health-care costs are pinching just about everyone. You feel it every time your co-pays and deductibles go up, and you feel it in your paycheck - rising employer premiums are leaving less money for salaries. Medicare is on its way to financial disaster within a decade. And 46 million Americans are without health insurance. Get out your calendars, folks. It's time to celebrate -- or perhaps mourn -- the 10th anniversary of one of the epic financial events of our time: the peak of the great stock market bubble, in March 2000. That's the month the Nasdaq, Standard & Poor's 500, and Wilshire 5000 all reached new highs, then headed south, big-time. (The Dow industrials peaked that January, but who cares? It's just a crummy 30 stocks.)



Bankruptcy filings by American consumers increased nearly a third in 2008, according to a new report. Summertime, and the living is supposed to be easy. The fish are jumping -- or maybe it's the kids at the pool -- and yard work is the last thing on your mind. But the lawn has brown spots, monochrome greenery has replaced those May flowers, and weeds have overrun the mulch beds. With patent expirations on the horizon and health-care policy in flux, should investors consider a dose of Eli Lilly?

Is the daily indulgence of Starbucks and McDonald's coffee replaceable? High-flying shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters seem to indicate so.

As the 10th anniversary of the bursting of the tech bubble is upon us, you've probably read a slew of stories about what an awful decade this has been for stocks. Diversification, the notion of spreading your investments among different baskets of assets that don't rise and fall in unison, has long been considered one of the safest and surest moves you can make with your portfolio. After all, if any one basket falls apart, most of your brood should remain intact.

So your 401(k) plan is down. A lot. Should you scale back your contributions and put the money elsewhere? If you knew coworkers, former bosses or exes who cheated on their taxes, would you turn them in? The Internal Revenue Service can make it worth your while.



Question: In your article in the January issue of Money, you recommend buying total market index ETFs. But I don't find being able to trade ETFs like stocks throughout the day to be an advantage for me. For example, if I buy the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF I will have to pay commission when I buy and sell, whereas I can buy their Total Stock Index mutual fund with no fee. I don't understand why ETFs are better than mutual funds. The number of people who have created entirely new categories in retailing can probably be counted on one hand. Question: . My wife and I know we should have an emergency savings fund, but with one income we have nothing left to save after paying expenses.

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