Have the six tipsheets you've seen so far been helpful?
If the Internet ate any of the tipsheets we tried to send, you can
always visit our Resend Center to have them sent to your
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You're off to a great start!
The next
step is to simply to continue your journey: grow healthier
and wealthier, and have more time to spend in happiness and
safety.
Probably the best way to do just that is to subscribe to free
newsletters that are designed to benefit consumers. The
CFA's Consumer Sleuth is one such service. It's very
similar to "The World's Best Consumer Tips" except
that it takes only 20% as much time to read because it's shorter
and comes about twice per week.
It's not like most other newsletters: tiresome laundry
lists of news stories, tidbits and ads. Each Consumer
Sleuth will focus on one powerful consumer tip, then show how
to use it to get the maximum benefit for your
life.
The Consumer Sleuth is free, it's a fast-and-fun read, and
it's designed to be highly useful to all consumers. If you
liked the tips you've read about in the Best Consumer
Tips series, you'll want to keep learning because your
life is worth living to the fullest!
This tipsheet is the last of the Best Consumer Tips, so
today is the only time you'll be offered this opportunity.
If you'd like to subscribe, just click this button:
Perhaps you're a little unsure if it's right for you? Then
just try it for a few days -- you can always unsubscribe just by
clicking the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of each
email.
One of the first editions of the Consumer Sleuth will
cover the "Unlucky 13," the next worst consumer goofs.
They're not as awful as the "Dirty Dozen" we covered in the last
email, but each mistake is costing many Americans tens of
billions of dollars every year. We've already touched on
almost all of these topics:
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How to avoid high automotive costs
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| 24. |
Don't overspend for telecommunications services
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| 23. |
Mortgage mistakes no consumer should make
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| 22. |
How to make out a living trust instead of a will
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| 21. |
Good dental habits that can save money
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| 20. |
How to use credit cards the right way
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| 19. |
How to get the best homeowners insurance
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| 18. |
The many benefits of a good credit score
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| 17. |
Maintain your home to preserve its value
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| 16. |
Ensure sufficient funds for retirement
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| 15. |
How to use money-saving tax breaks
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| 14. |
Be careful to avoid medical mistakes
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| 13. |
Don't forget to "be young at heart" -- have a good balance of
rest, play and/or exercise
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As a final added bonus, most of our Ultimate
Money Makeover package will soon be made available to all
Consumer Sleuth subscribers, free of charge! In
the past that was available only to paid subscribers. It can
really give a powerful boost to the prosperity of nearly
any consumer. Look for an announcement from us about this
super opportunity in just a short while.
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Thought for the Day:
"Failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the
best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake
is to stop trying."
~B F. Skinner (1904 - 1990), American psychologist
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To-Do List:
1. Subscribe to the Consumer Sleuth:
2. Consider subscribing to other newsletters.
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Other Free Consumer Newsletters
You may also wish to try one or two other newsletters, then add
or drop some depending on how much they're helping you. The
ones listed below are the most consumer-friendly letters
we know of, with the broadest coverage of important
consumer topics.
We judged the quality of these newsletters
by actually subscribing to them. The criteria was
simple: they were rated by the number of articles they
contained that we judged to be of high usefulness to
consumers. A health newsletter from WebMD is also
suggested, because "health is the greatest wealth" as the saying
goes.
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1. BankRate.
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Bankrate's newsletter gives you many good tips covering a broad
range of financial subjects. Their greatest expertise is
in banking, mortgage rates and credit cards. But their
newsletters go far beyond those subjects and they really do a
first-rate job. They cover thrift and conservation in
greater depth than the other sites, but don't expect them to say
much about investing.
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2. CBS Market Watch.
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Their excellent Personal Finance newsletter covers a broad range
of subjects important to consumers. They have expertise in
real estate and investing, carrying articles from both the Wall
Street Journal and the Real Estate Journal.
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2. (tie) Kiplinger Personal Finance.
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Kiplinger.com has probably the best weekly newsletter, for
those who don't want to spend much time reading. Their
specialties include tax advice, investing, economic forecasting,
retirement and agricultural news. They also publish the
highly regarded "Kiplinger Letters" that you can get by mail.
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WebMD.
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WebMD has a daily newsletter covering the latest medical news and
dispensing good advice for healthy living. Other
newsletters cover cooking, beauty, sleeping well, dieting and
their "Living Better" letter. There are also over twenty
specialized newsletters that focus on various medical conditions.
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Other sites.
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Some other newsletters we've found to be quite useful are produced by
Consumer Reports,
Smart Money Magazine,
MSN Money,
CNN Money
(which is produced in association with Money Magazine) and
The Dollar Stretcher.
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Poll: How'd We Do?!
Which tipsheet helped you the most? Answering this
poll will help the CFA match its priorities to the needs of
consumers: | |
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