I laughed when I read the title of this article at Bankrate.com, "6 good reasons for multiple credit cards"








The supposed benefits of owning multiple credit cars are:

1. Financial safety
2. Rewards
3. Credit score aid
4. Staggered bill paying
5. Easier bookkeeping
6. Leverage

CardTrak, who gets their information from the credit card companies, reports 60 percent of people do not pay off their credit cards every month.

Cambridge Consumer Credit Index found that 47 percent of balance holders only make the minimum payment.

A study by Dunn and Bradstreet showed that the credit card user spends 12 to 18 percent more when using credit instead of cash.

After McDonald's began taking credit cards, they found that people spent $5 to $7 more per sale.

Consumer Reports says 75 percent of the airline miles are never redeemed.

What do millionaires do? They do not get rich with free hats, t-shirts or air miles. What do broke people do? They use credit cards.

Oh yea, broke people also buy lottery tickets.

Labels: Credit Cards, lottery

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Are you one of those persons that has managed somehow to get the hang of it? I came across this list by A. B. Jacobs the other day. See if you recognize yourself in most of the twenty-five following scenarios, then you can confidently answer "yes" to that question.

1. Your credit card bill is paid in full each month with never a penny in interest incurred.

2. You understand that the variable annuity in which your neighbor just invested will prove to be a sad mistake.

3. Despite orchestrated furor by the media, you recognize that the $30 it costs to fill your vehicle's gas tank is cheaper in today's dollar that the $15 it cost 20 years ago.

4. You enjoy financial talk shows for their entertainment value while knowing that 95% of what is said is nonsense.

5. The only type of life insurance that you would ever consider purchasing is a term policy.

6. You are not tempted to invest in something because of a hot tip you get from a friend or relative.

7. You have serious doubts that the 3-credit course in basic English composition offered at Elegante University for $900 is any better than a similar course conducted at Midtown Community College for $60.

8. You are sufficiently sophisticated in real estate to know that the worst house in the best neighborhood beats the best house in the worst neighborhood.

9. You owe nothing on the vehicle you drive.

10. You have a pretty good idea by mid-November how much your income tax obligation for the current year will be.

11. When hearing that the S&P 500 Index just hit an all-time high, you are not inclined to call your broker with a buy order.

12. It is beyond your comprehension why anyone not certifiably insane would purchase a timeshare property.

13. Your checking account balance never drops below the minimum limit that triggers a monthly service charge.

14. You are aware that an option to pay your auto insurance premium in two installments, with a modest convenience fee instead of a single payment, probably works out as a loan at about a 25% interest rate.

15. Although you thoroughly enjoy the home in which you live, it is considerably less expensive than you can afford.

16. You know practically nothing about the option market—and intend to keep it that way.

17. You feel instinctively that every dollar you contribute in FICA taxes to the Social Security system is a dollar lost to you forever.

18. Whenever you are negotiating a purchase and qualify to receive a discount, you do not hesitate to ask for it.

19. You entertain no illusions that a financial advisor will provide sound counsel merely because of the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation held.

20. You make the maximum possible contribution to your retirement funds.

21. Whether your choice of wristwatch is a Rolex, a fashionable Cartier, a respectable Bulova, or an economy Timex, you recognize that all are battery-operated, with a similar quartz movement, and none fail to keep excellent time.

22. You find it baffling why anyone would buy a lottery ticket.

23. You cannot remember when you last borrowed money for an unexpected emergency.

24. The newspaper advertisement offering a half-pound silver commemorative medallion from The Perfidious Mint, at the "special advance price of only 139 dollars," forces you to suppress a laugh.

25. You have no confidence in the concept of "Investor Confidence."

Labels: Credit Cards, eddie money, insurance, lottery, mutual fund

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Studies show that the heaviest lottery players, the 20% of players who contribute 82% of lottery revenue, disproportionately are low-income, minority men who have less than a college education.

About one-half of American adults spend $45 billion annually on some 35,000 lottery games in 42 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It isn't news if someone earning $7 an hour scrubbing floors wins a dollar with a ticket, but it is news if they win big.

So who is playing the lottery? According to the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, in The Georgia Study,

*Blacks are three times more likely than nonblacks to be active lottery players.
*Males are almost four times as likely as females to be active lottery players.
*An individual without a high school degree or GED is more than four times as likely to be an active lottery player as an individual who has an education above the high school level.

Alabama is one of the few states that has successfully kept the lottery out. In a fact-finding study it was noted that legalizing a state lottery would create more than 16,000 new pathological gamblers, and cost the state more than $200 million socially and economically.

Do you play the lottery?

Have you ever won?

Labels: investing, lottery

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