(5/21/08) Stayed up a bit too late finishing reading a Mary Higgins Clark mystery, All Around the Town. Not a bad read; she can go on my approved reading list.
(6/6/08) Read Gotcha Capitalism by Bob Sullivan. This is a pretty good book for people who don't pay a lot of attention to their bills and other financial matters to read to let them know how much money they may be losing to hidden fees by all the companies they deal with, but after five or six chapters, I haven't really found anything that surprised me, but I keep up on that sort of stuff as a hobby, anyway. I don't usually run my credit cards up over the limit, or pay any interest on them - I'm one of those consumers that cc issuers hate. I also don't ever take money out of ATMs that aren't associated with my bank, so I don't get hit with those kinds of fees, and I haven't had to pay overdraft fees in the last thirty years, that I can recall.
I just had a convo with my son about ATM fees the other day while he was home. Hope he took it to heart and starts planning his weekend outing budgets a little better, so he can quit throwing away money for nothing. Title company fees seem to be pretty much unavoidable, and in my case, they're only likely to take place a couple of times in my entire lifetime - only time I had an issue with them was when I refinanced a home I'd already owned and paid for title insurance on a few years previously, and I'm thinking "why should I pay this again so soon?" It's a racket.
The chapter on mutual fund expense ratios, and kickbacks to HR folks and plan administrators wasn't a total surprise, but it's definitely irritating to think how much money they're scamming out of those of us who care enough to put away money for retirement. I'll need to review the mutual funds I'm in to see what their expense ratios are one of these days, and maybe make some adjustments. I'll keep y'all posted as I go along in this book. Looks like mostly good info.
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