By Jennifer Derrick
We all know that we should plan for an emergency. From an early age, we’re taught to have an evacuation plan in case of fire and how to call 911 if we need help. If you live in hurricane, tornado, wildfire, or snowstorm country, you’re taught to keep a kit handy with the […]

By Marilyn Brodeur
Within the US and Canada there are over 60 dental schools which provide inexpensive dental treatment. With locations all over the US from Louisville, New York City, Ft Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Omaha, and Chapel Hill it is very likely there is a school nearby. As a dental student, I’d like to reveal […]

By David John Marotta and Beth Anderson Nedelisky
Many seniors look forward to saving on medical insurance costs by enrolling in Medicare at age sixty-five. However, navigating the Medicare system is not for the faint of heart. Medicare is an alphabet soup of plan choices. Currently Medicare is organized as parts A through D.
Medicare Part […]

By David John Marotta and Justin Harris
Purchasing a car is the second biggest spending decision we face as consumers next to buying a home. Unlike real estate or an investment portfolio which appreciates, cars are rapidly depreciating assets. In addition to the car’s sticker price, operating expenses can drive the unsuspecting consumer into the […]

By David John Marotta
For those working in the arts, financial planning is artistic freedom. You can be an artist and also eat well if you don’t avoid the subject of financial planning all together. After you have your cash flow and career planning in place, you also need to address your insurance and legal concerns. […]

By Meredith H. Kaiser
As a former insurance salesperson, I have attended countless classes on the subject of how to motivate clients to buy life and disability insurance. However, I remain sympathetic to the fact that many of you refuse to buy this coverage for several heartfelt reasons.
(Warning: Overly dramatic scare tactic ahead!) Unfortunately, […]

By Meredith H. Kaiser
When I sold life insurance, I fantasized about shaking the shoulders of women who responded to a financial question with, “Oh, I don’t know any of that stuff. My husband makes the money. I just spend it.”
Outwardly, I remained professional and found restrained ways to encourage them to wake up […]

By Teri Newton
I have noticed something really strange when it comes to dentists. I generally find that I am unwilling to pay $30,000 for a car when I can find a perfectly good one for much and I am not as concerned with brand names as I am about just being clothed and warm. […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
Bad things can happen in an instant. Last year, while everyone else was celebrating and enjoying the 4th of July, an errant firework burned down an elderly man’s house. Like other depression-era folks who long ago lost faith in financial systems, he liked to hide his money in cash around […]

By Valerie S. Johnson
You’ve finally done it — earned that coveted diploma. You’re feeling a bit cocky. Your parents are wondering why they had to pay for your expensive education when you already knew everything.
Now it’s time to enter The Real World, the place that you have talked about for years as if […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
You may not know this, but your credit card provides a lot of additional services in addition to letting you postpone payment on purchases and earn cash back or frequent flyer miles. One of these services is rental car collision insurance. Car rental companies will always try to sell you insurance options […]

If you have extra space in your house, you may have considered renting out a room to bring in some extra cash and share the utility bill costs. One reader is thinking about doing such a thing, but wants to know if there are any hidden costs that he should be aware of:
I am curious […]

Ever wonder why guys pay more for auto insurance than women? Insurance companies do risk analysis on different groups to determine if they are more likely to have an insurance claim than other groups. This video cuts it down to the basics with a lot of humor thrown in.
Warning: There is some adult language in […]

By M Butler, special to pfadvice
I don’t own a car. I found myself in a desperate situation where I was not able to meet all of the payment obligations that I had and I was slowly drowning in debt. I needed to do something drastic and my decision was to get rid of my car. […]

You probably don’t realize it, but you drive much more than you need to. You get into your car much more often than you should, but there’s a simple way that you can make sure that you only drive when you need to — by paying yourself a small fee every time you get into […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
Many of us feel like there’s little point in preparing for a disaster because we never know when something might happen and it’s impossible to be perfectly prepared. If you back up your computer every Friday and it gets stolen on a Thursday, you’ve still lost an entire week’s worth of […]

By Amy L. Fontinelle
We all hear a lot about protecting our financial futures by staying out of debt, having an emergency fund, and saving for retirement. Disability income insurance, or DII for short, is another important form of protection that many people don’t have and haven’t even heard of. The purpose of this kind of […]

A lot of problems with finances are the direct result of being financially lazy. That is, you know what you should be doing, but you’re just too lazy (or have a convenient excuse) not to do it. And while life is certainly not about making sure every detail of your finances is perfect 24 / […]

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when getting insurance for their household possessions is not making an inventory of everything they own. That’s because if a claim does have to be made, the insurance companies are going to want proof and not just your word:
Without documentation, one of two things will usually happen […]

I’ve seen this subject come up on more than one occassion on the best way to get out of a speeding ticket. While I don’t have any direct experience in this area, I know that a speeding ticket can cost a fair amount of money. While most people look only at the actual fine of […]