Category: Top Tip

If an airline overbooks a flight and you are involuntarily bumped, then you have rights that are guaranteed by federal law.  Basically the airline has to get you on another flight, stat.  If that flight arrives between one and two hours later than your original arrival time — or between one and four hours for an international flight — the airline has to pony up twice the amount of your one-way fare up to $675.  If the new flight gets you to your destination more than two hours late — or four hours for international flights — the airline has to pay you four times the one-way fare, up to $1,350.

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We all receive coupons —whether paper or digital— for home improvement services. Let’s say you receive a coupon that offers $500 off your next painting job. You can’t tell if you’re really getting a discount unless you know the painter’s regular price. So call and get a quote first and then reveal that you have a coupon. That way, your discount will be real because you know the painter isn’t marking the price up before the coupon brings the price down.

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If you make too many auto or homeowner’s insurance claims, you could get “non-renewed.” It’s a ridiculous corporate word that means your insurance company decides not to insure you anymore because you’ve become too high maintenance or too big of a risk. Maybe you’re gotten several recent speeding tickets or you’ve made a string of petty homeowners’ insurance claims. Non-renewal only happens at the time your insurance policy expires. The company must give you a reason and advance notice that you’re being dropped. The precise number of days varies according to the law in your state. If you feel the reason for non-renewal is unfair, you can appeal the decision to your state insurance commissioner. Better yet, slow down when driving and reserve your insurance for times when you really have suffered a significant loss. That way, you can usually avoid non-renewal in the first place.

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Some parking garages set their ‘in’ clock slow and their ‘out’ clock fast, to overcharge you for parking.  I’m talking about the type of garages where you take a ticket as you enter.  Since you pay more every time you pass an hour mark, they’re motivated to make it look like you have!  For example, maybe parking for up to an hour costs $10 bucks, but if they can make it look like you parked for an hour and 5 minutes, you have to pay $20.  And so on.  When I investigated 20 garages, 2 were in the customer’s favor, 3 were accurate and the other 15 were tweaked in the companies favor!  That’s 75%!  Since most of us carry smart phones these days that keep accurate time via satellite, check the time on your ticket next time you park in a garage, and if they’re trying to pull a fast one on you, call them on it.

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When you buy a house, you are allowed to shop around for title insurance.  Doing so can make a huge difference.  Most people don’t quite know what title insurance is, let alone that they can shop around for it.  Title insurance protects you if somebody comes along and claims they have a legal right to your property. it pays your legal fees or even reimburses you if you lose the property.  Most people default to the title company their real estate agent or lender recommends. But that can be a big mistake.   I saved $1,200 by shopping around for title insurance when I bought my first house and I hope you will too.

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Top Tip time: You’ve probably heard how women are often charged more than men for things like dry-cleaning and razors, even though those products and services are the same?  It’s sometimes called a “pink tax.”  But did you know that often girls products cost more than boys products too?  I am looking at an online store as I say this, and there is a blue sippy cup advertised for $3.99.  Right next to it, the same exact sippy cup —but in pink— is $4.99!   That’s LITERALLY a pink tax!  So, what do you do about it?  First of all, we can all try to get away from this ridiculous color-coding of babies into pink and blue.  Why not buy a blue cup for your baby girl?  Second, try looking for other colors like, say, green and orange that aren’t associated with a particular gender.  And third, if this bugs you, complain!  Social media makes it easier than ever and companies DO listen.

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Never get scammed into paying for information about government jobs when you can find the same information all online for free. Schemers are always trying to get people to pay for information that the government already provides. Bad guys place ads offering to sell lists of government jobs or practice exams and applications. Pay attention to these tell-tale tip offs to rip-offs :

1. Often private companies try to seem like government agencies by using official-sounding names, American flags, eagles or seals in their advertisements or literature.
2. If somebody guarantees you a high test score, guarantees you a job or says no experience is necessary, that’s another red flag.

Here is the link to the REAL list of government jobs.

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You can save BIG money by keeping your car as long as you can stand it.  Most people turn their cars over every five years, according to auto website Edmunds.com. If we assume you get your first car when you’re 18 and stop driving at age 78, you would own about 12 vehicles during your lifetime. If you keep each vehicle just one year more, you’ll only need 10 vehicles. Keep it 10 years – twice as long as the national average – and you’ll only need 6 vehicles, which will cut your car-buying costs in half.  How much can you save?  Let’s be modest and say you keep your cars long enough that you’ll only need 8 in your lifetime.  And let’s say each car costs $20-thousand dollars.  You will spend just $160-thousand on cars over your lifetime, instead of the $240,000 you would spend if you owned the average of  12 cars.  That’s a savings of $80,000 …plus a lot fewer painful trips to the car lot to do battle with used car salesmen…

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There is a vague way and a concrete way to figure out what price house you can afford. Mortgage brokers use the vague way and here it is: They say you can afford a house if the monthly payments make up no more than 33-percent of your income. During the housing bubble they used more extreme percentages, like the using payments could be 45 percent of your income! But I don’t like that method because it’s theoretical instead of real- life. Here’s my concrete method: you will KNOW you can afford a house if you buy one with a monthly mortgage payment that is the same as your rent payment! Because you’re already affording that! This sometimes means saving up a larger down payment, which I think is healthy. I created a calculator that tells you what price home you can afford based on your current monthly rent. Here’s an example: If your rent is $2000 a month and you put 20% down, you can buy a home that costs $420,000 and your mortgage payment will also be $2000 a month. Here’s my one-of- a-kind calculator that tells you what price home you can afford based on your current rent payment.

**NOTE: You can access this calculator using Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer, but NOT Safari. It also requires Flash. If you are not able to use it, please email me via the contact page with how much you currently pay in rent and I will run the numbers for you. How’s THAT for personal attention?! 🙂 Elisabeth

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