Well, for a change she who hesitates wins. I am sooooo glad I didn’t run out and buy a Prius or some other new Toyota during the infamous gas price inflation of 2008.
Because I was employed at the time, I could’ve afforded it in spite of the market conditions. And I most certainly did covet one of those snazzy hybrids. In saner moments, I thought seriously about trading in the Dog Chariot, which guzzles gas in an obscene way, for a smaller, more fuel-efficient gasoline-powered car. After many years of satisfaction with Toyotas, whatever I would have selected would have come from that maker.
Luckily for me, I couldn’t make up my mind and so did nothing. At one point, I calculated how long it would take for the savings in gas to pay for a replacement vehicle and realized that trading in the ten-year-old Sienna would amount to cutting off my nose to spite my face.
Given the Toyota’s recent, spectacular quality-control troubles, I sure am glad I didn’t leap off that cliff. Probably I would have sent my broker straight to his favorite Toyota dealers without noticing that recent consumer reviews have issued increasingly negative reports. Edmunds, for example, has this to say about the Corolla:
In reviews, we’ve been disappointed with the current Toyota Corolla. Competitors from Honda, Hyundai and Mazda outdo it in most regards, specifically in the areas of interior quality, value and driving pleasure/confidence. In a consumer comparison test where we invited six regular Americans to test several competitors in this class, the Corolla finished dead last and was deemed a disappointment by most.
In years past, Toyota has had a strong reputation for nearly all its models, but some recent reviews report that the gold standard is becoming tarnished. Toyota fell from first place to fifth in Consumer Reports’ annual reliability survey last year, and the V6 Camry specifically received a “Below Average” rating—a first for the popular car.
Experienced, long-term Camry owners remark that the vehicle’s “interior is getting cheaper every year,” apparently because management has decided to follow Detroit’s tradition of cheesying up the product so as to maximize profits at the consumer’s expense and safety.
How sad. Even in Japan, greed trumps integrity every time.
I can’t say that I absolutely will not buy another Toyota when the time comes. But it’s no longer a foregone conclusion.
How about yourself? Will your next car be a Toyota? Or what?
“Every writer needs an editor” is our slogan over at The Copyeditor’s Desk. How true it is! Fortunately for this writer, longtime journalist and MSN Smart Spending ringmaster Karen Datko keeps a sharp eye on the antics at Funny about Money.
She points out, in the virtual equivalent to standing in the middle of the newsroom, waving a piece of misbegotten copy in the air, and hollering who wrote this?, a number of shortcomings in my recent rant about the tax increases proposed by the Phoenix city council and the governor of Arizona. Directing my attention to this report and also to this, she notes that the “temporary” tax the state hopes to faze past taxpayers amounts not to 3 percent (!) but to 1 (count it, ONE) percent.
That notwithstanding, even if the bloated figure I inserted in my post had been right, my English-major math left something to be desired. Whereas the fictional 3 percent added to the existing 8.3 percent tax presently holding good in Phoenix does indeed add up to 11.3 percent, in the first place 11.3% + 2% = 13% (2% being the proposed 2 percent city tax), not 15.3 percent. And in the second place, the proposed 2 percent city tax would apply to food only. So the tax on food would not be 11.3% (charged on all nonfood items) + 1% + 2%; it would be just 2 percent.
Since most grocery store, Costco, Walmart, and Target runs include a variety of household items, calculating the total tax bill on a shopping trip would be pretty complex. It would consist of 11.3 percent on nonfood items, which could comprise some or even all of your purchases, plus 2 percent and only 2 percent on the food items. In any event, there’s no way the total could come anywhere near 15.3 percent.
Ohhhh well! 🙄
Any way you look at it, though, sales taxes most certainly are on their way up. And a sales tax on food is as about as regressive as you can get.
My late, great associate editor and de facto business partner Tina has a good shot at a full-time editorial position at the Great Desert University’s business college. It’s incredibly good news. The presumptive boss managed to extract an assistant editor’s line from the university despite the dire economic conditions. It means this is someone with enough political clout to get money when no money is there.
I just spoke to the woman and rhapsodized about the kid’s overall genius and entrepreneurial touch. She sounded impressed. Let’s just hope she’s impressed enough to hire!
Last weekend my now-former research assistant, who bought a house in the neighborhood shortly before Her Deanship announced the university would close our office and can us all, reported that the house was burgled while she and the kids were at church. The burglars missed her laptop, which was recharging in an out-of-the-way spot in the family room, but they did grab her husband’s laptop and cleaned out all her jewelry, most of which consisted of keepsakes from her mother.
Understandably, she’s feeling pretty disturbed and vulnerable, especially since the burglars entered with ease through the carport door. Apparently popping the lock was so easy, the cops said they couldn’t even find any evidence of forced entry. She’s taken to putting a piece of Scotch tape at the door’s threshhold so she can see whether anyone has entered before she goes into the house.
Even though our area is relatively safe compared to some parts of the city, no neighborhood is immune to burglaries and home invasions. I personally resent and resist living behind iron bars, glaring lights, and shrieking alarms. It’s the criminals who belong in jail, not us!
Over time, I’ve developed a number of strategies to minimize the risk of burglaries and the damage done if a perp gets into the house. Some of these are psycho-philosophical, some are mechanical.
On the philosophical level, I’ve adjusted my attitude about break-ins. Except for the dog, the stuff I have in my house is junk. Most of it is low in value—the only things that really matter are the computers, and even those are not the point: what matters is not the computer; it’s the data in the computer. The data can easily be backed up onto a flashdrive and carried around on one’s keyring, thereby protecting the only truly important inanimate object in the house.
So. My attitude is that I don’t much care if the burglar comes visiting, as long as he stays out of the house while I’m here. I don’t want a home invasion, several of which we have had in this neighborhood, because anyone who knowingly breaks into your house while you’re there doesn’t mean you any good. But otherwise…meh!
For my home office, I installed a solid-core door and a heavy-duty pick-resistant lock whose bolt slides through the framing into the stud next to the door frame. While it’s not 100 percent burglar-proof, it sure will slow the perp down. Outside the window, which faces the street, I planted the thorniest, fiercest roses I could find, and this spring a man-eating bougainvillea may join them. Most burglars would rather enter where they can’t be seen, and obviously they’d prefer an entrance that is not going to leave them bleeding.
From the guys who put the elegant lock on my office door, I learned that most locks are very easy to open. The lock they installed will break the perp’s drill bit if he tries to drill the lock. Trouble is, it ain’t cheap. On the other hand…what’s peace of mind worth?
Other than discouraging entry to my office in my absence, for me the trick is not to make unauthorized entry impossible but to force the perp to make enough noise to alert me if I’m here when he tries to get in. All I want is enough lead time to get out a different door and run down the street—or to barricade myself and the dog inside the office behind the pick-resistant lock so that I can call the cops or, if the phone’s disconnected, climb out the front window.
On the front entrance, I installed a low-end security door, purchased at Lowe’s. The problem is, the locks you buy at big box stores are just ordinary door locks; even the best are simple to defeat. Though the metal door itself is pretty strong, it’s only as burglar-resistant as the lock. To get a security door that will really deter burglars, you have to buy a specialty lock and have a locksmith install it. So, I think of the security door as something that will slow the burglar down a bit and cause him to make enough noise to alert the yapping dog while he’s trying to get in. Here, the point is to let me get out the back door while he’s trying to get in the front.
My house, like my RA’s, has several Arcadia doors, and all the the windows are also sliders. These, as we know, are extremely vulnerable. Some people install bars over the windows and double-wide security doors over the sliding doors. This strategy is counterproductive for two reasons:
• Barring intruders from getting in through a window means you also bar yourself from getting out during a fire. The idea that a set of bars will have locked release catches and in an emergency you’ll find the key, unlock them, and then climb out is highly problematic. In a fire, smoke can cause true black-out conditions. If the power is out, as it’s likely to be once a fire gets going good, you can find yourself trapped in a bedroom with no light, even if there’s little smoke to blind you. Children in particular are likely to panic in these conditions and not be able to find the key or remember how to work it. Personally, I’d rather go mano-à-mano with the burglar than die in a fire.
• Security doors are not at all difficult to break through. All it takes is a crowbar.
La Bethulia had those one of those double-wide security doors put over an Arcadia door in the back of her house. She went out to dinner for about an hour one evening and when she got back some guy had pried it open and had a nice visit. The locksmith told me he felt they’re a waste of money because they’re way too easy to break into, and that for the cost you’re better off installing an alarm system.
A sliding door or window can be secured pretty well in one of several ways:
• Put a piece of doweling in the track along the bottom. This makes it impossible to lift the door and slide it open. An alternative is to drive a small metal screw into the metal frame at the top of the door, tightening it just enough that the head of the screw clears the top of the slider. This also will block a person from lifting the slider far enough off its track to slip the lock and push it open.
• Install two sliding bolts, one that slides downward into a hole drilled in the concrete slab or window frame, and one that slides upward into the frame above the door or window. Be sure the bolt on top side of the door is long enough to slide well into the wood frame. If you place them intelligently, they’re hard or even impossible to see from outside, and so this will usually discourage the perp.
• Get screw-on locks made for sliding doors. They come in two varieties: one with a little lever that you just turn to tighten the device down, and one with a key lock. However, remember that everyone in the house, including children and the very elderly, needs to be able to get out in a fire. These things mustn’t be tightened down so much that a kid can’t get it open quickly and easily, or out of a child’s reach. Better to lose the jewelry and the computer than the kids.
On all my sliders, I use both screw-on locks and dowels in the tracks. To get through a door or window that’s been secured in this way, you have to make some noise. Chances are, you’ll have to break the glass. Many burglars prefer not to break windows, because the noise can draw a neighbor’s attention. In any event, if you’re home, the sound of a man struggling to defeat these devices or breaking glass to get at them will alert you so you can get out before he gets in.
To add to the noise level, you can get inexpensive battery-run alarms that you can attach unobtrusively to sliding doors and windows. I found a lifetime supply of the things at Costco; no doubt Lowe’s and the Depot have them, too. They glue on. When the little switch is in the “on” position, the alarm emits an ear-vibrating shriek when the door or window is opened. Not a true burglar alarm, of course, but it’s enough to wake you up if someone tries to get into the house.
Just knowing that you’ll be alerted is usually enough to give you some peace of mind. I have them on all my sliding doors and windows, and on the dog door cover. Because, when the weather’s nice, I like to sleep with the front door open and the security door locked, I even put one on the security door, so it will go off like a banshee if someone drills that lock.
Should the burglar come a-calling while I’m out of the house, I’ve left a few treats around for him. For example, I have some check pads for old bank accounts that were closed years ago. I put a few of these in easily accessible drawers. If he finds them, he’ll think he’s scored a whole pad of negotiable instruments. An ancient Toshiba laptop, so superannuated it’s useless today, sits out where it’s easy to find. And I’ve also left a few fistfuls of cheap costume jewelry in a couple of drawers.
The things my mother gave me, which aren’t worth much but which I’d like not to lose, are hidden in strange places—yes, you could find them, but it would take some time and effort, both of which are in short supply for burglars.
Truth to tell, many burglars are fairly benign. They don’t relish violence—that’s why they burgle rather than mug, rob banks, or deal dope. My feeling is that if some guy wants to make off with the priceless necklace I made with $20.00 worth of stuff from the craft store, bully for him as long as he stays out of the house when I’m home. A few alarms and extra locks will keep you safe from intruders while you’re in the house, and as for the rest of it…BFD!
Now that Medicare is coming up, I have to find an insurer from whom to buy a Medigap policy. Yesterday I found an unexpected and valuable resource for insurance consumers, which I’ll describe below.
First, by way of background for those who have not yet enjoyed the privilege of trying to navigate the astonishing maze that is Medicare, the system works like this:
You can choose “Traditional” Medicare, a type of indemnity plan cobbled together with Medicare Part A (which covers approximately 80 percent of most hospital bills and which is free) and Medicare Part B (covering a certain amount of but not all of your doctor’s bills, at a cost of about $95 a month); or you can choose an “Advantage” plan, which is basically a private HMO with all the benefits and risks associated therewith. Most people feel the “traditional” plans are worth the extra cost.
If you go the “traditional” route, you must also buy a “Medigap” policy to cover the significant amounts that the government policy does not provide for. Medigap policies are standardized plans that come in a dozen flavors, from Plan A through Plan L. An hour or two of poring over the rules and features will reveal that Plans C and F are probably the only way to go—these are the plans that cover most or all of the things that Medicare proper does not cover. I’ve decided that Plan F is best, because it not only picks up the 20 percent missed by Plan A, it also will cover so-called “excess” charges for doctors who think they should make a living in the practice of medicine.
Now. Because these plans are farmed out to private insurance companies, the market is just. freaking. insane! The plans are all the same; insurers are required to offer identical plans with identical benefits. But the prices are all over the map. Here in lovely Arizona, for example, you can pay anything from $93/month to $417/month for the same plan!
The state Insurance Department hands you a booklet showing premium comparisons. It’s forty-six pages long!!!!! You have to sift through fifty-three insurance companies, trying to figure out which offers what plans for how much, and which companies are reliable and which are likely to rip you off or give you a runaround.
It takes hours and hours to parse through all this stuff.
I figure I can afford $150/month at the outside. Thirteen companies in Arizona offer Medigap policies for $150 or less. So, I made a table, preparatory to telephoning every one of these corporate horror shows. In it, I made room for a price comparison, notes on conversations with CSRs, and notes on Google, Better Business Bureau, and Consumerist reports. Then I spent about four hours trying to track down information on the thirteen likely vendors.
While stumbling around in Google, I came across a consumer service offered by the Texas Department of Insurance. Go to this page and you can search for an insurance company. Because Texas is famously huge, most insurance companies of any significance do business there. Enter, for example, something like “Lincoln Heritage,” and up will come a long page showing contact information (including headquarters addresses and phone numbers, plus names of company officers), financial information spanning the past three years, links to four financial rating organizations, a summary of the company’s history, and…ta da! complaint records!
Yes. Texas tells you how many complaints each company has registered in each of several underwriting areas and also calculates a “complaint ratio” and a “complaint index,” showing how the company’s complaint history compares with those of other insurance companies.
This, as you no doubt recognize, is platinum-plated data.
Thanks to the Texas Insurance Department and the Better Business Bureau, I’ve narrowed the preliminary search down to five companies with clean complaint histories and a likelihood of staying in business for a while:
Assured Life: $97/month
Loyal American: $138/month
Sterling: $139/month
United of Omaha: $93/month
USAA Life: $129/month
Amazingly, the cheapest companies appear to deliver high-quality service—Assured, run by a fraternal organization, and United of Omaha, associated with Mutual of Omaha, have the cleanest complaint records all the way around. So I’m hoping one of those will do.
The cost of this is just breathtaking: take $96 for Medicare Part B and add a bare minimum $93 for Medigap and you’re already up to $189, more than I’m paying for COBRA! And then I still have to buy Medicare Part D, the prescription plan, which is around $50 a month with a $250 deductible!!!!!
What I don’t understand is why the pathetic State of Arizona, whose administration by and large is a joke, can manage to provide employees an EPO for $39 a month that covers almost every doctor in the state (including the pricey Mayo Clinic) and provides prescriptions with a $15 copay, but the vast and powerful federal government can’t manage to engineer better rates than this. Now it must be admitted that if you had to pay the full freight for COBRA, that EPO would run almost $500 a month, and that the retirees’ cost for it is $400 a month.
So…maybe $240+++ a month that of course I do not have and will not have for the duration of 2010 is a bargain. But still….
Tammy points out that you can make napkins from bath towels and face towels, among other handy sources of fabric. When I’m here alone, one of my favorite napkins is a waffle-weave dish towel. They’re very absorbent, soft on the hands, and big enough to cover your lap generously.
If you have a family and would like them to behave as though they live in civilized society, it would be very easy to snip a waffle-weave towel into napkin-sized pieces and seam the cut sides. You could get two out of a single towel, and since they only cost about three bucks apiece, this is highly cost-effective compared to buying finished napkins. They come in lots of colors and designs, making it easy to find something that goes with your decor.
Beth points out that it’s easy to make one of those microwaveable warmth bags with a sock and some rice (oatmeal works handily, too). These things are great. She also contemplates various ways to apply ice to sore muscles and bruises.
If you’re not repulsed by the presence of plastic, a convenient way to make an ice pack is to dampen a paper towel (you could use a cotton washcloth or towel, of course!), lay it flat inside a ziplock bag, zip the bag tightly shut, and freeze it flat in the freezer. The result is much less messy than a plastic bag full of ice cubes—doesn’t leak as the ice melts—and as it softens you can mold it around a sore body part. To keep from applying extreme cold directly to the skin, wrap it in a light towel (such as a cotton flour-sack towel) or a napkin.
I find these work exceptionally well for migraine headaches. Yes. Weirdly, an ice pack may ease your migraine. Whatever works, works.
