How to Shop for Car Insurance

While we at Efinancial are very concerned about your life insurance needs, we realize you have other insurance needs as well.  So today we’d like to help you drive a better bargain with the one form of insurance you are legally required to possess if you get behind the wheel of a car:  Auto Insurance.  You cannot drive in the United States without having an automotive insurance policy. Yet it often proves to be very difficult to buy exactly what you need at the price you want.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when determining who your auto insurance provider will be.

Learn more about how to get the right type of insurance

Saving on Summer: Budgeting a Vacation

During uncertain economic times, one of the first expenses to be shed is often a family vacation. Not everyone can afford to take time off from work, and besides, vacations can be expensive. In the spirit of fun and recreation this summer, we’d like to pass along a few vacationing tips.

Where to go

Even while the U.S. dollar is stronger abroad than it has been in some time, not everyone can afford to jet around the world, visiting exotic locations. A vacation destination certainly does not have to involve going far away either. A bit of common sense is to take a vacation closer to home. It doesn’t have to be a “stay-cation” either, where you vacation at home, although that can be both relaxing and stress-free. Maybe you live near the shore or there is an exciting  big city near you?  This will put the cost of airfare right back into your pocket.

Learn more about cheap vacations and smart vacation planning

Birds of a Feather Flocking to Personal Finance on Twitter

Have you done any Tweeting about your personal finances lately?  We don’t mean chirping like a parakeet or cackling like a crow.  Twitter is a simple messaging service for friends, family, and even many businesses that makes it easy to communicate through the exchange of short messages of 140 characters or less.

Twitter is much more than just chatter.  For many it is a revolutionary way to find the freshest, most relevant information on a particular topic.   Don’t knock Twitter until you try it.  And if you’d like to follow a flock of  financial planning “Tweeple” or Tweeps, check out the list that one Twitterer (”Saving for Serenity“) calls The Ultimate List of Personal Finance Bloggers on Twitter.

General Personal Finance

@bripblap – Steve from Brip Blap

@budgetnerd – Nathon from Household Budget Nerd

@colourful_money – Bullseye and PlusEV from Colourful Money

@debtfree – Debt Free Hispanic

@FMFblog – FMF from Free Money Finance

@freefrombroke – Free From Broke

@FourPillars – Four Pillars

Discover more of the best of twitter for personal finance

10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget

A new book, organized as a type of ‘frugal encyclopedia’, based on articles written by the editors of Wisebread.com, offers up a smorgasbord of tips on how to live large on a small budget.

Speaking of smorgasbords, the pointers range from “8 Tips for Getting the Most from All-You-Can-Eat Buffets” to  “7 Ways to Score Free Food,” and “14 Tips to Have a Frugal Vacation and Still Treat Yourself,” to “15 Ways to Make Your Clothes Last Longer,” “10 Beauty Products You Can Make at Home,” and “8 Affordable Romantic Dates.”

You’ll also find “50 Ways to Get More Out Of Health Care,”  “6 Ways to Avoid Tricky Supermarket Traps,” “10 Ways to Go Green and Save Money,” and “6 Steps to Eliminating Your Debt Painlessly.”

What are your tips for living large on a small budget?

Read more about living on a small budget

Who Needs a Financial Education? All of Us!

Financial advisor Darrell J. Canby is not alone when he insists that today’s children need a financial education. The fact is we all do.

A lack of financial common sense led to the current financial crisis, Canby observes. “People bought homes they couldn’t afford, banks abandoned sound lending standards, politicians passed laws that encouraged financial recklessness and regulators failed to regulate,” he says.

A billion dollars used to seem like a lot of money. Now a trillion is the new billion, and our children will be left with a mountain of debt and all of the problems we haven’t solved. The least we can do is to provide them with the financial knowledge to do better.

What are the most valuable lessons to be learned?

Learn more about how to manage your finances

A Taxing Decision: What to Do with Your Refund

The tax refund splurges of years past are not a reality for most Americans in 2009. Many people are likely wringing their hands over what to do with the money they receive back from Uncle Sam. Their concerns are well-founded: It’s more important than ever to consider the right options for your refund.

It’s also the right time for refund recipients to consider meeting with a financial professional who can help establish financial priorities and goals.

If you have outstanding bills or debts, take care of those matters first. But if you find you have money left over from your tax refund or have the full amount, don’t be scared of your options — be smart in your decisions.

Consider these options to put your tax refund to work for you…

Read about ways to invest your refund

A Savings Surge: Is the Mattress the Right Place for Your Money?

American consumers and businesses are embarking on a new era of thrift, saving more money than ever before. Should you be concerned about safety? A homespun urban myth quips that a mattress may be a better vault for those savings than a neighborhood bank.

Fortunately, for your wealth and your health, there’s no need to lose sleep or make your mattress uncomfortable. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures all funds on deposit with affiliated financial institutions up to $250,000 per depositor.  A good thing, too, since the U.S. personal saving rate in the last three months of 2008 rose to its highest level in six years.

“If American consumers are less indebted, live within their means and have more money in savings, they are better positioned to spend on a sustainable basis for years to come,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. “As painful as that is economically in the short run, these developments will better serve us in the long run.”
Discover how to manage your savings

Smart Shopping: Getting and Protecting the Best Price

If you’re within clicking distance of this blog post, chances are good you do at least part of your shopping online these days. We hope you’ve already discovered why Efinancial is the best place to shop for life insurance.  With this post, we’d like to help you “insure” that your other household purchases result in the lowest price for the best value.  The nifty Web tools that follow keep an eye on prices for you at Amazon.com as well as some other Web sites to fill you in on sales, price drops and special offers.

Amazon Price Watch (aka NukePrice.com)
<http://www.nukeprice.com/onlinetools.html>
Amazon Price Watch may sound like it’s only Amazon.com prices, but it actually works with around 100 online retailers. You can have it watch the price of something by dropping its link into the service’s Web form, or by installing a browser add-on that lets you start tracking from the retailer’s site.

Apnoti
<http://www.apnoti.com/>
Apnoti watches Amazon for price drops. You can use it either by dropping in the Amazon product link and your e-mail address or installing a tool bar that adds the option to watch a price to Amazon.com. Apnoti refreshes its price index “continuously” so you can be notified when a price drops usually within the hour.
Read more about finding the best prices on everyday neeeds

One of the Winners in Today’s Economy: Wal-Mart

Not all is dark and gloomy in today’s economic environment.

Wal-Mart has announced that comparable sales at its US discount stores and Supercenters jumped 5 per cent in February, continuing its dominance of the faltering retail sector.

The world’s largest retailer also raised its annual dividend by 15 per cent to $1.09, as it continues to pile up cash at a time when many other leading US companies are cutting back on dividend payments to conserve liquidity.

The retailer said its February sales were supported by increased customer traffic, with continued strength in its grocery, health and entertainment businesses. It also said that it saw sales growth in home furnishings – a category where it had previously struggled.

Read more about Wal-Mart's success

Health care insurance can learn from software industry

While policymakers and Congress focus on how we’re going to pay for health care, tech publisher Ziff-Davis suggests they take a look at the most innovative industry model instead of just the payment model, starting with the one right behind their computer screens – the software business.

In health care, the traditional fee-for-service  model is basically piecework, although prices vary widely. You get charged for an office visit, for an x-ray or MRI. You are charged for drugs and, if they must be injected, you are charged for that.

But as the software industry has learned,  the business model designs the industry.  Compare the custom design of a proprietary software program for a specific purpose with an “open source” model designed from the ground up.  Both produce software, but the way they go about doing it is very different.

Learn more about innovative health insurance techniques

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