Harry Chen Thinks Aloud

The price of gasoline and oil are reaching a record high in the United States. In some places we are seeing a gallon of gas for $5.00. One way to offset the increasing cost is to reduce to your expenses. Start with how much you pay for your car insurance.

There are many ways to reduce your car insurance premium.

• Get quotes from different insurance companies. It usually pays to call different companies to find out how much they’re willing to reduce your premium in order to have your business. If you are a good driving record, usually you can get discount by switching to a new company.
• Review your vehicle coverage. Your insurance premium is calculated based on the type of vehicle coverage you select. Unless you have an extremely luxury car, usually you don’t need to select all coverages and have the maximum deduction. In particular, pay attention to PIP (Personal Injury Protection). Depending on your State law, you may be able to waive PIP coverage if you’ve sufficient emergence fund saved in the bank.
• Select higher deductions. You can reduce your premium if you choose to pay high deductible. You should alway choose the highest deduction that you can afford. Don’t be afraid if you go from $250 to $500 or $500 to $1000. If you drive carefully, the chance you need to pay a lot of money to fix your car is relatively low.
• Ask for discounts. Call your insurance company and ask what kind of discount is available to you. Insurance companies usually offer different types of discount — for example, university alumni discount, good driver discount, combine home and car insurance policy discount, and auto-pay via an checking account discount.

It’s hard to convinced people to be eco-friendly if there is no financial incentive. Here are few tips from Alice Quillet on how you can cut monthly bills and save the planet at the same time:

• Seal windows and doors will save your energy bills.
• Make good use of curtains natural lights will keep homes warm in the winter and cool in summer.
• Use energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs. Not only those light bulbs will use approximately 70 percent less energy, but also put out less heat and last about 10 years longer than standard incandescent light bulbs.
• Unplug unused chargers and electronic devices. A VCR consumes 90 percent of its overall annual electricity when on standby or not in use. Watch out for your unused cellphone, PDA and MP3 players chargers that are plugged into the walls.

Source: Help the planet and cut bills with a few steps at home

In addition to hotels and plane tickets, there are some important travel expenses that many people may have overlooked. These include (1) emergency medical expenses, (2) emergency cash in case of wallets are lost, and (3) wireless communication.

Before you travel, call your medical insurance company and find out whether your policy will cover any medical expenses you may have in a foreign country. If the policy doesn’t provide any coverage, consider buying a travel insurance from a trusted insurance company. It pays to have peace of mind.

Before you travel, have a plan for emergency cash in case your wallets are lost. One easy plan is to take advantage of your credit cards. Check if any of your credit cards offer emergency cash assistants. I know American Express does. Know how to in touch with your credit card companies while you are in a foreign country (collect call numbers, toll-free numbers, websites, email addresses etc.)

If you plan to make phone calls in a foreign country, look around for alternative wireless plans other than the ones offered by your current cell providers. If you have a Tri-Band GSM phone (unlocked), you may be able to acquire prepaid SIM cards for one of the local service providers.

Similar tips spotted on this IHT article.

Today I finished filing our 2005 federal and state taxes. Few tips I want to share with the readers.

1. E-file your taxes. Filing you tax online can save you time and money. This year I filed our federal tax using the TaxCut Online Premium service. The regular price of this service is $19.95. I took advantage of this promotion link to file for free. Note this promotion doesn’t include any free state e-file.
2. Exploit free e-files offered by the state governments. I didn’t use TaxCut Online Premium to file our Maryland state tax. I’ve used the iFile online service provided by the Comptroller of Maryland. Although iFile is not as user friendly as TaxCut, but it’s free. I suspect other states also offer similar services. Check them out if you want to save $24.95 — this is how much TaxCut wants to charge you for filing state tax online.
3. Ask for direct deposit if the government owes you a refund. Should you expect tax refunds, have the refunds directly wired to your checking or saving account. Not only you will get the money back faster, but also you avoid the chance of losing refund checks in the mail.

Other helpful tax-filing tips:

• 12 tax-filing tips for college students, BankRate.Com
• Charitable Donation Rules Are Changing, Yahoo! Taxes
• Correct filing status can make a difference in your tax bills, BankRate.Com
• 15 tax-filing mistakes that you can avoid, BankRate.com (if you paper file)

Update: a reader kindly informs us that a desktop version of the TaxCut can be downloaded for free. It seems to work well for those who want to switch from TurboTax to TaxCut.

Sue Stevens at Morningstar.com described 101 ways to do cut our daily expenses. It definately worth the reading. I don’t think the whole todos list can be applied to every person. While cutting back on expenses is a good thing to do, but I don’t think people should sacrifice their happy lifestyle for money either.

Good Tips

• Consider dropping your land line phone at home: land lines are useless unless you need it for home security systems.
• Send free e-cards and save on postage: send less paper cards means save more trees
• Don’t get divorced: don’t have kids either. Go DINK as long as you can.
• Quit smoking.
• Sell stuff you don?t need or use anymore on eBay: if you can’t sell it, donate it. Donations are tax-deductable.
• Buy energy-efficient appliances: Don’t forget to buy energy-efficient light bulbs, too.
• Do your own home improvements: it’s fun and good workout.

Bad Tips

• Use the public library to check out movies or books for free: waste too much of my time.
• Give your time/services instead of ?things? for gifts: my time is more valuable than money
• Pay cash when possible:I hate cash. It’s dirty and old fashion. If you don’t know how to control your spending, use cash won’t change anything.
• Cook in bulk and freeze: what about taste? Shouldn’t we all enjoy what we eat?
• Plan parties where everyone brings something: it’s so college life style. Don’t host party if you don’t plan on spending money.
• Order vegetarian when you?re out: what if I like meat?

Money is meant to be spent and make you happy. Learn how to balance between spending too much and saving too little is the key.