The Insurance Doctor

Month: August 2021

  • Back to School $$$ Saving Tips

    Back to School $$$ Saving Tips

    As we begin the 2021-2022 school year during what I call, “The Covid-19 Era,” there is much uncertainty and trepidation.  Some schools commenced last week, others will start this week or after Labor Day weekend.  Our Mayor says the school must be in person because “our children are safer in the classroom.” 

    Whether or not you agree with him, there is one thing that is a certainty,  our students will continue to be schooled and they will need school supplies this year and going forward. 

    Like many things, back to school shopping is a habit.  Some are efficient habits, and some should be broken.  I notice differences in shopping habits between men and women.  The evolution of the internet, Covid-19, and the closing of many malls and brick and mortar stores have forced a change in buying habits for many parents and grandparents.

    Regardless of your habits, there are always things to learn, new habits to form, and ways to save money on these annual expenses, which can add up.  Take a look at my top 8 money-saving tips and perhaps start a new habit:

    1. Make a List, Then Check the House First:  Go through closets, storage, and utility drawers first.  There is a possibility you might have items leftover from the last school year.
    2. Craft a Budget:  It is always a good idea to have a price-range limit that you are willing to spend.  Keep the list with you when you are shopping either on-line or in person.
    3. Consider Setting Up a Gift Closet or Large Draw: A client shared this tip with me as she showed me how she turned a little used hallway foyer closet into a gift closet.  She buys many offseason gifts early at a deep discount and has saved big $$$ over the years.
    4. Check Out the Dollar Store First:  Before going to the big on-line and mega-retailers, there is a chance your local dollar store will have the items you are looking for at a discount.  They often buy excess lots or last year’s leftovers in bulk at a big discount, and pass some of their savings on to you.
    5. Consider a Desktop, Laptop or Tablet: For on-line shopping, it is prudent to use the bigger screen to look at and compare prices.  In addition, although smart phones have many good apps, there are discount and coupon finding extensions that can be added to your computer (especially if you use google chrome) to save you major search time.  See Tip #6.
    6. Consider Adding the Honey Google Chrome Extension to Your Computer: On your laptop, desktop, I pad or other tablet, click www.JoinHoney.com and add the Free extension.  This extension (not for phones) automatically searches for the best prices (often less than Ebay and Amazon) and you are notified immediately before “check-out!”  There are other extensions (such as Capital-One) that you can use, although some are better than others.
    7. If You Use Amazon, Consider Camel, Camel, Camel:  The big four (Amazon, Walmart, Target and Ebay) account for most internet sales.  If you are a loyal Amazon user, consider Camel, Camel, Camel. (CCC) Camel is an Amazon price tracker.  Find the product you are interested in buying, then cut and paste the URL into CCC to look up the item’s price history and/or add it to your price watch list.  If this is too complicated, go back to #6!
    8. Consider Holding Off Buying Trendier Gear:  It is advantageous to wait a few weeks after school starts to see what are the “in” styles.  Sometimes kids are wrong, so it is better to wait instead of trying to anticipate the hip new clothes and sneakers.

    Heed these 8 tips and watch your savings start to add up.  It has been a tough run for our grade-school and young adult students (due to no fault of their own).  I wish you and your families a safe and productive school year!

  • Pizza = Big Business

    Pizza = Big Business

    Pizza is my favorite food! The passion for pizza goes way back to my early childhood when my Sicilian Grandmother, Anna Intelisano, made her own pizza for us. At our house, for a variety of reasons, we would often have pizza on Friday nights with cannoli for dessert.

    Pizza was invented in Naples, Italy in the early to mid-1800s. The classic Margherita-style pizza was named after the Italian “Queen Margherita!” In celebration of the queen’s visit to Naples in 1889, a popular pizzeria made a pizza to match the white, green, and red of the Italian flag. 

    Pizza became popular in the United States in late 1945, when returning soldiers who fought in Italy in WWII spread the word. The first pizzeria in the USA was Lombardi’s, which opened in 1905. 

    I led a pizza crawl in October 2019 (see the picture) which started at Famous Ben’s, then onto Prince Street pizza (my #1 pepperoni Sicilian slice,) followed by a fabulous sit-down meal in the Lombardi’s basement dining room. 

    Lombardi’s was founded by Gennaro Lombardi.  His employees included Anthony “Totonno” Pero, John Sasso, and Pasquale “Patsy” Lanceri. The 3 pizza makers left and launched their own pizza establishments called Totonno, John’s, and Patsy’s respectively. Thus, the Lombardi pizza family tree was created! Subsequently, two pizza generations branched out to places like Patsy Grimaldi’s (his nephew) and Lucali. 

    There are now numerous pizza styles such as Detroit-Style (Emmy’s and Emmy Squared,) a new wave of Neopolitan artisanal personal pizza styles such as Roberta’s, Keste, Best and Motorino. With these hybrid styles have come large price increases.

    Food and Wine recently came out with a report ranking New York pizza #3 behind New Jersey and Connecticut. Their reasoning is that New York pizzerias are in a hurry and rush the process to make more profit. I am not buying this; however, I do have a few places in N.J. and Ct. on my radar to do my own comparison.

    I have found excellent pizza all over the world. From Naples (we went to Pizzeria da Michele, featured in the Eat, Pray, Love Julia Roberts movie) to Sydney, Australia to Bogota, Colombia.

    Since the early 1960s, the price of a regular New York slice has almost matched the price of a subway token. This was called the “Pizza Principle” or the “Pizza-Subway Connection.” This held true until about 6-8 years ago when pizza prices started to ramp up and become a huge money-making business. Now, in many places, a gourmet slice with toppings can run between $4-$5 per slice.

               Courtesy of factretriever.com, my top 10 pizza factoids are:

    1.   In America, annual pizza sales exceed $28 billion per year.

    2.   Over 5 billion pizzas are sold every year in the world.

    3.   Over 3 billion pizzas are sold every year in the United States.

    4.   Americans eat approximately 350 slices per second.

    5.   Recently, Halloween unseated Super Bowl Sunday as the biggest pizza day.

    6.   Thanksgiving is the day Americans eat the least amount of pizza.

    7.   October is national pizza month.

    8.   The average American eats about 46 slices or 23 pounds per year.

    9.   The most popular pizza topping in the USA is pepperoni.

    10.Lady Gaga once bought $1,000 worth of pizza for fans waiting in line for her autograph!

  • Good Credit = More $$$$

    Good Credit = More $$$$

    Your credit score is one of the most important measures of your financial health! I have found that few advisors have a handle on how to coach their clients to improve their credit scores.

    There are ripple effects to having good or poor credit. The better your score, the easier you will find it to be approved for new loans and or lines of credit. A higher credit score can give you access to the lowest available interest rates when you decide to borrow. Good credit will improve your odds of getting approved for credit cards. There are employers that will run your credit score before deciding on hiring you. In addition, the higher your score, the less money you will pay for auto and homeowners insurance premiums!

    Regardless of your age or current credit situation, it is NEVER too late to improve and/or build your credit. It takes some time, effort, discipline, and in some cases, breaking bad habits. There are niche companies that charge thousands of dollars to help fix your credit. You will not need to hire them if you heed my 10 tips below:

    1.   Review Your Credit Reports: You must start somewhere, so review your current credit reports. This is free and easy to do. You can pull a copy of your credit report from each of the 3 national credit bureaus: Equifax, Experion and TransUnion. This can be done for free once per year at www.AnnualCreditReport.com. To improve your credit, it helps to know what is working against you or in your favor.

    2.   If Possible, Pay Off 100% of Your Balances Every Month:  Carrying over balances from month to month is a costly way of doing business. If this is an issue for you, I suggest enrolling into “auto-pay” online, one credit card at a time, so you can stabilize your finances. Payment history counts for about 35% of your credit score. 

    3.   Correct Inaccurate or Additional Personal Information: Almost 90% of credit reports have your credit or personal information on you that is either inaccurate or dated. 

    4.   Keep Credit Balances Below 30% of “Available Credit:” Credit card balances should be below 30% of your available credit ALL the time! If you need more credit, get another credit line.

    5.   Consolidate Student Loans:  There are banks that have special programs designed to consolidate existing student loans (usually for balances of $100,000 or more) into one loan at a lower interest rate, which can save you $100’s per month from day one.

    6.   Limit Credit Inquiries: You should have a maximum of 7 or less credit inquiries per year. Any more than that can negatively affect your score.

    7.   Consider Adding an Additional Authorized User: This is an excellent way for parents to help young adults start building credit with little effort. The parent adds their child as an eligible user which starts building a history for the youngster. The more years you have credit, the better your score!

    8.   Consider Joining a Local Credit Union: Many Credit Unions have good initial offers for new member-clients and more liberal rules than banks.

    9.   Keep Old Accounts Open and Deal with Delinquencies: Do NOT close old credit cards that you might not be currently using. One of their formulas is to measure the “average age” of all your cards. The older the better.

    10.Use Credit Monitoring to Track Your Progress: Credit monitoring services are an easy way to see and learn how your credit score changes over time. These services can also protect you from identity theft. The best credit monitoring services notify consumers about changes in their credit and the reasons why.

  • Snail Mail What’s Going On?

    Snail Mail What’s Going On?

    The USPS (United States Post Office) is and has been facing a financial, service, and public relations crisis the past few years, before current Postmaster Louis DeJoy was appointed to run the Postal Service by its Board of Governors last May 2020. 

    It was an odd hire as Mr. DeJoy, unlike other postmasters, had no USPS experience and had been working in the private sector. Shortly after he started the position, he started imposing cost-cutting measures that many mail carriers had blamed for creating backlogs across the country. 

    I remember reading an article last year that he ordered 1 of the 5 Queens Super-Sorter Machines to cease operations, to reduce mail sorting expenses. Each one of these Super-Sorters can sort over 1,000,000 letters per day. As a business owner in Queens, last year I noticed my mail was taking 1-3 days longer than usual to arrive at their destination.

    As per Forbes and the Washington Post, The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is investigating Postmaster Louis DeJoy in connection with campaign fundraising activity, allegedly made by employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector.

    After last week’s USPS board meeting, it has become clear that the USPS will be changing its operations starting October 1, 2021. Mr. DeJoy presented a 10-year plan that he says “will reduce expenses by $170 million per year” and improve service by “intentionally” slowing down the delivery of first-class mail from 1-3 days to 1-5 days. It is estimated that 30% of first-class regular mail will take between 4-5 days instead of 1-3 days. This seems counter-intuitive and could change how many of us pay our bills and services. They will stop flying first-class mail and instead transport it by truck. 

    There are pluses and minuses to this strategy, trading time for money. In Arizona and parts of the west coast, driverless trucks are being tested.

    The USPS has been hemorrhaging financially for years and certainly can use a system overhaul as they lost $3 billion in the first quarter of 2021; however, I am not convinced that this is the answer. 

    The question is, what does this all mean to business owners and the “Regular Joe’s” across the country? I have been paying my bills (company and personal) through the internet for many years. There are situations where you receive a bill in the mail which is due in under 2 weeks. I do NOT see companies sending you paper bills 2-3 days earlier to offset these intentional slowdowns; hence, we must make the necessary changes to adjust. See my tips below as to how to save money and combat these changes:

    1.   Move Your Internet Bill Pay up 2-3 Days: For those who already pay online, consider having your mortgage and other important time-sensitive checks arrive on the 28th of the previous month instead of the first.

    2.   Consider Setting Up Auto-Bill-Pay Through the Internet: There are many people whether old-school, technology challenged or those concerned about bank account hacking that still write paper checks.  Some just do not trust the system. A definition of insanity can be “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” 

    3.   Buy Forever Stamps: The current price for a standard weight rectangular envelope is 55 cents. If you buy forever stamps, when the charges are increased in the future to say 70 cents, the USPS will still accept your 55-cent stamp using the “forever” style stamp hence, saving on inflation.

    4.   Plan Further in Advance When Paying Bills by Mail: If you write out or schedule your online bill pay on the 21st of the month, consider moving the date up to the 17th or 18th. 

    5.   Familiarize Yourself with Standard Priority Mail: If you have important mail that must get there in 1-3 business days, consider using USPS Standard Priority Mail which costs $7.95 and includes tracking. Keep in mind, if you wait until the last minute and your mail needs to be received overnight, the USPS “Priority Express” will set you back a hefty $26.25.

    Regardless of how you pay your bills, it is important to understand, as of October 1, 2021, there will be major changes to how your regular snail-mail is sent so it is best to be prepared!