Executor of An Estate?

If you are asked to be the executor of someone's estate you should consider this very carefully before you accept. As executor of an estate you agree to take personal responsibilty for the handling of someone's estate. It will involve going through the probate process, paying fees and a LOT of paperwork. You will be responsible for noting both the assests and debts of the person.

If the estate is small then you may not have too much difficulty handling the role of executor. But if the estate is large then you should consider getting an attorney who specifically deals with probate cases.

If you decide to handle the estate yourself it will involve filing with the decedent's area courthouse, paying some fees and like I said above a LOT of paperwork. You will need a copy of the decedent's will. And just in case you're wondering what happens if the person didn't leave a will well then it will go to the courts to decide.

"No Insurance" conversation

...................but I have to pay off my hospital bill, $12k for 6 days stay in ICU. That is with a cash in 30 days discount (no insurance) with out that it would be $42K. Man, they really rake these insurance companies and people wonder why the premiums are so high! The system is so messed up I never seen a bigger bunch of crooks, no wonder all those people are smiling!

Property Tax Bill(s) Tidbit!

Here is an interesting little thing that I found out

It seems that there is at least one county that sells the unpaid property tax bills of its residents. Whoever buys these property tax bill(s) will pay the bill but will then become the person or company that you still owe the bill to.

In other words while you won't be liable to your county you are liable to whoever owns that property tax bill note.

Personally I think that this is just horrible - instead of finding a better way to work with the persons that owe the property tax bill they are sold off to the highest bidder.

So I guess that my piece of advice here is to just be able to pay your property tax bill because you might end up with a more worse creditor than your county tax office!

Those Nigerian Email Scams

Do you get those Nigerian email scams in your email box? I caught the tail end of a show on MSNBC about it. Now I didn't think that a lot of people actually sent in their money but I was wrong! Apparently this kind of scam has raked in millions of dollars! If you're not familiar with this kind of scam it goes like this:

You get an email from someone from another country saying that they have access to millions of dollars but they need your help in getting it. In return they promise to pay you a lot of money - somewhere in the 5 - 6 figure range (sometimes even higher!) Either you're supposed to send some "good faith" money or you are asked to send personal information like your bank account information. Even though just this much sounds suspicious many people have done it! Sometimes if you don't answer the email you'll get another one down the line saying that the money is ready for you but the representative hasn't been paid (by you). This payment that you're asked to make is supposedly suppose to be the representative's commission.

If you get this type of email - do you know what the experts say to do?

DELETE IT!

The Water Bill

Out of all my monthly bills, one of the smallest is my water bill. Paying this bill gives me a good feeling - enough so that I can tackle the higher bills for the month!

Don't Forget That Stamps Go Up 2 Cents Monday!

The price of mailing a first class letter will go up 2 cents on Monday. That means if you mail a letter this weekend then it would behoove you to add the new rate. While the post office says that they will give some lee-way as far as this is concerned - why take chances?

There is supposed to be a new stamp on sale called the "Forever" stamp. It's cost is 41 cents - which corresponds to the newly updated price of a stamp but this stamp is special because you will still be able to use it even if the stamp rate goes up.

PayDay Loans

Payday Loans? I really can't agree with these things! I know that there are circumstances that come up where people may need quick cash fast but I would advise that you stay as far away from these things as possible. First of all the money that you have to pay back will be considerably higher than the money you get. Secondly you will be charged very high interest rates!

If you can manage it at all start an "emergency" account. You can start off with any amount of money that you have. Keep adding to it even if its just a penny! Soon you should have enough to put it in some kind of bank account - hopefully a bank account that pays interest. Keeping adding to your emergency fund and watch it grow. Don't spend any of it unless it is a real emergency and then replace it as soon as possible.

Health Insurance

What can you say about health insurance? It's expensive and they don't cover every thing and you get loads and loads of ads about purchasing it!

Its not like it was in the "old" days - the days before HMO's. If you're lucky your job provides you with health insurance. But even that is becoming more of a problem because more and more news stories are about workers striking and one of the major issues has to do with the employee having to take a cut out of their paycheck to put towards health insurance coverage.

But that still leaves a lot of people without health insurance. Since I do a lot of grant research I know that there are some government programs where you can apply for health insurance benefits but you have to make sure that you're eligible.

Unfortunately even with the government programs that still leaves a lot of people without health insurance (and you may be one of them)

The only real advice that I can give you is that you shop around for the best rates. Just like with everything else you should do some investigating, research and comparison shopping when you are looking for a health insurance plan. Maybe you can get some feedback from friends and neighbors. You can also go online and search around for some forums and message boards where other people discuss about their health insurance coverage. There's no better "word of mouth" than the people that have the coverage themselves.

Barack Obama Has A Website

I know that most of the politicians have a website but it just struck me as something interesting. Here is a link to his website:

Barack Obama's Website

There is also a blog but its written by his staff. You can post comments and find out what is going on currently in his campaign bid for President.