Often I hear people reminiscing about the good ole days when gas cost 20¢ a gallon. Well I wasn’t around back in those times, but I do have vivid memories of when it was 99¢ a gallon. Just one year ago, when gas was $2.99 a gallon, many people were in a ruckus. I wasn’t too troubled about the prices though. I bought into the notion that gas prices had not kept up with inflation. I figured the prices were playing catch up and that eventually they would level off. Well as gas prices peak more than $4 a gallon… I am no longer holding on to that inflation theory.

But I am not going to complain about gas prices… I am sure you’ve heard it all before. And beside, complaining won’t solve the problem. I’d rather talk about how we can deal with it.

Other than searching for the cheapest gas in town, there are some things we can do to save on gas, such as improving gas mileage. There is lots of information available on the internet. But not everything you read is true. So I’ll dispel some commonly believed myths, then I will give you some proven ways to improve gas mileage.

4 Things That Won’t Improve Your Gas Mileage

• Filling up during the coolest parts of the day – Yes, gas condenses in cooler temperatures. But this fact has little impact when fueling your car. Whether you refuel in the morning before the sun comes out or at hi noon in the brunt of the heat… it makes no difference. Most gas is stored underground and underground temperatures are relatively constant throughout the day.
• Topping off the tank – I’m not sure why some people think this will improve gas mileage. The only thing that will happen is that fuel will spill down your car and onto the ground. Now granted I know nothing about physics, but you standing in a puddle of gasoline next to a gas draped car sounds in 100 degree heat… well to me… that just sounds like a bad accident waiting to happen.
• Turning off the air conditioner – I do not see how anyone can cruise around in my city without the A/C on. Even if by chance it did help save on gas… who wants to blister in a smoldering, hot car? Ok so you roll the windows down to let in the breeze which comes with thermal level heat and humidity. That still does not make you comfortable… and the added drag from the wind in your car actually reduces gas mileage. I don’t know who start this cruel joke, but please leave the air on people.
• Using premium – Some people live buy it. They’d swear that paying 35 cents more a gallon for the highest octane gas provides benefits. I hate to tell you folks, but it just ain’t so. Unless your car manufacturer specifically recommends it, fueling up on premium improves nothing. Save the extra 35 cents and get 1/10th of 2 percent of 1 cup more drops of regular 87 octane fuel.

4 Things That Will Improve Your Gas Mileage

• Driving on a warm engine – Plan better commuting routes. Run all of your errands in one trip. Allowing your engine to cool down and then warm up again is inefficient. Gas burns less on a warm engine. And don’t plan to be out and about during high traffic times. It does not make sense to waste gas idling in rush hour trash if you can avoid.
• Tightening the gas cap – Did you realize some people allow their $4 a gallon gas to evaporate into thin air? Not only is this not good for the environment, but it also depletes your car’s personal gas supply. Make sure the cap is on tight, save the environment and your money.
• Using cruise control – Driving at a consistent speed is more fuel efficient. The energy your car uses to break, accelerate, slow down, stop and go reduces gas mileage. Maintaining a consistent speed as much as possible improves gas mileage.
• Using a credit card – Most card companies offer a rebate on all purchases. Many offer double or even triple rebates on fuel purchases. Look for card offers rewards on your every day gas purchases. While this has no immediate impact, you can always use those rewards to purchase more gas.

I have seen quite a few articles about why people should rent cars… special occasions, no need to worry about maintenance, yada, yada, yada… But I could not find any articles about why people shouldn’t rent cars. So I’m gonna play devils advocate and create my own list.

And I have come up with 4 perfectly good reasons why you shouldn’t rent a car…

1. Rental Car Companies Discriminate

Some car rental companies have no qualms about not renting to certain people. I am sure the companies have conjured up a shrewd reason why they refuse to rent to those under age 25… but if a 24 year old can drink, smoke and vote… then why can’t they rent cars? By age 25, many people have already finished college and have responsibilities like working a bona fide job, beginning a family, paying real bills. Are they not worthy enough to rent a car?

And yet other car rental companies try to skirt the issue by charging a premium. I say don’t be so wishy-washy – either rent to young people or not. It seems as if these rental companies exploit the fact that young people have limited rental car options. The companies are forcing those under 25 to pay these premiums because they have no where else to go. Sounds like a monopoly to me.

2. Rental Car Companies Trick You With Hidden Fees

The car rental companies charge all kind of hidden fees. You can be charged extra for anything from picking up a car from the airport to dropping the car off at a different location. Sometimes they sock you with mileage fees. But the one that gets me is the refueling charges. When you rent a car, you must return it with the same amount of gas. If you return it with less, they will charge you almost 2 times the price of the average going rate for a gallon of gas. That’s awfully excessive… especially considering you won’t be refunded if you return the car with too much gas. Heck, you may have not had time to stop at the gas station because you were in a rush trying to avoid partial day charges. But do they care… no!

3. There Are More Eco-Friendly Alternatives

Al Gore says that car emissions are contributing to the end of the world. Surely you don’t want to be a contributor to ending the world. So you can walk, run, cycle or roller skate to where you need to go. If you are traveling too far to make it on your own muscle, consider using public transportation, car pooling or hopping on a Amtrak or Greyhound.

4. Who Were The Previous Occupants

People tend to be less conscientious in dealing with things that aren’t theirs. To tell the truth, some folks can be down right disgusting. I have heard about the things people leave behind in rentals. I’m not trying to gross you out or anything but if people can ooze blood, urine, feces and semen around rented rooms, they certainly do the same in rented cars. And not to mention the viruses and bacteria they leave behind that are lurking for a host.

Yeah, the companies may clean the cars between rental. But the objective is only to get the car looking clean, not to make sure it’s actually clean. Vacuuming the back seat does little to rid it of ole Joey boy’s dried in “excitement”. And I can bet the steering wheel, gear shift and door handles aren’t disinfected.

I am no germaphobe… but I can imagine all yucky stuff lingering about in rental cars.

Tada…!!! Pretty good, huh?

Hopefully I have dissuaded you from renting a car. But in case I haven’t, you oughta give Budget Rent A Car a try. And you can use these great specials while you’re at it:

10% off the regular rental rate

$30 off Weekly Rental

20% off plus 3000 Delta SkyMiles

5% rebate when you use your MasterCard

10% off plus free upgrade

$50 off rentals over 60 days

$20 off weekend deals

Frequent renter perks

5% off daily rental

Up to date coupons provided by Quicktoclick

And

Special Offers straight from the horse’s mouth

Between Thursday and Friday of this past week the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 450 points, officially taking it into what stockbrokers call ‘Bear Territory’; that is, a drop of 20% or more in a single year.

Do I care?

Not much. Even though the last time I looked, my 401K was losing about 8% annually, I’ve decided that a better way to spend my energy is to focus on things that cheer me up. I spent Friday afternoon making strawberry jam. In an apron. A 1940s collectible full bib apron, a la Ma Kettle.

Yes, it’s true. I am a Domestic Goddess.

So even though I could write a post about how Ford Motor Company stock is at its lowest point since 1955, or how Citigroup is in big trouble again, or how NY writer Tom Wolfe thinks we are witnessing “…the end of Capitalism as we know it,” (this from a guy who dresses like Colonel Sanders and wrote one of the awfullest books ever, made into one of the awfullest movies ever, The Bonfire of the Vanities), or how Chrysler is denying publicly that they are considering bankruptcy (meaning that they almost certainly are considering bankruptcy)–even though I could write that post, I’m not going to do it.

Instead, here are ten much more pleasant things you can do while the American Way of Life collapses around your ears. Then, once the dust settles, we can all talk.

1) Make Jam. I spent $25 on a flat of strawberries, $5 on four boxes of fruit pectin, and $2 on a five pound bag of sugar. I put up 13 two-cup containers of freezer jam, two quart bags of whole strawberries, and made shortcakes to eat with the leftover berries. We’re having them again tonight. I figure I saved between $10 and $15 doing this all myself, which isn’t all that impressive savings-wise, but you haven’t tasted that jam. Yum.

2) Read a Big Book. My partner, the world’s smartest truck driver, is currently reading Truman by David McCullough, a book that is as big as my head and twice as heavy. The book is about Harry Truman, former US President, not Truman Capote or The Truman Show. Harry Truman was so broke when he was a US senator that he had to hire his wife Bess to be his secretary just so they would make enough to cover their basic living expenses, then he spent the rest of his political career worrying that this necessary and pragmatic action would ruin his political integrity. Wow, have times changed or what? (Can anyone spell Oink?)

3) See Pixar’s Latest Flick Wall-E. Pixar is used to effusive praise, but the positive ratings on this one are off the chart. Wall-E is a sad-eyed trash-compacting computer left alone on earth after all human life has disappeared. His only friend is a cockroach. Don’t worry though, Al Gore isn’t in it, and at the end we find out that the human race has survived, just on another planet. The thing is, if you must see an apocalyptic movie this year, shouldn’t it be adorable?

4) Rent ‘Fight Club’. What, you say you were just laid off your cushy broker job at Citigroup and the only cute robot you want to see right now is one you pump so full of lead it ends up looking like an antique sieve run over by an SUV? Fine, I get it, put that now-totally-legal weapon away, will you please? Go directly to the closest video store and rent the film version of Chuck Pahlaniuk’s dark novel about the end of the world as we know it, courtesy of fed-up cubicle slaves. Trust me, it will cheer you up, especially the final scene. Girls: I have two additional recommendations for you regarding this film which make it worth watching all by themselves; Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

5) Write a Cheap Food Cookbook. Mark my words, with the recent midwest floods destroying corn and soybean crops and a world food crisis already fully under way, in about eight months, somebody in the US is going to make a fortune off a clever book on how to make a tasty casserole for a family of four out of lint. Why shouldn’t that person be you? If you work in the auto or financial industries, you’re going to need the money, so get crackin’! Times a-wastin’.

6) Start Your Own University. College has become unaffordable for most kids and their parents, but there aren’t many jobs for graduates anyway. Instead of whining and crying about this, why not take the bull by the horns and start your own university? You must know how to do something. A degree from a state college currently costs about $50K, so charge 10K a head and then teach kids something useful, like how to covert SUVs into affordable housing. You’ll be doing a community service and you only need 10 students and you’re in six-figure income territory!

7) Help Build SUV-Henge. We know that with big cities strapped for tax income (due to all the foreclosures and all the industries pulling out and moving to China) public parks are hurting. Why not take the current glut of undrive-able SUVs and stack them on end to build a monument to the Sun that can be used at the Summer Solstice to appease whatever Gods are mad at us? (Probably all of them right now.) A majestic Public Works project is usually just the ticket to cheer people up during hard times, and the raw material and free labor is all around you.

8 ) Take a Stay-cation. ‘Staycation’ is a new buzzword for something wonderful I’ve always loved more than anything else in the world: Stay home and do nothing. Right now, I am so behind on doing nothing that even if I do nothing for the rest of my entire life I probably will never catch up. So if you are lucky enough to be too broke to do anything, count your blessings. Look at it this way: at least you don’t have to go to Disneyworld. Those folks are insane. The giant mouse, the dancing princesses, it’s a horror show.

9) Walk Around, Take Photos. Can’t afford to drive? Recently laid off? Take that digital camera and walk around chronicling the end of civilization. Someone really should be doing this, and I am so busy constantly grubbing for money I don’t have time right now. Plus, it’s good for you, all that walking. And dumpster diving is the the new chic way to go, so anything good you see lying by the side of the road, take it home and brag to your friends!

10) Hoard Rice. Come on, I know you want to do it. Sometimes, just being told you aren’t allowed to do something is enough to make that thing the only thing in the world you ever wanted to do. Buy your four 100 pound bag limit at one Sam’s Club, drive to another and buy four more, then back to the one you started at and buy four more, and don’t stop until your entire house is so full of burlap bags of rice you think you are on a Red Cross ship bound for Myanmar.

There. That ought to keep you busy for the next two hundred days or so until Barack Obama is finally President. I don’t know how much he’ll be able to fix by the time the inaugural ball is finally over, but at least the madmen will have gone back to Texas.

Anyone want some jam?

Ok guys… now that the DH has spruced up with the patio with new furniture and a new Monster King Kong grill, I’ve got the urge to polish my green thumb. Keep in mind the only gardening I’ve ever attempted on my own landed my poor yard on the “needs professional help” list.

I had this wild idea that I wanted to grow some berries bushes. Well… it wasn’t that wild. There was a method behind the madness. I was trying to save on my grocery bill. I love berries but they are so expensive… a half pint of raspberries is $6! I figured I take that $6 to buy some seeds so I can grow my own. So I bought 4 berry tree seedlings, found a shade-less patch next to the fence, got a shovel and started digging.

When I was done planting the seedlings, I felt proud. And I was optimistic that my hard work would eventually result in plump juicy berries. Well that was not quite the case. I am not sure what happened. It’s been 3 years and we still ain’t picking berries off a bush. Actually, there aren’t even any bushes. And the kicker… I’m still paying $6 for 10 raspberries at the local grocer.

The only remnant of my hard work is a small woody stem that refuses to just give up. Seriously the thing just won’t die, I mow over it, sprinkle it with herbicide. Two weeks later, it has spouted up again. It refuses be a victim of my gardening catastrophe.

But anyway, I need something to complement the patio. So I think I might give this gardening thing another go. However for round two… I have come up with a plan that hopefully even my inexpert green thumb can’t boggle.

I got some creative ideas from Lowes and mapped out a simple scheme to enhance my outdoor living space. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the final product bears some semblance to mini oasis I see in my head. If it doesn’t I won’t be too hard on myself… the best way to learn is to practice, right?

You might be thinking… there is a bit of a double standard here since my philosophy was different when my DH was “practicing“. Well, call it what you want… but when I practice gardening… what’s the worse that can happen? I kill a few flowers? When my DH practices home improvement (I use this word loosely)… what’s the worse that can happen? The attic caves in on the living room floor? Ok, see the difference? I think the double standard is appropriate in this situation.

And even if I do have a few gardening mishaps here and there, it will only cause me a lot of sweat and very little dollars. Even though I am new to this gardening thing, I am a pro at cost minimization. And the best way to minimize my gardening cost is to take advantage of special offers at Lowes.

First I can estimate the project cost

Then use these to reduce the cost:

$10 off $25 purchase when I use my Visa at Lowes

Sign up for this 10% off coupon

$4.99 shipping or fee shipping to the local Lowes store

Use my Lowes card for a great interest rate

Special Lowes discounts for realtors

Win a $100 Lowes gift card

Free Lowes gift card California teacher buying a house

Earn and redeem Chase Freedom points

New sales at Lowes every week

Special values exclusively for Lowes customers

Pick up Lowes coupons and gift cards on eBay

Comprehensive list of all current Lowes coupons

By the way, Lowes also honors competitor coupons.

Hey, who doesn’t love to get free stuff?

I know I do, so even though I’m not a pop drinker and haven’t personally had an ice cold Coca Cola since I was 14, when I learned that I could get free stuff at www.mycokerewards.com just by entering the numbers inside the bottle caps, I was on it like Sherlock on Watson.

Everyone else in family drinks Coke of course, and so do all the people around me at work. Do they save their bottle caps so they can get the free stuff at the My Coke Rewards website? No they do not. They are busy people. I’m a busy person too, but come on, FREE STUFF! We’re talking F-R-E-E here, just for entering some numbers at a soft drink website.

So now, guess who volunteers to dispose of everyone’s pesky bottle caps? You got it: that little old tea drinker, Me! I don’t feel guilty either, because like I said, I buy tanker truckloads of this fizzy stuff for my loved ones, and have for years.

It’s kind of like when you don’t have kids and you go to all the wedding showers and then baby showers for the kids of people you know, and then finally, after many years of being bored out of your mind and never winning the door prize, it’s your kid’s turn. So even though you think showers were invented by God as a punishment for women’s descent from Eve (and a harsh punishment too) you invite every single person whose shower you ever attended and all their relatives too. It’s your right. It’s your turn. And they damn well better show up!

But wait, you say, maybe you don’t want to have free stuff all over your house that has the words Coca Cola plastered all over it. Maybe you don’t want red Coke pants and a white Coke T-shirt with red lettering and a red Coke gym bag to carry with your red Coke sneakers, and so on, and so forth.

No problem!

You can use your reward points to enter sweepstakes at www.mycokerewards.com for everything from tickets to Six Flags to Nascar events. You can also save up your rewards points to earn discounts at other cool retailers like Best Buy, use your points for music downloads for your phone or I-Pod, save your points for coupons for free Blockbuster movie rentals, or you can donate your rewards points to your favorite school.

Best of all, you don’t have to only drink Coke to qualify for the rewards points. You can find these points on the inside of the caps of all Coca Cola soft drink products, including Dasani bottled water, Barq’s Root Beer, Vault Energy Drinks, Powerade, Fanta and Faygo drinks.

So, drink pop, or don’t. But do register at My Coke Rewards and enter those bottle cap numbers whenever you have a few spare minutes. They add up really fast, and you know what that means…

FREE STUFF!!

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Dear Exxon,

Last year you made $40.6 billion in profit. I made $24,600. (Mine wasn’t all profit though.) Clearly, we move in different circles. Your ways are not my ways. Your kung fu is greater than my kung fu. Your gross receipts for 2007 alone topped out at over $404 billion, which is bigger than the gross domestic product of no fewer than 120 nations.

Wow.

My writing profits for 2007 totaled about $78, (which is what the US is currently shooting for in terms of gross domestic product. We’ll get there, I’ve no doubt.)

I have a question to ask you, if you have just a minute.

I am doing much better this year, and I see that so are you, with over $10 billion in profits in the first 2008 quarter alone, and the price of gasoline now pushing $4.50 or higher in lots of parts of the US, and diesel even higher, so high, truck drivers in Spain are acting up. Good for you. That’s what capitalism is all about, right? Profit, profit, profit. And you are leading the pack, holding the torch as it were (don’t hold it too close to all that oil though…you know what happened at that BP refinery). I commend you for your initiative and success.

Here’s my question:

Why did you find it necessary to fight the $2.5 billion in punitive damages for the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, a spill that released 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay and covered 11,000 square miles of ocean, a spill you admit was your fault and no one else’s. I mean, you have the money, right? We’re talking 1989 here. Since 1989, you’ve made so much profit that all the zeros won’t even fit into this blog, so let’s not even go there.

Perhaps you have forgotten that the Exxon Valdez oil spill instantly killed somewhere between 250 and 500 thousand sea birds, 250 bald eagles (an American icon which at that time I believe was actually an endangered species to boot), and 22 Orca whales, not to mention sea creatures of all kinds too numerous to list much less count.

Thousands of volunteers saved you most of the painful and hopeless work of trying to save these rare, suffering animals so you could instead take way too long finding a subcontractor to spray deadly chemical dispersants, surfactants, and solvents (which, damn the bad luck, didn’t work very well) all over the already poisoned Bay. So it’s not like you didn’t try at all, and to be perfectly fair, cleaning up oily messes is not really your thing. You are in the business of finding and selling oily messes.

Still, what did it cost you to fight this thing legally for 19 years running?

Corporate lawyers don’t work cheap. Even the ambulance chasers around here get $100 an hour, so I know you had to spend far more than the penalty just arguing the penalty in court after court after court.

What’s up with that?

Were you afraid that if you were held to some basic, minimal standard of corporate responsibility it would end up cutting into your impressive profits? If so, I wish you’d have called me first. You don’t have sic a squad of corporate attorneys on people and birds and fish already drenched in oil to preserve your right to be irresponsible. All you really have to do is get one of your pals elected President (oh, I forgot, you did that already), and then hire a big, glossy advertising firm to make beautiful commercials with lots of politically correct ‘green’ imagery and multinational persons wandering around on sand dunes and seashores and stuff like that, all to show how sensitive and environmental you are. That’s what BP and Dow Chemical do, and it works great.

People will believe anything if it’s on TV.

I know you won’t answer my letter. I know you are busy. It’s just that, for the life of me, I can’t understand why you would spend more than the original $2.5 billion, just to get it reduced to $500 million 19 years later. Maybe you aren’t aware of this, but right now, people in this country don’t like you very much. People think you are greedy and uncaring and tyrannical. People think you are gouging them and doing whatever you please and damn the consequences. When you don’t bother to even respond to those kinds of feelings, we start to feel like you don’t really care about us very much.

At the beginning of 2007 NOAA determined that you still have 26,000 gallons of crude oil poisoning the sandy soil of Pruhoe Bay Alaska. I just want to ask you this one favor:

Please don’t charge them for that oil.

Thanks for listening. Your little capitalist fan,

Pam, PFA

Well… not really, but her shoe designs are divine. Did you see her new Tsarina slide? They are fabulous. It’s a part of her new Summer 2008 Collection at Payless Shoe Store. And the best part, they are only $35. Yes… $35! But you can get them on sale right now for just $24.99. Don’t let the inexpensive price fool you. I know that anything that bears Patricia Field’s signature has got to be marvelous. Ok, you got me… so no, I don’t know much about fashion, but I know a killa pair of shoes when I see them.

But you do know who Patricia Field is, right?… Right?

Oh come on people… work with me here! She is the Oscar nominated designer and stylist who’s work can be can be seen in “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Sex in the City”. She is at the top of her game. Yeah she might be considered a bit flamboyant… but hey… the woman has got her own Barbie. That has gotta count for something.

This is the second year that her collection has been featured at Payless. And I just adore her styles. While Payless may not be Fendi… it does give us regular folk an opportunity to feel like a star. Heck, some stars have even been caught navigating the Payless Shoe Store aisles.

Payless has sensibly priced collections created by renowned designers like…

Stacey Bendet… sleeps next to Eric Eisner, lines featured at Neiman Marcus, posh boutique in Downtown New York

Laura Poretzky… European born, glam fashion designer, line featured in InStyle, Flare, Glamour, Self, Star, Redbook, Lucky, Life & Style, Vogue, Elle

and Lela Rose!!! New York Fashion Designer, Texas Native, Jenna Bush, The Olsen Twins and Mischa Burton all have her stuff in their closet

Oh boy, I’m getting exciting just thinking about it. With styles by designers like these all in one place, who needs to look anywhere else.

Payless really is the only place you need to fulfill all of your footwear needs. They carry everything from baby’s first to men’s athletic shoes. And with more than 4,500 locations, there is sure to be one near you.

Payless already has great prices, so there is no need to use coupons. But in case you want to find ways to get great Payless bargains for even less, take a look at these offers:

BOGO – Buy One Get One Half Off now through July 7^th

Free shipping on Orders over $50 good through July 7^th

Free site to store shipping ongoing promotion

$2 off $30 purchase or $3 off $40 purchase – printable coupon expires July 15^th

$5 gift card voucher delivered to your inbox

Get 10% off your gift card

10% Discount when you show your AAA card

3% Cash Back from Simple Rebates

2% Cash Back from Coupon Refund

2% Cash Back from Coupon Cactus

3% Rebate from Stock Back

3% Rebate from Nest Eggz

3% Back from Babymint

Points from Rewards to Share

8% Cash Back from Fat Wallet

Win a $100 mall gift card from Prince Georges and use it at Payless

Check this forum often for the most up to date deals

Buy a gift card here and 7% goes to your favorite charity

Or sell your left over gift card for cash

Today’s insurance topic concerns something near and dear to most of our hearts: Our stuff!

Is your stuff adequately covered by your insurance policy?

If you have homeowners or renters insurance you may assume that all your stuff is automatically covered, and that if something happens to it you will have no trouble getting it replaced. Just a quick call to your insurance carrier and they cut you a check, right?

Not necessarily.

The first thing you want to do to make sure that your stuff is covered is check your policy to see if you have replacement cost coverage or actual cash value coverage (often referred to as ACV). Replacement cost coverage means just what it sounds like it means: your stuff is insured for what it would actually cost you to go out and buy a new one of whatever it was that just got stolen or destroyed. So if you have a ten year old refrigerator that burns up in a house fire, even if you could only get $50 for it at a garage sale before it burned, your insurance company will give you $600 or $800 or whatever amount of money it takes to buy a similar refrigerator new. If you have ACV, you get $50 and that’s it, (after your deductible is met).

Replacement cost coverage on your personal property is usually not much more expensive than ACV coverage, and it is worth every cent. You may think you don’t need it, but consider what it would cost you to replace every spoon, washcloth, shirt, and piece of furniture you own in the event of a total loss. You’d be surprised how fast that all adds up. So don’t scrimp in this area of your policy.

Now that we’ve made sure you have replacement cost coverage on your home or renter’s policy for all your stuff, you can relax, right?

No, not yet.

Some categories of personal property are covered for very limited amounts on a standard homeowners policy, and usually for theft only; not fire, windstorm, or any number of other normally covered perils. If you own any items in any of these categories, you have to add them one by one to your policy by ‘scheduling’ them. Usually this involves getting appraisals, sending the appraisals to your insurance company, and paying a small additional premium each year. By scheduling special kinds of property at a small additional cost, you can insure them for their actual value and insure them against all perils instead of just theft.

Property that falls into this category includes fine jewelry and precious metals, coin collections, antiques, fine art and other collectible items, firearms and other weapons, money, bonds, and some kinds of electronic and business equipment. If you have anything of special value to you, call your agent right now and make sure it doesn’t fall into a category that leaves you with limited coverage. Wedding rings are a good example of a type of personal property that people often neglect to schedule, only to discover later that the rings aren’t fully covered under the terms of their policy.

Another special category of property you might want to consider purchasing additional coverage for is your computer and all its peripheral equipment and software. Many companies have restrictions on how much they will cover when it comes to computers and software, but they offer inexpensive additional coverage that can be purchased. A computer rider is worth every cent, especially if you travel frequently with a laptop.

Do you have a basement family room or office? If so, check with your agent before you assume your property is covered for basement water damage. In some states you can add this coverage, but in others you can’t. Most people don’t realize that a homeowners policy only covers the home from the foundation up, and the foundation itself is excluded. So if water comes in through foundation cracks or seepage, you may find you have no coverage at all if your stuff is damaged while in your basement. Ask if you can purchase “water back-up coverage,” which if available typically can be purchased in $10,000 increments.

How about some good news? I do have some of that too. If your son or daughter is away at college in a dorm room, all of their stuff will usually be covered under the terms of your policy just as if it was still in your house. If they move to an off-campus apartment though, you have to purchase them a renter’s policy, (if you can find someone to write one for a college rental!)

Finally, if you travel, your stuff is covered for up to 10% of the total personal property limit, anywhere in the world. So if you have $150,000 of personal property coverage on your home policy, you have $15,000 in coverage for the stuff you pack in your suitcase. Good to know!

The best ways to make sure you have the coverage you need for the stuff you have are 1) to ask lots of questions, and 2) to read your policy!

When you don’t need that coverage, you never think about it; but the last thing you want is to be surprised in a bad way when you do need it! So take a minute now, dig that policy out, call your agent, and make sure all your ducks are in a nice, neat row.

One day, you’ll be glad you did!