Multiple Streams of Income by Robert G. Allen is barely worth borrowing (from the library), skimming, and returning about a day later. It was originally published in 2000, then revised in 2004, and basically is split into two parts. The first part discusses how to manage your finances (encapsulating the entire concept of The Automatic Millionaire in one chapter) including budgeting, controlling your spending, and other commonly discussed principles on this blog and dozens of others. The second part is identifying three ways to generated income (hence multiple streams) and those are basically in the stock market, in real estate (where he made his fame), and in a nebulous grouping he called “network marketing.”

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Whenever I receive a bad product or bad service, I typically will write an email or a letter to the offending company (unfortunately I don’t confront it right there, sort of passive aggressive I suppose) to let them know. On the flip size, when I receive excellent service or a product I like, I write an email or a letter to the company to let them know as well. In most cases, the company will send you something for your trouble – good or bad. I’ve only done this about four times and three of the times I’ve received a coupon for something. And if you read Frugal for Life, you’ll know that Dawn recently sent a letter about her Bic razor and received a coupon for a freebie as well.

I’ve written about it before about how complained to Target about their photocenter and to Coca-Cola about unflavored cans of Diet Coke but I don’t think I’ve written about my experience with Edy’s Ice Cream (awesome ice cream), Starbucks, or Colgate.

Edy’s Ice Cream is almost always on sale, a usual two for one type deal, and their Slow-Churned Grand Light (low fat) ice cream is incredible (I can’t tell its low fat). Well, one day I just decided to shoot them an email to let them know how much I loved their product and they sent me two 50-cent coupons (expiring in two years), a list of flavors, and a thank you note!

Colgate sent me a full-size sample of one of their toothpaste products and I thoroughly enjoyed it, however, the plasticy paint on the tube began to flake. Personally, I don’t think that’s a big deal at all but since it was a sample product I assumed they would want to know about any problems whatsoever. I wrote them a short email and in a few days I received a whole batch of coupons for Colgate-Palmolive products as a thank you (unfortunately I don’t think I used a single one).

Finally, there was the not-so-pleasant Starbucks experience at an unnamed I-95 rest stop. I always like to pay with a credit card (for records and I don’t like loose change) and so when I paid with a credit card at the rest stop (granted it was busy but that isn’t an excuse), the register attendant (who may have been having a rough day), gave me a look and a sigh before swiping. I shot an email off to Starbucks about it and they sent me two coupons for a free drink of whatever I wanted.

I’d be interested to hear what sort of freebies you all may have gotten using either vinegar or sugar…

One of the things I’ll need to do in the next year or two is replace the windows on my brand-spanking (to me) house, which is a few hundred bucks a pop. At eight windows, that’s a lot of hundred bucks. So when I read about Sandra Block’s (personal finance writer for USA Today) article about the new energy bill and how it affects me, I smiled (only a little). She explains how the new energy bill gives [small] tax breaks for “energy-saving home improvements!” Specifically, you get a tax credit of 10% of the cost of the improvement (lifetime cap of $500), so this could come in handy. The article also has energy saving tips (many are common sense) that might come in handy.

The new energy bill gives a tax credit which goes straight to your pocket, as opposed to a deduction which just reduces your taxable income. So if you get a $100 deduction, you only get back a fraction of that depending on what your tax bracket is. If you get a $100 tax credit, you get a newly minted Ben Frankling (well, a check, but you get the idea).

You must make the improvement between 12/31/2005 and 1/1/2008 and here are valid upgrades:

• Insulation that reduces loss of heat or AC.
• New exterior windows (capped at $200, boo!)
• “Highly efficient” central AC, heat pump, or water heater (capped at $300)
• “Highly efficient” furnace or boiler (capped at $150)
• Solar-powered hot-water systems: You can get credit for 20% of the cost (capped at $2,000)

She also mentions getting your home “energy rated” which is something I’d never heard of before – reputable ones (i.e. certified) are on this list and they run up to $450!

Here are their energy saving tips:

• Replace higher wattage bulbs with lower bulbs: I have a lot of fixtures with multiple bulbs, I just twist off a few of them because usually they’re too bright anyway with them all on.
• Use ceiling fans
• Clean/replace AC filters monthly: I didn’t realize you had to do it this often, but when I checked my filter was all clogged up. They only run a little more than a dollar a piece but I might go with a cleanable one in the future.
• Install programmable thermostat: Having one of these is awesome because I never liked the idea of running the AC or heat when no one was going to be home all day, it feels like a huge waste.
• Close and open blinds/shades based on the season (open for winter, closed for summer)
• Caulk and weather-strip doors: This is huge, I could hear air coming in and out of windows and doors before I caulked them this past weekend. Plus, this prevents bugs from crawling into your house too.
• Use sleep features on computers or leave them off.

About a month ago I quoted auto insurance rates to get a pre-25 year old rate so that I could re-quote and get a post-25 year old rate. Well, the time now has come for me to re-quote and see what the “big 25 year old milestone auto insurance rate quote drop” people always talk about really amounts to…

Given my current plan (Liability only) where I paid $436.60 for six months, my post 25 year old rate dropped -$59.50 to a mere $377.10. Looking back, carrying $1000 deductibles on collision and comprehensive coverage would cost me $959.50 for six months… now, a mere one month later, it only costs me $808.50 (-$151).

As for Progressive, for identical coverage it actually costs more now, $497 – an increase of $49! For full coverage? $816.00, a jump of $79! As for “the rates of other top companies” – this time four companies (one of them Progressive) were listed, including our old friend State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. Two newcomers to the show are Erie Insurance Exchange and Erie Insurance Company (same company really but two quotes).

For my coverage, the Erie brothers show a rates of $205 to $232 and $230 to $269 (based on credit score) which is ridiculously cheap auto insurance. State Farm came back with a quote of $412 – still more expensive than Geico. For full coverage, State Farm would charge $750 (cheaper than all comers including Geico), and the Erie’s would charge at least $350 and $380 per six months.

(Incidentally, Erie Insurance Exchange is “better” and only accepts folks with at most one violation, all others fall to the Erie Insurance Company, hence the price differences)

To recap, in table form:

So what’s the moral? You can probably expect a rate drop of at least 10% whenever you turn twenty-five. Is it a huge drop? Depends on your perspective but there is definitely a noticeable drop. I think my quoting from Progressive itself may have been flawed either this time or the first time because there is now way the price should’ve increased when all others dropped. What’s interesting is the appearance of Erie Insurance – as if to say they only trust drivers over twenty-five…

What other major auto insurance milestones have you reached and seen a big drop in insurance? I’m curious to see how significant each of these commonly assumed milestones truly are.

Only a few days ago did I write my thoughts on low “return on investment” college degrees did the folks at CNN Money write (or update) an article on the highest paid degree holders coming out of college. The article says basically the same thing last year’s article said: engineers make the big bucks and they keep making it. There are, however, things in this article that they don’t mention that I think are worth thinking about.

The first thing that they should’ve looked into was the number of jobs available for those engineering degrees. Of course, for high-flying computer science majors the jobs are plentiful – but what about those aerospace engineers? I find it difficult to believe the number of aerospace engineering jobs come close to matching the number of mechanical engineering jobs.

Secondly, with inflation estimated at 3% a year (historically), five of the top seven jobs actually took a pay cut over the course of last year. Of the top seven, only aerospace engineers and industrial engineers saw their salaries increase faster than the cost of a soda (in theory).

Finally, take these studies with a grain of salt because when it’s on a national scale, it loses a bit of accuracy when you take into account cost of living differences, quality of educational institution differences, location of institution, and a whole host of other factors that will affect you specifically. It’s like when someone memorizes the probabilities in Roulette and soon learns that they work “in the long run” after dropping some money at the tables “in the short run.”

Imagine the chances that TWO people would win the SAME Irish/English Sweepstakes! I was emailed by one of my readers who responded to the original email because she couldn’t imagine her good fortune and I thought it would be fun if we posted the response of the lottery folks to see what we would need to provide (and to whom) to get our money!

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Everyone’s talking about it: ING raises its interest rate to 3.3% to correspond with the recent increase of the federal funds rate by the Fed… but does it really matter? If you keep up to date on the rates (and bother with the hassle of moving funds to the highest rate), your money is probably with Presidential (3.87%) or Emigrant-Direct (3.5%) – so this rate hike doesn’t really matter to you. If you know about the rates but don’t particular care about the <1% difference, (87 cents on $100, but less after taxes) this rate hike still probably doesn’t matter to you because if you did care about rates, you’d be at Presidential/Emigrant…

ING has to increase the rate to 4%+ in order to get new customers because this is all that happens when they up the rate to 3.3%:

1. Customers at a higher rate bank keep their funds there.
2. Customers who read about this on blogs will invariably learn that Emigrant is 3.5% and Presidential is 3.87%, so if they’re going to plunge into an online bank they’ll go with one of those two.

The only thing they do is capture the folks who haven’t yet moved cash from ING to another, higher rate, bank. (one thing that I do like about ING is that you can open additional accounts in a matter of seconds online) ING – jack up your rate to 4.10% and you’ll get my emergency fund back (as long as Emigrant doesn’t beat you to it!).

For those of you who want the $25 for being a referral (I get $10), which is probably the only reason to go with ING right now, email me.

Now you know how I feel, but what does this rate hike mean to you (and where’s your money now)?

CNNMoney had another thought-provoking article on the jobs with really low returns on investment, when you consider investment as the dollars and time required to earn the qualifications needed to do the work. The three jobs they list are architects, chefs, and academic research assistants. The basic criteria they use to calculate return is merely salary (and how long you have to work to achieve a “good” wage) and they claim unless you are the cream of the crop (in the first two anyway), you really aren’t going to see the big bucks. But I think their study is pretty much meaningless… here’s why.

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