Over-insured? Under-insured?

Let it be clear at this early: I am not an expert on insurance.

But I am deeply frustrated about people who think that all they need to achieve their financial freedom are life insurance policies. They may fall under the case of being over-insured.

I am also equally disappointed with people who has an insurance coverage way below their insurance needs and think that they do not need to increase coverage. They are what I call under-insured.

And they may sound arrogant when you talk to them.

A Person with Savings Can Walk Tall ~ A.F. Bannerman

I really don't know who A.F. Bannerman is.

But here's an excerpt of an article attributed to him or her.

It is about saving.

Doubling your money and the Rule of 72

As greedy humans, we want something that doubles our money.

Fine, I will give you something that can double your money.

The Rule of 72.

(click or open image in new tab to enlarge)

How does this work?

Credit Card, anyone?

Credit card. Necessity or status symbol?

Ever since I knew what a credit card is, I promised myself not to get one. Around 2009, when BPI offered me a pre-approved credit card, I declined it. They even tried to deliver the card at home, but I told the messenger that I did not apply for it.

Compare: Fees & Charges of Online Stockbrokers

(click to enlarge)

I saw a post (click here) in Pinoyexchange.com where a PEXer compared the charges of two online stockbrokers -- AB Capital and COL Financial.

So I thought, why not make a broader comparison of charges and fees of several online stockbrokers? The result: click the picture for its full size.

BDO cuts interest rates too (after MBT and BPI)

(image from www.slatepropertiesnow.com. No copyright infringement intended.)

I already blogged in a previous post about the rate cuts on deposits products of Metrobank and BPI this year.

And now, BDO has imposed the same rate decrease on savings products. See the new rates on their website.

0.25% annual interest rate.  Seriously?

Benchmarking: Equity Mutual Funds and UITF

(source: Bloomberg)

When you are given a dozen eggs and inspect them closely, you will eventually see they are not of the same size (and sometimes shape) even though they came from the same poultry farm.

If you need a more human example: when you see a set of siblings, you will realize they are different from each other even though they came from the same mother and father.

Same with equity mutual funds and equity UITF, even though they are invested in the same stock market (same parent so to speak), the result of each fund differs from the others. You may compare them one by one... but you can also use just one "ruler" to measure all of them -- the Philippine Stock Exchange Index or PSEi.

Graphs after the jump.