Trent: this is really interesting (also, worrisome). Would you be willing to address this item more completely in another post?

But I do NOT appreciate the pay-us-and-we’ll-stop-kicking-you-in-the-chins mentality. It’s my address; I should be able to opt-out for free.

Where does it come from? Don’t you have debit cards that are directly tied to a checking account, so it’s very hard to over draw? Is it impossible to have a debit card without the possibility of overdraft, so you have to manually transwer new money (it makes for quite the wake-up call, works for me).

Also, what’s so safe about a signature? Are these even checked by personnel? What are they compared with? From a cryptographic point of view it’s much safer to have a token (the card) and a unique identification method (the pin, which gets checked, as opposed to a little scribble everybody can make that can’t be referenced).

Can you explain to me the dangers of debit cards more clearly?

That’s useful, as all the employed workers are forced to ,,save” circa 10% of their income in state-organized retirement fund that yields worse than -15% annually.

If you can’t see how possibly anybody could make money this way, maybe you don’t look deep enough.

As for reading Fight for Your Money, I will probably read it when I feel like shaking things up a little.

However, I can’t help but be very wary about term life insurance policies. My very healthy 82 year old grandmother got such a policy shortly after I was born with me as the beneficiary, only to be completely shocked and disappointed later that the policy is going to, er, ‘time out’ in three years. She felt like all the money she had spent on it would come to naught.

Being the English-Thai interpreter in the family and having to tell her this now just breaks my heart, and leaves a very sour taste in my mouth when it comes to term life.

I, for instance, run a jewelry and accessories business. I sell both vintage items and handcrafted, eco-friendly paper jewelry. I find that many proactive environmental solutions also save me money: for instance, I reuse padded envelopes for shipping to cut down on packaging.

In other cases, such as small electronics with motors, I’ve never regretted buying the warranty. As a teacher, if I spent $25 on an electric pencil sharpener and $5 on the store warranty, I would always get my money’s worth, since I knew the pencil sharpener would always break long before the warranty ran out (same for paper shredders and other small-motor devices).

Laptops could go either way – if you’re rough on them, consider the warranty; if you’re not, and you upgrade regularly, you might consider skipping the warranty.

I bought this book and believe I will save more than the purchase price with my first use. We’ve had an issue with our home warranty company that’s been unresolved since we bought our house last September. After reading the section on defective construction and warranty problems in the Home chapter, I wrote to the Better Business Bureau. After receiving my letter, the warranty company called and said a plumber would be over that afternoon. So I have already saved the amount of a plumber’s visit and a “roto-rooter” service call. And I know I’ll use the book again.