• edmunds.com - car value info
• bankrate.com - savings account rates
• tmobile.com - cell phone rates - $39.99 for 1500 minutes
• tiaacref.com - 1-800-223-1200 - buying term life policies
• usaa.com - 1-800-531-8000 - term life help
• dwellhouse.com - pre-fab homes
• hud.gov - gov't problems for first time home owners by location
• ingdirect.com - savings rates
• inventored.org - inventor info
• howstuffworks.com - inventor help
• nolo.com - inventor info

A marketing company based on Ohio known as the Annuity Service Center has been targeting seniors to scam them out of their money. What happens is the seniors go to their mailboxes and find something from the company. The notice tells the seniors that the annuity has reached the end of its service period and asks them to contact the company. It sounds very legitimate and convinces people to take action. But really, the organization is just trying to get leads to get into the seniors’ homes to sell them annuities. Sometimes the people don’t even own an annuity, but they call anyway. About 30,000 of these notices go out each day. Make sure you tell your parents that this scam is out there. Don’t let people into your home and cancel an appointment if you’ve made one. You don’t want to engage these people in any way.

According to MSN, Americans are carrying $700 billion in credit card debt these days. The average household credit card debt is $8,000. And the average interest rate is up to 15 percent. No one ever got rich paying Visa or MasterCard 15 percent. Of credit card holders, one in 16 people are delinquent. That means those people can’t stay current on their minimum payments. The Federal Reserve also recently reported that 43 percent of people are spending more than they make. So, we are experiencing unprecedented amounts of debt as temptations grow. We need to trim our spending and face what we owe by coming up with a plan to pay it off.

This is the time of year when cell phone companies get more aggressive and try to poach people from other companies. Lots of people have contracts that are about to expire, so it’s a good time to jump ship. T-Mobile is offering a great deal for typical users. For $39 a month, you get 1,500 peak minutes. For $10 more dollars a month, you also get unlimited nights and weekends. T-Mobile service is evidently much better than it used to be. And that is a theme throughout the industry. There are also new pre-paid companies such as Net10. You can get 10 cents a minute with that plan. Cricket Communications and Metro PCS also offer great unlimited, local plans. Check those out at mycricket.com and metropcs.com.

Many people out there don’t surf the Web, and sometimes Clark forgets that. He often gives out Web sites that offer comparison quotes and information. So, what about those people are aren’t Internet active? There are options out there for you, but you need to pick up the phone and call. The companies that offer very good rates on term life insurance are TIAA-CREF and USAA. The phone numbers are 1800-223-1200 (tiaa-cref) and 1-800-531-8000 (usaa). You buy term life based on the years between now (your current age) and the number of years left in your working life. You base the amount on your needs, which include a wife and kids or just a wife or just a husband. You can get quotes from agents if you feel comfortable. But if the person starts trying to sell you something else, run the other away.

Housing costs have increased so much in recent years that the value of a dollar toward a home just isn’t what it used to be. Since 1986, Clark has believed that people would be much better off if they built their homes in factories instead of having them built on site. It may seem like you’d get better quality doing it on site, but that is not the case. It’s very haphazard with unreliable workers and lack of building standards. In a warehouse, it’s much more exact and yet every house is unique. One magazine, Dwell, has its own line of high-end factory built homes. And it’s something that is growing in popularity across Europe. The homes can be built for much less and takes just a fraction of the time. One designer can build a home for $45,000 and put it in place in one day. That doesn’t include the time it takes for the site to receive the house. But once it’s ready, one day gets it done. We’ll start to see this more often in the States, mostly in cold months at first.