Recent content by DroopyDog

Just got a notice that my Anthem Blue Cross monthly payment will be going up over 50% in March! It's a high-deductible ($3500) HSA plan. It's still relatively cheap (was $107, now going to $163) but, as they say, "it's the principle of the thing." :) The only claims I filed were just to get...

That reminds me of an old New Yorker cartoon: A older couple is doing accounting/running figures in their living room, and the man says, "If we take a late retirement and an early death, we'll just squeak by.." :D

What I've learned: Past performance is no indicator of future results :). I had biased my investments slightly to foreign investments since they seemed to be holding up better in the credit crisis. Of course, now it turns out they just hadn't been affected yet... 6 months ago everyone was...

Grazie la delfina! I think I do understand it intuitively, but if I try to think of how to explain it in terms of math and numbers I get lost quickly.:) Just for fun, I tried plugging in different ages on one of those online life expectancy calculators. For the exact same health/behavior...

I think the "average lifespan" people like to throw around is for someone being born today. As you get older, that lifespan curve gets adjusted upwards. After all, if you are age 78, the chance of your living to age 78 is already 100%;). If you're old enough to be thinking about retirement...

These days HP is pretty much just Compaq rebranded. Everything that remained of the old HP got spun off into Agilent, which hopefully still cares about product quality and the HP Way™ I think HP sold out when they discovered they could make tons more money selling printers and PCs than test and...

I wonder if one of the reasons why they charge outrageously for cash advances is because there is no merchant fee to boost their profit? Anyone know how much of the fee goes to VISA versus the actual CC company?

I was worried about a similar runaround to get my PenFed card, but it all went incredibly smoothly. Despite being "self-employed," I was approved while on the phone (for my requested $10k limit) and got my card a week or so later. Very strange, but I'm not complaining :)

Of course, in the big scheme of things it's no big deal, but I've never used cash advance before so I did feel a bit like I had been suckered. :(. Another part of me was also fascinated (if not amazed) at how brazen some companies can be when it comes to separating us from our money...

So I finally got around to opening up a minimal PenFed account ($5) so I could get their Platinum Rewards Visa card. As I'm not govt/military person, I also coughed up the one-time 20 bucks to join the families of military (or whatever it's called) association. PenFed said that charging that $25...

This was my first reaction as well. If the kiss is free in the second case, why not take both? But this does bring up an interesting question. Have you ever refused an item even though it was free? In American culture, it often feels like to not take something that's free (assuming it's not...

I'm curious. i have had several friends (both male and female) tell me that many women consider a man not having a job or goals to be a deal breaker when deciding who to date. How would you deal with this bias (if it's really true) if you're ER'd? Just saying "I'm not working now" or "I'm just...

Well, if the definition of amateur is someone who doesn't get paid for what they do, then he's probably right. I'd be more willing to take risks if I was being paid a lot to do it :). Any idea what kind of compensation scheme these fund managers get? Do they make more when their fund does well?

A few years ago I decided to no longer shop at my local WalMart because it had a horrible vibe. No one who shopped there looked like they wanted to be there, and no one who worked there looked like they wanted to be there either. They always seemed to be out of something I wanted, the lines were...

That's a bummer, since I was thinking about getting a Capitol One card because they don't charge any foreign exchange fees (typically 3%). Anyone know what PenFed's foreign exchange fees are like? (I couldn't find it in a cursory check of their website.) Droopy