Thoughts and Riches

Walgreens said patients who lose their job and health insurance after March 31 will be able to get free treatment at its in-store Take Care clinics for respiratory problems, allergies, infections and skin conditions, among other ailments. Typically those treatments cost $59 or more for patients with no insurance.
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Free services will be offered only from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Walgreens said it will not offer free checkups, vaccinations or other injections because it is focusing on providing services patients might otherwise get at an urgent-care center or even an emergency room.

Patients must present proof they are unemployed, including a federal or state unemployment determination letter and an unemployment check stub. They will have to sign a form at the clinic saying they have lost their jobs and health benefits. If they find a new job or get new health insurance, they will no longer be eligible for free care.

Spouses and children are also eligible for free services if they don't have insurance of their own.

Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp, an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 -- even though they could decline charges for more than what's on the card.

The banks say their programs offer convenience. They also provide at least one way to tap the money at no charge, such as using a single free withdrawal to get all the cash at once from a bank teller. But the banks benefit from human nature, as people end up treating the cards like all the other plastic in their wallets.

Stop listening to Suze Orman. The personal finance guru favors super-simple mantras -- even when they're wrong -- and psychological explanations for all your money problems. Maybe it's time to stop trusting her.

But it is not Suze's hypocrisy or even her intellectual laziness that really bothers me; no, that would be something Suze "loves" called "dollar cost averaging," which involves buying the same stock over and over again as it falls.

"It's a great opportunity for you when the value of the shares drops," claims Suze in the inaptly named "The Road to Wealth," "because you can buy shares at 'bargain' prices and average down your cost per share."

Oh, where to begin? Maybe with the obvious: Since when does throwing good money after bad make you rich? It doesn't.

Yes, Orman lards her books with no small amount of Oprah-level pop-psychology -- but when she does so, she's generally right. It's easy for the analytically-skilled elite of the information economy to scoff at such things, but something as basic as spending less than you earn really is akin to eating fewer calories than you burn: conceptually easy, but very hard in practice, especially when the world seems to be conspiring against you at every step. And succeeding in such matters requires a level of psychological discipline, while failing in them often has psychological causes.

Scurlock mocks Orman's statement that "you will never achieve a sense of power over your life until you have power over your money," but it's a great way of harnessing the imperatives of the otherwise largely destructive self-help movement and putting them to good use. As for "the stock market is like a pot of soup" -- that's as good a way as any to explain diversification. You want she should go into details of capital structure and limited liability corporate entities?

Orman's audience is struggling with money woes. That's true pretty much by definition: someone who has these things all worked out is not going to read her books. But it's also true that most of Orman's readers and viewers aren't going to declare bankruptcy: there's a huge terrain of financial difficulty between bankruptcy and health. It's simply obtuse to imply, as Scurlock does, that because most bankruptcies are caused by catastrophic events, the people who don't suffer catastrophic events and who don't declare bankruptcy are probably fine, on a financial level. They're not. Many of these people are in desperate need of financial help, and Orman is providing a very valuable service which America's financial institutions have every incentive not to provide.

Certificate Early Withdrawal Penalties Temporarily Waived Includes Certificate Accounts and IRA Certificate Accounts

All DCU members are affected by the troubled economy in some way. Some may be in situations where they need to get to more of their savings. We want to help.

For a limited time, we are waiving early withdrawal dividend penalties on any existing Regular Certificate, Jumbo Certificate, and IRA Certificate. This includes both full and partial withdrawal.

However, Casey-Ulery's greatest wish was granted when she recently applied for, and won, a Project Working Mom scholarship to attend an online college for free. Project Working Mom … and Dads, Too! is a program that will grant at least $2 million in full-ride scholarships to working parents across the country. Thanks to the Project Working Mom scholarship, Casey-Ulery will now get her degree in accounting from Everest University at no cost to her.

You are a member of the Settlement Class and eligible for a payment if you resided in the United States at any time between the dates set forth below, had an account at a bank listed below, and meet all three of the following requirements:

Your account was accessible through a debit card, check card, or any other bank card used for debit purchases; AND

You paid at least one:

insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, or similar fee that was assessed to your account within five business days after a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; OR

overlimit fee or similar fee that was assessed for an account cycle in which a Bank of America debit card transaction either occurred or posted to your account; AND
The insufficient funds fee, overdraft fee, returned item fee, overlimit fee, or similar fee was paid between the following dates:

For customers of . . . From Through
Bank of America 12/6/2000 12/31/2007
Fleet Bank, N.A. 4/1/2004 12/31/2007
U.S. Trust Company, N.A. 7/1/2007 12/31/2007
LaSalle Bank N.A. and LaSalle Bank Midwest N.A. 10/1/2007 12/31/2007
...
The total payment to each qualifying Settlement Class Member will depend upon the total number of valid claims submitted by all Settlement Class Members. However, no Settlement Class Member will receive more than $78.

Lewis and his compatriots purchased more than 513,000 shares of common stock Tuesday, as The Wall Street Journal’s Dan Fitzpatrick reported. BofA’s shares rose 31% Wednesday, fueled by a wider rally that also lifted Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase and other financial stocks.
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Let’s look at just a few, brief examples. Last November Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and his deputies bought 1.3 million Citigroup shares after the stock had fallen below $9. Pandit alone spent $8.4 million. But that didn’t prevent a deeper rout in the stock nor the need of an additional $301 billion in government backstops for Citi’s toxic debt. Oh, and the stock closed Wednesday at $3.67, and that’s after rising 31% on the day.

Directors at Wachovia snapped up hundreds of thousands of shares in October and early November, only weeks before the bank was shoved into an arranged marriage, first with Citigroup and then Wells Fargo. At Washington Mutual, the bank’s decline was presaged by a months-long buying spree by directors and officers–none of which persuaded investors or depositors of WaMu’s viability long enough to forestall an FDIC near-seizure and fire sale to J.P. Morgan.
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The lesson? That investors believe that no one, including executives, know enough about the market these days to confidently predict all the factors that could affect the future of any company.

No purchase is required. Any taxpayer can talk to a live TurboTax tax expert who will answer their personal, federal tax-related question for free (a $29.95 value) through Jan. 31 at www.FreeTaxQuestion.com. Taxpayers can submit a question online and they’ll receive a personal call back, at a time they request. This is a limited time offer and subject to availability through January 2009

1. Grow Your Own Food
2. Set Limits and Stick to Them
3. Buy Savings Bonds
4. Redirect Your Raises
5. Split Raises in Half
6. Track Spending
7. Spend Less by Budgeting
8. Save by Using Credit

My husband and I do not carry any significant amounts of cash -- have approximately $20 to $40 maximum in each wallet.

All purchases -- food, gasoline and nominal retail purchases -- are on the card. All credit purchases are paid up completely every billing. Savings are twofold: 30-day float and no credit card interest ever for the past 30 years or more. Our motto is, if we pay any interest charges, they must be tax-deductible!

Class member will be eligible to receive, while supplies last, a maximum of ONE free cosmetics product from one of the Manufacturer Defendants from which he or she purchased Department Store Cosmetics1 during the class period, May 29, 1994 through July 16, 2003, from the list of products below. If a class member has only purchased products, during the class period, from one of the Manufacturer Defendants listed below, then that class member is only entitled to receive a free product from that Manufacturer Defendant. If a class member has purchased products, during the class period, from multiple Manufacturer Defendants, then that class member must choose the ONE free product he or she wishes to claim from one of those Manufacturer Defendants. Again, these products are only available while supplies last, and no rainchecks will be issued. If your store has run out of settlement products from the Manufacturer Defendant(s) from which you have previously purchased Department Store Cosmetics during the class period, then you may claim a product (again, while supplies last) from another Manufacturer Defendant.

May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, glorified, loved and preserved throughout the world now and forever.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.
St. Jude worker of miracles, pray for us.
St. Jude helper of the hopeless, pray for us.

Problem: You're too nervous to invest in the stock market, but your bank is offering paltry yields on CDs.
Solution: Auction your cash to the highest bidder. At MoneyAisle.com, more than 100 small and midsize banks compete for consumer deposits through live auctions. When a customer comes to the site and asks for the terms of a CD or high-yield savings account, the banks bid against one another -- through automated auction software that runs on the Web site -- to win the deposit. The cost is free to consumers, and you don't have to commit to investing anything before you see the results of an auction. Participating banks, which are all FDIC-insured, are screened by an independent bank-rating agency to filter out the riskiest banks.

Savers can also find high-yield CDs with brokered CDs, which are offered by banks and brokerage firms around the country, and typically sold through brokerage firms and financial intermediaries. As the big brokerage firms expand their deposit business, many -- including Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch -- are offering attractive yields to lure buyers. Keep in mind that brokered CDs have different rules. If you cash out before they mature, you may lose some of your principal.

1. Don't try to predict the future.
2. Do keep enough cash available.
3. Do invest internationally.
4. Don't try to pick one winning investment. Diversify.
5. Do think about energy efficiency.
6. Don't stop contributing to 401(k) and other retirement accounts.
7. Do live below your means. Save.
8. Don't make sudden moves.
9. Do pay off expensive debts.
10. Don't give up on stocks.