The March issue of Consumer Reports arrived in my mailbox yesterday with a loud cover article on televisions - what’s the best one for picture quality and reliability? Since our current television is dying a slow death and will have to eventually be replaced, we’re looking a bit at television options at the moment. Thankfully, though, there was more in this issue to capture my imagination - here are the ten things that really jumped out at me from the issue.

The best ways to live longer seem almost like common sense at this point. CR offers up nine pointers that are very strongly backed by scientific evidence. My favorites (meaning the only ones that were slightly outside of conventional wisdom)? Get plenty of vitamin D, eat produce in a variety of colors, and don’t eat a fat-free diet (as some fat intake is good). (p. 6)

A single Uno personal deep dish pizza has more fat than three Big Macs. I read things like this - that a personal deep dish pizza from Uno has more than 2,000 calories and 150 grams of fat - and I want to just make my own food. I can make an excellent pizza using fresh ingredients and with very little fat in it for substantially less cost. One of my best friends, who also has a two year old boy, eats take-out with his family every night - I just can’t imagine eating that stuff night in and night out, both in terms of cost and unhealthiness. (p. 7)

The best fabric softener is Ultra Gain Joyful Expressions - for dryer sheets, it’s Bounce. My wife recently bought Snuggle Exhilirations fabric softener (with a coupon) and I’ve told her I think it’s atrociously bad. CR agrees, ranking it the worst liquid softener out of more than a dozen of ‘em. I’ve had a coupon for a few weeks for Ultra Gain - I may be putting it to use soon. (p. 8)

If you don’t know precisely where it came from, cook your beef well done. This bears repeating - if you’re cooking beef at home, cook it well. Occasionally there are E. coli outbreaks in beef and the best way to fight it is to cook it well - a very rare steak (although yummy) is just begging for a bacterial infection. (p. 11)

You generally get what you pay for with televisions. For the most part, anyway - the biggest variations in plasma and LCD TVs today seem to be in viewing angles, something fairly important to us because of how our one room with a television in it is laid out. Look at the demo televisions at an electronics store carefully, especially from wide angles. (p. 22)

All of the store brand paints at hardware stores are good. We may be painting an interior room soon, and CR gives a thumbs-up to the store brands at Lowe’s (Valspar) and Home Depot (Behr) and even Wal-Mart (Kilz) - they’re all good - in fact, better than the “brand name” paints. Guess I can just bargain-shop, then. (p. 34)

Kenmore’s Progressive Direct Drive vacuum is still the best of breed. We currently have two “gifted” vacuums at our home, so we won’t be needing one for a while. It’s interesting to note, though, that the Kenmore Direct Drive vacuums utterly dominate the list. (p. 38)

The best bargain on a dishwasher? Loading it correctly. Just keep large items at the sides and back, keep the dirty sides of dishes facing the center, and load silverware handles-down. That will do more to get your dishes clean than the latest greatest dishwasher model. (p. 41)

Don’t prepay your mortgage! CR runs the math quite carefully over the last few decades and finds that it’s rarely good to prepay on your mortgage. Instead, you should take that extra payment money and put it into some sort of investment - that will earn at a far faster rate. Once you have enough, you can always take the money and pay off your mortgage when your investment balance surpasses the principal left on your mortgage, thus getting rid of your biggest bill each month. (p. 45)

The Gorilla AL-13 is their recommended ladder for higher than ten feet. Even though we live in a relatively treeless area (there’s a forest about a quarter mile away, but no trees of any size anywhere close), I do need to clean out the gutters, and to do that, I need a big ladder. CR offers up a stellar recommendation for one in the middle of a nice little guide for spring maintenance around the home. (p. 46)

The February issue of Consumer Reports leads with a cover article entitled “12 Money Mistakes That Can Cost You $1,000,000.” Obviously, as a person deeply interested in personal finance topics, I was intrigued. Here are the ten most interesting tidbits I found in this issue.

My wife disagrees with their Kindle review. Although they admit at the end that the Amazon Kindle might be good for voracious readers, they mostly trash it. My wife’s only complaint with it is that it’s not good in dim light, but she loves most of the features, esp. the ability to call up Wikipedia when we’re on the road. (p. 9)

TSA doesn’t work. After all of the airport delays and efforts to stop potential vectors of terrorism, there are still too many holes for it to really be effective. I think it’s ridiculous that I can no longer take my mouthwash with me in my carry-on luggage, for instance. (p. 12)

Most of the “12 Money Mistakes That Can Cost You $1,000,000″ were pretty obvious. Credit card debt is bad! Don’t invest ultraconservatively in your retirement accounts, especially when you’re young! Pretty straightforward tips. The only one that stood out to me was the disadvantages of not contributing to a Roth IRA. CR basically assumes that tax rates will go up, and if that happens, the amount that is lost can be significant. (p. 18)

CR didn’t like any home gym devices. Guess Chuck Norris can keep his Total Gym. (p. 22)

However, some treadmills were worthwhile. This was clearly an example of “get what you pay for” - the two dozen treadmills listed were basically rated almost perfectly by their price. The best one was a $3,000 unit. An almost identical trend appears for ellipticals. (p. 28)

Never join a gym without using a free trial period. Most people who join gyms - and sign long, expensive contracts - don’t stick with it. Try getting a free trial - even a week-long one - and use it a few times. Do you honestly see yourself sticking with it? Hopefully, the answer is yes, but if the honest answer is no, don’t spend the cash. (p. 32)

CR absolutely loves Verizon. Last month, CR liked their cell phone service; this month, they were astounded by Verizon’s FiOS internet, television, and long-distance services - in all three areas, Verizon was on top of all competitors. If it were available in my area, I might look at it. (p. 35)

High-efficiency washing machines virtually always pay for the extra cost over their lifespan. CR looked at that issue and concluded that over the life of the machine, efficient machines under a normal workload save enough money as to have a lower total cost of ownership than an average model. Interesting. (p. 46)

Deduct your state income tax! I live in Iowa, which tends to have rather stiff state income tax (we do have good state services and schools here). Thus, I’m very glad for the reminder to deduct that paid income tax. If you live in a income tax-free state, you can deduct your state sales tax instead. (p. 49)

If someone sends you a check and you don’t know why, read every bit of fine print before cashing it. Most such bogus checks automatically sign you up for some “service” that you don’t really need. Never, ever forget that there is no such thing as a free lunch. (p. 63)

This month, Consumer Reports tackles cell phones as their cover story, their first coverage of the cell phone market since the introduction of the iPhone. I’ve been very happy with my Razr since getting it (trust me, the cell phone market in rural Iowa is a bit… different than you’re used to), but I’m still interested to hear what they have to say. Here are the ten points from the issue that really stood out to me.

Dawn Direct Foam is the best dishwasher detergent, but Kirkland Signature (Costco store brand) is almost as good and is the cheapest on the list. If you’re a Costco member, the Kirkland Signature brand is excellent and well worth buying in bulk. While Dawn Direct Foam is the best, it is by far the most expensive - I’m not going to buy it unless I find some significant coupons. (p. 6)

Nitrogen tire filling isn’t all that much more effective than normal air. Over a year, the nitrogen filled tires lost 1.3 psi less than the air filled tires. That’s not enough to really make a difference, especially considering you should check and re-fill them each month. In short, don’t pay for nitrogen, but it’s worthwhile if your dealer offers it for free. (p. 7)

A nice summary of individual health insurance plans. Basically, if you’re completely healthy, they’re great - if you have any pre-existing conditions, they’re a nightmare. (p. 22)

Heavily advertised drugs are often overly expensive for the benefit. CR lists a bunch of name brand, heavily marketed prescription drugs and almost universally finds that the generic is as good if not better than the name brand for significantly less money. (p. 27)

Great coverage of Alltel, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T’s cell services, nothing on anyone else. Since none of those five cover well in rural Iowa (they’re very spotty, but spotty in different places), this article wasn’t too informative to me, other than to note that they seem to generally recommend Verizon pretty much everywhere. (p. 30)

Month-to-month plans with major carriers are usually atrocious. They often charge you a prorated amount to make up for the amount that they “lose” when selling you a heavily discounted phone as part of a two year contract. Thus, you’re usually paying $5 to $10 a month for a phone you don’t even have. You’re much better off finding a carrier and signing a contract or, if you don’t use it much, buying a prepaid phone and not worrying about it. (p. 32)

Tons of cell phone recommendations in various classes, but they really like the iPhone. They rank it highest among smart phones, though they really don’t like being locked into AT&T - which, incidentally, seems to be by far the top complaint about the iPhone. I wonder if AT&T is paying Apple a truckload of cash for such exclusivity. (p. 42)

The Jabra BT500 is the best Bluetooth headset in their survey. Pretty much hands down, as far as I can tell from their survey - however, they didn’t include the Platronics Voyager 510, which many people have recommended to me. I’m very much interested in getting one, as I often make calls when driving and I like to keep both hands on the wheel. (p. 44)

The cars that provided the most satisfaction to their users? BMW 335i, Porsche Boxster, and the Toyota Prius. Two very high end luxury cars and the first hybrid to go mainstream - not really surprising. (p. 48)

Among minivans, CR loves their Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey. The front wheel drive Sienna, the Odyssey, and the all wheel drive Sienna take the top three slots in their minivan rankings. My wife and I are likely to buy one or the other when we make our next auto purchase. (p. 51)

Just as I was about to finalize my Christmas gift list for my immediate family and friends, the December 2007 issue of Consumer Reports arrived in my mailbox, touting a list of 201 great gifts. In essence, much of this issue was a compilation of the recommendations from longer articles throughout the year, but it’s pretty convenient.

Rather than listing ten articles that stood out at me from the issue, I decided to take a different tack and point out eight items that I am considering purchasing (or strongly suggesting to others) because of a recommendation from this issue or an earlier one this year. This specific issue is largely a review issue - most of it just lists the three or four recommendations from longer articles earlier in the year.

LED Christmas lights They may have a higher initial cost, but if you’re going to reuse them annually, it only takes a couple years for their impressive energy savings to really add up. Since this is the first year we’re going to have a real Christmas tree in our home, I’m going to need to buy some lights - and it looks like LEDs are the best route. (p. 9)

KitchenAid KFP 750 As I move more and more towards making my own foods, a top-notch food processor is looking like more and more of an essential purchase. (p. 17)

Canon PowerShot A640 This is the recommendation in the compact digital camera area. While I’m not going to be the one that buys it, I’m certainly going to recommend that another gift-giver does. Yes, I’m talking to you, Kris - the near-abuse you’ve put him through with that held-together-by-tape camera has got to stop. (p. 18)

Apple MacBook Pro 17″ with 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor It’s expensive, but this is likely going to be my next computer purchase when I get around to making one. The portability of a laptop is too essential at home, and I’ve made the decision to switch to a Mac. (p. 19)

Columbia Crest Grand Estates 2002 cabernet sauvignon I often take wine lists into stores around here to find some of the recommended bottles - I’ll have to keep an eye out for that one. (p. 20)

Kenmore Progressive 35922 This one’s not for me, but I know someone who needs a new vacuum cleaner and uses it pretty heavy duty, with at least two indoor pets and a person with pet allergies in the house. (p. 36)

Wusthof Classic knife set If you’re in the market for a kitchen knife set, this is really all you’ll ever need unless you literally transform into Wolfgang Puck. I dream about these knives - CR nailed it here. In fact, that’s something I like about CR - there are some product areas that I know very well and they generally do a really good job of indicating true quality items in the genre. (p. 40)

Mud House Marlborough 2006 sauvignon blanc I like sauvignon blanc with poultry and I’ve tried this one - it’s very, very good. I may just get it again. (p. 44)

If you need gift ideas for someone and want to buy quality without overpaying - and are willing to spend a little - this is an issue worth getting. You’ll have tons of ideas as you browse the pages.

My wife picked up an issue of ShopSmart Magazine recently on the newsstand, and after reading through it, I was left with some rather conflicted thoughts.

First of all, ShopSmart is an offshoot of Consumer Reports. It features the Consumer Reports logo quite largely on the upper right corner of the cover, and the interior has a lot in common with CR as well - neither magazine features any ads for items aside from “ads” for other publications and services from the CR family. This is a feature I really like in a magazine, and it’s one of the big determining factors for whether I like a magazine or not. For example, I’m utterly enamored with Make in part for that very reason - no ads makes reading a magazine a much more pleasurable experience.

The biggest difference between ShopSmart and Consumer Reports is the target audience. While Consumer Reports is at best gender-neutral and on occasion male-leaning for their audience, ShopSmart is unabashedly female. This issue alone has a lengthy article on women’s shoes and a nice two page spread on tampons. While CR will occasionally feature a gender-biased article like this, ShopSmart carries this right up front.

Another major change: no rankings, just specific product recommendations. Consumer Reports is famous for their extensive ratings and rankings, and I love poring over those multiple pages of data just to get a real feel for how the marketplace stacks up for specific products. That’s not happening here - ShopSmart basically provides one (and occasionally two or three) very specific recommendations in specific product areas. For example, in the four page article on washing machines, rather than listing a whole ton of models and saying how they rank, it just gives three recommendations. The good news is that these agree strongly with the recommendations in Consumer Reports.

In fact, the content overlap between Consumer Reports and ShopSmart is quite large. Just leafing through the issue, I saw several articles that were basically rewrites of articles that appeared in the last few months of Consumer Reports, with almost identical conclusions.

What changed? The layout, for one. ShopSmart is laid out much differently than CR, obviously going for a more modern feel that reminds me of Real Simple. It’s got lots of whitespace, small blurbs of text, and lots of pastels and lighter tones for the colors. It’s clearly meant to be browsed - the articles are short and barely continue from page to page. Most of them, in fact, are 200 words or less, and often two or three appear on the same page.

If you like the conclusions of Consumer Reports, but find it to be too dry and overly detailed (especially if you’re a woman), then ShopSmart might be worth reading. It often provides the same end product recommendations as Consumer Reports and the tips themselves throughout the issue are strong. However, if you like the detail and data of Consumer Reports (like I do), this one will frustrate you.

As for my wife? She seemed to enjoy the issue of ShopSmart a lot and read it far more than I’ve ever seen her look at Consumer Reports - for better or worse. For me, I’ll stick with the “boring” Consumer Reports.

Since the television in our family room is on the way out (huge white clouds now appear in all of the corners and along the entire left side of the screen), we’ve started to think about purchasing a new replacement television - a small, modestly priced flat panel. Lo and behold, the November 2007 issue of CR arrives in the mail touting television reviews on the cover.

Here are the ten tidbits in the issue that I found the most interesting.

Energizer’s e2 Lithium AA battery is worth the extra cost. It costs an average of $2.25 a battery (ouch - $9 for a four pack?!) but the life span for electronic uses is six times longer than the average alkaline. That means you’d have to find an alkaline battery that cost less than $1.50 for a four pack and be of “average alkaline” quality to get the same value. Not going to happen - the next batteries in my Wii remote will likely be these (or possibly rechargeables). (p. 6)

Yellow Tail wine is good wine for the price, but not a knockout. This is basically my exact conclusion. I have a glass of wine with supper most nights and I completely agree with this conclusion on Yellow Tail. (p. 8)

Don’t hesitate to bargain for anything. I find it almost weird that many people don’t even consider bargaining over price. I have walked out of stores before because they refused to bargain with me - I’m not obligated as a buyer to accept whatever price they throw up there. CR notes that furniture stores are the best place to bargain. (p. 21)

If you’re buying electronics online, Crutchfield and Amazon are the two best places to go. I’m a pretty ardent fan of Amazon - they’re basically the only online retailer that I use for pretty much everything. (p. 24)

CR indicates we should get the 32″ Sony Bravia. I wanted their highest-rated 32″ flat panel that had two separate component video inputs (Wii and DVD). That should do it! (p. 31)

For compact digital cameras, you basically can’t go wrong with the Canon PowerShot. The A640, the A710 IS, the A630, and the S3 IS take up the top four slots in their digital camera rankings. I have a PowerShot myself and I adore it. (p. 40)

Flash-based laptops are going to be incredible. Much less energy use and much lighter? Count me in in a few years - my laptop is heavy and gobbles the batteries. (p. 45)

If you’re a good consumer, never use a debit card. If you pay off your balance each month, credit cards offer far more consumer protections than debit cards do, plus the bonuses are often far better, too. Of course, the key there is if you pay off your balance each month. (p. 53)

You almost always get what you pay for with car batteries. The car battery ranking is almost exactly in order of price, more so than most CR reports. (p. 57)

Don’t use a penny when checking your tire tread; use a quarter. Modern tires are constructed a bit differently and thus should have more tread on them when you replace them than old batteries. Stick in a quarter head down - if you can still see the hair above George’s hairline, it’s time to get new tires. (p. 60)

The Simple Dollar subscribes to Consumer Reports and eagerly awaits each new issue. After receiving and absorbing it, I post the highlights for all to enjoy.

The October issue of Consumer Reports arrived in my mailbox a few days ago and the cover was a frugal person’s dream! Make your car last 200,000 miles? Save hundreds on energy costs? Best and worst credit cards? An issue well worth digging into. Let’s dig in - here are ten things that stood out to me in the issue.

Tide Coldwater actually cleans well - but might not save the $65 a year it claims. That “$65 a year” claim is based on 7 loads of laundry per week, a water heater set at 140, and 2007 national energy rates. If your hot water heater is set lower or you don’t do that much laundry, you won’t save that much. (p. 7)

Debit cards don’t offer the same protections as credit cards. If you pay off your whole balance each month, you’re far better off using a credit card as compared to a debit card. (p. 13)

If you carry a balance on your credit card, don’t worry about the rewards program. Why? As a general rule of thumb, the better the rewards program, the higher the APR on the card - a truly good rewards program will have a 2% higher APR which, if you carry even a small balance, will be eaten up by the extra interest. (p. 14)

Splenda For Baking works well as a sugar substitute. Fructose is an even better sugar substitute, but Splenda is made of sucralose (which has no health concerns) and is relatively inexpensive compared to other potential sugar substitutes. (p. 17)

Even with extra maintenance and repair costs, it’s far cheaper to drive a car into oblivion than to buy a new one every five years. They ran a comparison over fifteen years on the Honda Civic EX and found that, on average, it was far cheaper to keep driving the same car than to replace it every five years. (p. 21)

When evaluating light bulbs, the real factor is lumens per watt. If you really want to compare the lighting efficiency of two bulbs, the real unit to use for comparison is lumens per watt. Grab your favorite incandescent bulb and see how many lumens it produces, then use that number to compare it to other bulbs - look for bulbs with similar or slightly higher lumens, then choose ones with a lower wattage. This will usually point you towards CFLs. (p. 28)

If a CFL breaks, it’s not a natural disaster, you don’t need to call Haz Mat, and it won’t cost thousands of dollars. All you need to do is open the windows and leave the room for an hour or so to let the vapors escape, then sweep up any broken material carefully and put it in a plastic bag. Use the sticky side of tape to pick up any remaining debris (and put that in a plastic bag, too), then wipe the area down with a damp paper towel or vacuum the area. Then dispose of the sealed plastic bag and wash your hands. Done. (p. 29)

Lux Smart Temp programmable thermostats rock. These dominate a list of programmable thermostats. I’ve been shopping around and I’m starting to lean towards asking for one for Christmas. (p. 31)

The Kenmore Progressive With Direct Drive is a killer vacuum cleaner, but it’s pricey. $300? Honestly, I’ve never spent nearly that much on a vacuum cleaner in my life. I almost looked for one at a Sears “going out of business” sale recently, but I just couldn’t see myself spending that much on a vacuum. (p. 40)

If you expect to live until you’re very old, then you should wait as long as possible to begin collecting Social Security. Generally, the older you are when you start collecting, the greater your annual benefit will be, and if you live until you are in your eighties, you should wait until you’re 70 to start taking Social Security benefits. So, for people my age, it might make sense to use 70 (or even older) as your retirement age for retirement calculations. (p. 46)

The Simple Dollar subscribes to Consumer Reports and eagerly awaits each new issue. After receiving and absorbing it, I post the highlights for all to enjoy.

This issue of Consumer Reports was very late in my mailbox due to the move (in fact, I still haven’t received an issue of Money yet, but the other magazines have switched over to the new address). The cover story this month is about ID theft. I still stick with my basic rule of thumb for preventing ID theft: never give personal information to someone who initiates the contact. Instead, look up the contact information via an independent source and contact them that way. For example, if someone sends a panicky email about my eBay account and I’m actually concerned, I just go to the normal eBay login page - NEVER clicking the link in the email.

Anyway, here are ten highlights from this issue.

Cacao Reserve by Hersheys is the best dark chocolate bar? I would have never guessed it - I just skip over that one when I buy an expensive chocolate bar. My wife has indicated that we are going to try it very soon, though. (p. 8)

Extensive coverage of health care The issue has a lengthy discussion of how health care plans work. If you’re interested, this article is definitely worth digging into. Not much for individual tips, but a great overall discussion. (p. 16)

HMOs generally receive better marks than PPOs I found this really interesting, considering that HMOs are often heavily looked down upon. Consumer Reports seems to indicate that HMOs are generally better organized and efficient - their biggest drawback seems to be that they’re overloaded with clients and that makes getting appointments somewhat difficult. I use an HMO personally and I couldn’t be happier. (p. 22)

Biore Pore Perfect daily cleaning cloths must be atrocious That’s the first item I’ve ever seen in CR with a score in the 20. Aveeno and Olay are far better options for facial cleansers. (p. 25)

The only kind of microwave popcorn they didn’t like was Newman’s Own All other brands were marked at least “very good.” My wife and I use an old-fashioned popcorn popper for ours - just a hint of butter and a dash of garlic salt. Mmmm… (p. 27)

A great checklist of ways to stay safe online There were nineteen items; my three favorites: consider a Mac (a move I’m on the verge of making), use a credit card for online purchases rather than a debit card (because of the consumer protections), and avoid clicking on hyperlinks in email. Never, ever click on a hyperlink in an email - if you must see the link, copy and paste it. (p. 32)

Their antivirus rankings didn’t include ClamWin! I am disappointed - ClamWin is a stellar package if you know how to set it up. Their best one is Trend Micro AntiVirus. (p. 37)

Trend Micro actually got the best scores across the board for security software They won basically every category, including the overall suite. I tend to use open source software for my security stuff, but if I were to go buy a package now, I’d look for Trend Micro’s products. (p. 39)

Auto scratch removers are awful unless you’re willing to pay for the most expensive stuff Quixx costs $11.67 an ounce (!) but does by far the best job in their testing. (p. 49)

Toyota Tundra and Dodge Ram 1500 are the best 2008 model full size pickup trucks I currently drive an older Ford pickup. I use it for a lot of things around here and may upgrade it in the future, so this is good to know. The Tundra seemed like a better match for my use. (p. 58)