My Personal Finance Blog

If you haven’t starting taking advantage of your bank’s online services, you should! Online banking has many advantages over traditional banking:

1. Download Banking Transactions. You can download your banking transactions directly into your financial software as often as you like. If you use your ATM card often, this is a must, because it keeps your bank balance current in your financial software. You won’t have to worry about keeping all those debit card receipts.

2. Download Credit Card Transactions. You can download credit card transactions directly into your financial software. Don’t waste time entering credit card charges by hand – download them! This is probably one of the biggest advantages of online banking, since entering credit card transactions manually can be very time consuming.

3. Online Bill Payment. Online bill payment is easier and less expensive than generating and mailing a paper check. Your bank may offer free bill pay services – if so, this saves the expense of ordering checks and buying stamps. Checks will be generated and mailed by your bank at your authorization. Plus, the checks will have the vendor names directly on your bank statements, next to the amount of the check and check number. This is not true for traditional checks.

4. Quickly Verify Bank Balances. If you need to verify your bank account balance, just signin to your bank’s online services. No more waiting for the bank statement, or calling the bank to get your balance. To get an accurate balance, take the bank’s balance as shown online, subtract any outstanding checks, and add any outstanding deposits.

5. Quit Paying Bills. Use your vendor’s auto-debit or auto-charge feature. Once established, your bill will be paid automatically through your bank or credit card account. This eliminates the step of manually paying the bill! Perfect for gas, electric, water, cable, phone, and other utility-type payments.

Save yourself time and money by taking advantage of online banking. Call your bank and credit card companies today to find out how to enroll in their online services.

Do you remember the Blues Brothers? They were unstoppable. They were “on a mission from God”. Seems like almost everyone standing behind the counter in the rental agency is a Blues Brother when you come into collect the vehicle. They always want to sell you something, usually additional insurance. The most common special offer is loss damage waiver (LDW). It sounds such a good idea to have complete cover against any loss caused to the vehicle while under your control. The magic word is “waiver”. You are excluded from liability even if you drive the vehicle off the end of a pier and it sinks without trace (hopefully without you still inside it). The only problem is this good idea can seriously damage your bank balance when the final bill comes in. That hourly or daily rate just got heavy. So when should you add LDW? The answer is deceptively simple. If you do not own another vehicle and have no insurance cover in place, it may be a good buy. But most insurance policies on your own vehicle cover you while driving a rental. So it all comes down to the extent of that cover on your own vehicle.

To get the maximum discount in these hard economic times, most people have been pushing up the deductibles. In many cases, the potential losses can be managed to keep to the low end. It’s your vehicle. You can talk to the repair shop and get all the work you want done at the best price. But when it’s a rental vehicle, everything is out of your hands. The rental company has no interest in protecting your bank balance. It pays top dollar to get the vehicle repaired and sends you the bill. No searching around to find the cheapest replacement parts and lowest price body shops. Everything is top of the range and then comes the kicker. It’s called the “loss of use” charge. You are expected to cover their estimated loss of profit while the vehicle is off the road. And guess what. If you are paying their loss of profit, they have no incentive to rush the repairs. They can take their own sweet time and, in most cases, you pay – most private policies do not cover loss of use charges. Some credit card companies offer limited cover, but read the small print before relying on it. Limited cover means very little actual money will ever be paid out.

If you are only renting for a few days, it’s probably worth paying for LDW. It may not be cheap car insurance, but it protects you. But if the end bill is going to be too high, trust to luck and your own insurance policy. Hopefully, your own cheap car insurance policy will give you enough of a buffer against claims Remembering, of course, that only the best private policies cover you against the dreaded loss of use charges. If nothing else, all this bad news should give you the incentive to drive like your wheels are passing over egg shells. Drive as safely and carefully as possible. If you are going to break some eggs, make sure the damage is minor and the losses are small.