Mr. Money Sense 
As open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act begins this month, whether you get your insurance from the Health Insurance Marketplace or through your employer, now is a good time to consider your health insurance options for next year if you haven’t already. You may have seen plans that are listed as HSA-eligible. What many people don’t realize is that HSAs are one of the best ways to save for retirement.
The National Park Service has announced a proposal that could more than double the entrance fees at 17 of the most popular national parks to generate badly needed revenue for infrastructure improvements.
Entry at these parks currently costs $25 to $30 per vehicle and $10 to $15 per person on bike or foot. Under the proposed rates, this will increase to $70 per vehicle and $30 per person.
Costco members join the warehouse club for a variety of reasons. For $65 a year, you get access to great deals on electronics, clothing, food, alcohol, office supplies, tires, hearing aids, and so many free samples you can skip dinner later. What if you have no need or the space for an entire year’s worth of toilet paper? Is it worth the membership fee to join Costco only to save on gas and never even step foot inside the warehouse?
If you are a cable internet service subscriber, do you rent or own your cable modem? If you are renting your modem, you could easily save up to $120 a year by purchasing your own modem.
It seems like almost every year that we would receive another letter from the cable companies announcing yet another rate hike, so it is not a big surprise that they also charge a fee to rent the equipment needed to access their internet service. When I first signed up to Comcast over a decade ago, the modem rental fee was only $3 a month. Today it is $10 per month.
Water used to be free. Actually, it still is. I remember when I first saw bottled water for sale. It seemed like the most inane thing ever. Why would anyone actually pay money for water when it could be found for free at home or at water fountains? When I was in grade school, we would all line up at the water fountain after coming back inside from running around during recess. I’m pretty sure we all turned out (mostly) ok. Little will I know, by 2016 the U.S. bottled water industry will sell $16 billion in water and bottled water will become the most popular bottled beverage.
One of my favorite sites and apps for saving money, GasBuddy, has announced their new payment option Pay with GasBuddy to help drivers save money every time they fill up their tank.
GasBuddy says when drivers use their payment card to purchase gas, they will save 15 cents per gallon off their first purchase upon using the card, and at least 5 cents off every gallon after that. By using their app or website coupled with their card, drivers can save up to $340 a year on gasoline.
In today’s busy world where we want our email, media, and social networks to be accessible anytime and anywhere, our mobile phones are considered indispensable. If you go to any airport or conference, you will see dozens of people huddled around outlets trying to get a few more minutes of precious battery life.
These days you will have to look extremely hard to find a smartphone with a removable battery. With phones getting thinner and users preferring designs with more premium feeling materials such as aluminum or glass and features like water resistance, more and more smartphone makers are ditching the removable battery. If you do not want to be tethered to an outlet all the time, knowing how to extend your battery’s health is important. Here are a few tips on how to take care of your phone’s battery and prolong its life.
Does the brand of gas matter when you are fueling up your car or do you pull into which ever gas station at the corner that has the lowest price posted on the sign? After all, gasoline is gasoline, and it’s all the same stuff right?
According to results from independent laboratory testing, AAA has found that there are significant differences in the quality of gasoline sold in the United States.
Last week Equifax announced that up to 143 million people may have had their information compromised in a hack on their website due to an unpatched application. A security review found unauthorized access that occurred from mid May to the end of July, when the security breach was discovered.
Personal information that was accessed included everything from names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and even driver license numbers. Some 200,000 consumers also had credit card numbers stolen, and 182,000 had certain dispute documents with “personal identifying information” stolen.
