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Help! My bill got bumped up

08.02.10

If you were under billed, it's the other party's responsibility to pay up, not yours, according to Money's ethicists.

Thousands of Americans learn a painful lesson in banking every day: Waiting for a check to clear and then getting access to the money from a bank doesn't mean the check has really cleared. Your 401(k) may have returned to pre-crash levels. But just treading water won't power you to a comfortable retirement. These four moves will. Question: Should I contribute more to my 401(k) than I have to in order to get the company match? --Terry, Kennett, Missouri



Now that General Motors has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, car shoppers might figure they're about to get screaming deals on GM cars and trucks. I could not have bought my first house long ago without borrowing the down payment from Mom and Dad. Their loan got me started down the home-equity path, and it's paid dividends ever since.

If 84-year-old Bob Sievers of Pacific Palisades, Calif., had his way, Congress would scrap the estate tax altogether when it considers an Obama administration proposal on the future of the controversial tax. As co-owner of a lumber business for 40 years, Sievers built his wealth from scratch and paid taxes on his earnings every step of the way.

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. With patent expirations on the horizon and health-care policy in flux, should investors consider a dose of Eli Lilly?

Consumer bankruptcies surged in July to the highest level since October 2005 as U.S. households struggle under the burden of past debt and rising unemployment. There's a name for what ails you, and it's called "luxury guilt." Even if you can afford to travel, you reason, isn't it wrong to indulge when times are so tough? Well, if you haven't been swayed by the open-your-wallet, shorten-the-recession argument, how about this one: You may be missing a rare chance to visit some of the finest hotels on the planet at prices you aren't likely to see over the next decade. The deals now are better than in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis, 9/11, or SARS, says Jan Freitag, vice president of Smith Travel Research, making travel to just about any place in the world from 30% to 50% more affordable than last year. One note: If you don't find these rates on the hotel website, call to book. Kevin O'Leary struggled with a mid-career crisis. After more than a decade producing TV ads, he wanted out. But what next?



Is a spendthrift woman taking advantage of a widower? Money's ethicists weigh in. Max. It. Out. Of all the personal finance rules -- diversify your portfolio, pay down high-interest debt first -- perhaps no single piece of advice has been so widely touted as this: The key to financial security is putting as much money as you can into your 401(k). After all, what other retirement savings vehicle is portable, benefits from an employer match, provides a tax deduction, and allows the average clock puncher over the course of a career to rack up a seven-figure nest egg? Horror stories of $2,000 phone bills are rare, but thousands -- even millions -- of people could be wasting money on outdated telephone services.

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