To Your Health
June, 2008 (Vol. 02, Issue 06) |
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Losing Your Savings?
Please don't tell me you have money in a so-called savings or money-market account at your bank. That savings account is paying a rate that will never get you into a higher tax bracket! It's an insult. Your money will just rot there and never even match the annual inflation rate.
In fact, it's probably less than half of that rate. Money-market returns also are low and banks wil charge you anywhere up to 1 percent for FDIC insurance. By comparison, mutual funds offer a money market that will pay at least double what your local bank is paying.
Loan Sharks
Got any loans at your bank? Did they add in credit, life and disability to cover that loan? Did you know the bank makes more on that than they do on the interest of the loan? It's a racket unless you're totally uninsurable. They can't make you buy it as a clause to get a loan. If they want some coverage, you can assign your current life and disability coverage to them to cover the loan. By the way, the credit life and disability can add an additional 1 percent to the loan, and if something happens to you, that insurance is paid to the bank, not to your beneficiaries.
Take Control of Your Finances
Pull out all of your bank statements and see if you can figure out all of the added fees and charges your friendly banker is charging you. Once you conquer that task, add up all the interest they paid you on all of your money you let them have for an entire year. I bet you paid them more than they paid you. What's wrong with that picture? You let it happen and if I didn't point it out to you, it would continue to happen!
Armed with this information, maybe it's time to have a sit-down with the manager of your bank. Better yet, maybe it's time to see what another bank can offer you. You might want to take a good look at credit unions, too. By the way, if you're not doing some online banking, you need to move up to the 21st century. It can save you a lot of time and a lot of stamps on all those checks you're mailing out each month.
There you go - another article designed to save you a bundle. It does require a little homework on your part, but the rewards are well worth it. My next article will discuss the pros and cons of mortgages.
Stanley Greenfield, RHU, is a financial consultant and health insurance underwriter in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.
