12 things we should stop buying now.

[theoldwolf]

From Time's Moneyland Click the link for the full article - here you get the executive summary without having to page through the slide show.
 
 
 
 

1. Homeopathic Flu Remedies: The CDC says there is no benefit.
   
2. Credit Card Payment Insurance: Largely a scam, with so many conditions and exclusions that you may never see a dime.
   
3. Dirt-Cheap Paper Towels: Non-absorbent, cancelling your savings.
   
4. Bottled Water: Expensive, non-ecological. Exception: If you're in a place where the water can't be trusted. See more here.
   
5. Premium Gasoline: 99% of cars don't need it. Edit: (From the comments below, it appears that many people still use premium or a mixture to get optimal performance in various vehicles.)
   
6. Super-High SPF Sunscreen: Expensive hype - SPF 30 blocks 97% of UVB rays. Exception: If you're very fair-skinned or have a history of skin cancer.
   
7. Auto Service Warranties: Scams - "92 percent of consumers called the companies’ sales tactics misleading or improper." Note: These are not the "prepaid service plans" offered by many dealerships, but the aftermarket solicitations you get in your junk mail.
   
8. 100-Calorie Packs of Snack Foods: Make your own. Exception: If you're a binge-eater who can't stop from eating the whole pack, paying more is still better for you than the alternative.
   
9. Lottery tickets: A tax on people who are bad at math.
   
10. Unlimited Cell Phone Minutes: Most of us don't yak enough to make such plans worthwhile.
    
11. Brand-new college texts: Do everything you can to find or borrow used or electronic versions.
    
12. Extended warranties: Usually duplicate manufacturer's coverage and are not needed. Exception: Laptops (especially for students and frequent travellers).
    

Comments

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

1. Homeopathic Flu Remedies: The CDC says there is no benefit. Chicken soup and clear juice (no orange) and a couple days in bed are what ya need... nothing else.

2. Credit Card Payment Insurance: Largely a scam, with so many conditions and exclusions that you may never see a dime.

3. Dirt-Cheap Paper Towels: Non-absorbent, cancelling your savings.

4. Bottled Water: Expensive, non-ecological. Exception: If you're in a place where the water can't be trusted. See more here.

5. Premium Gasoline: 99% of cars don't need it. - Bertie demands it

6. Super-High SPF Sunscreen: Expensive hype - SPF 30 blocks 97% of UVB rays. Exception: If you're very fair-skinned or have a history of skin cancer. (hey I live in Newfoundland *snerk*)

7. Auto Service Warranties: Scams - "92 percent of consumers called the companies’ sales tactics misleading or improper." Note: These are not the "prepaid service plans" offered by many dealerships, but the aftermarket solicitations you get in your junk mail. - Might have been a bit of a rip off in it's design, but thank merciful that I did buy it with the Disco - certainly Leyland's reputation was put to the full test in the first year I owned Bertie. Perhaps a bit of good luck over good management, but it came with and was bumper to bumper and I was buying a Land Rover afterall.

8. 100-Calorie Packs of Snack Foods: Make your own. Exception: If you're a binge-eater who can't stop from eating the whole pack, paying more is still better for you than the alternative.

9. Lottery tickets: A tax on people who are bad at math. - It's gambling, it's a game, a minor ($6/week) bad habit indulgence

10. Unlimited Cell Phone Minutes: Most of us don't yak enough to make such plans worthwhile.

11. Brand-new college texts: Do everything you can to find or borrow used or electronic versions. - I buy a lot of used books, but I still buy a lot of new because well ... I do, they're books, they're worth the investment. IMO

12.Extended warranties: Usually duplicate manufacturer's coverage and are not needed. Exception: Laptops (especially for students and frequent travelers).

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

The over-30 SPF sunblocks were just canned by the FDA a couple of months ago, I believe. No more pretending that they might work.

The brand-new college text scam is probably the most offensive one. Not only do they only sell some materials with new texts, but they will often rewrite them just enough that you can't use the previous one. I wonder if Pearson and Prentice Hall are owned by the mob and we don't know it.

[carlfoxmarten]

I have seen far, far too many textbooks that are in their tenth-and-up revisions, and the only changes are actually cosmetic rearrangements, with only a little tweak here and there to bring it up-to-date.
(example: Film Art: An Introduction by Bordwell and Thompson. I've heard that one of them has a fairly large mansion due solely to this book...)

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

My professors tended to subvert the arrangement; many of my mega-classes had homework assigned with two page ranges, one for the current version and one for the previous two. Others just photocopied journal articles and book extracts and made up a 'textbook' through the print shop. And some (my calculus teacher) wrote their own textbooks and charged you through the nose.

[carlfoxmarten]

Some of my classes had "custom courseware", where the instructors got permission to copy lots information from several sources, from newspapers to other books, and it was cheaply printed and bound, and generally sold for less than $40.
(the only drawback being that they couldn't buy it back, due to the licensing)

Then the university library helps by offering a book buyback program, where they'll buy your used books in good shape for up to ~40% of the original price.
I sold back as much as $300 in one semester's buyback.

[secoh.livejournal.com]

A couple of things worth noting:
With a modern computer controlled fuel injected car premium fuel will see greater tank range due to efficiency and more burn for buck.
This is the case here at least. But this saving is negated if the price of fuel is vastly different between premium and regular. It depends on how you drive, what you drive, where yo drive and the price difference.

Uni text books get updated every couple of years and it's damn hard using an out of date text as they move everything around.

Other than that, agree entirely!

[kusanagi-sama.livejournal.com]

1. I don't use any flu remedies as I never get the flu.
2. I have always saw the credit card insurance as a waste of money and interferes with paying off the credit card.
3. I am not my parents, I don't buy the cheapest paper towels out there
4. Tap water regardless of where you are is fine by me (except if you are on vacation, you want to try and keep drinking the same water)
5. Don't need to use premium, its high octane content on an engine that needs the lower octane of regular will get lower MPG, but will get more HP. Same goes with Ethanol, high octane = low MPG, but increase power along with creeping engine damage (at least corn ethanol is like this, sugar based ethanol is not, as I understand - the sugar beet based ethanol in Brazil for example)
6. I never use sunscreen. I hate the feeling of slapping sticky wet stuff on me
7. I never even use the warranty on my truck and don't go for those aftermarket warranties (except when the dealer makes you get one for the used car/truck you just bought)
8. I'm not a health nut, so I don't buy those products that in its good intentions is trying to starve you to lose weight, but only winds up making you eat more of them
9. I don't really care to do the lottery, as I rarely win anything. So if anything, I might spend $10 a month. This last time, last week I won $55 on spending $9 on $1 scratch offs (Hadn't won that much since around 1999-2000)
10. There's nothing much you can do about this, just about all cell phone plans come with unlimited minutes, except for the actual minutes you use when you don't call a cell phone
11. I tried my best to find used ones. If they had the kindle when I was still in college, I would buy me a Kindle and get the kindle version
12. See #7

[alaskawolf.livejournal.com]

i actually have to mix things in my fuel to get them above premium fuel for my cars :(

[bayliss.livejournal.com]

#12: Especially the ones the store try to sell you. The manufacture's warranty normally covers the first year and that is when the problem may occur. You do not need the additional 2 year service warranty thing that Wally world or Kame-a-Part may try to sell you.

[coyoty.livejournal.com]

I was glad to have credit card payment insurance when I was laid off in 2003. Like any insurance, it looks like a waste of money until you need it.

I play the lottery because I know that even if I don't win, the money will be going to support services that I and other people need and use. It's a voluntary tax, not one imposed on me. If I win money, it's gravy, and I won't win anything if I don't play. ("God, I prayed and prayed to win the lottery, but You never helped me!" "It would have helped Me if you'd bought a ticket.") Someone wins, and the chances are clearly stated, so no one is getting cheated.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

1. Flu remedies? I got a cold a few weeks back and it was 3AM on the day the delerium set in before I actually thought of using any remedy at all other than drinking water and trying to sleep....
2. Used to get loan insurance, then I got made redundant and found out the hard way. Thank GOD for family.
3. Buy from Tesco's, so not dirt cheap. I don't buy the fancy-schmancy TV advertised pocketed/quilted type, either.
4. "Evian is Naive spelled backwards" ... but I DO buy cheap bottled water. Supermarket own brand, "bottled in the Scottish Highlands" straight oot th' Heilan' tap, likely... but if you saw the state the local H2Oly leaves the kettle in.... I have a BRITA, I should use it.
5. 95 Octane and even that is £1.31 min per litre. I'm changing to an Auto from my manual though, (I think something else is ready to drop off the old girl and the Auto is 5 yrs old with one owner - my brother in law - abso. trustworthy. I still think it may be a drinker.
6. When I use it, I use from Superdrug - highest off the cheap shelf. I think it's SPF30. When you bald you gotta have something up top.
7. like regular servicing is cheap?
8. That's why I buy Coke in cans. 330ml or 3 litres in a few hours? Too much and I get reflux.
9. Sometimes. If I feel "hot" I'll get a lucky dip entry in the lotto. But only ONE entry 'Cause when you hot you hot!
I do a regular in the Age UK Lottery... I've won £10! but that's more a "contribution" you might say. I don't expect £250k any time soon...
10. Pay As You Go and let the world go by.... I txt when I can but looking at my top ups a contract MIGHT be cheaper... also I'd get a sexy "free" phone every couple of years instead of my Tesco Samsung which covers my needs....
11. As has been said by other wiser posters.... When I bought my textbooks (still got most of them, not that I understand them still) it was usually the case that references in lectures would only apply to the latest edition, they DO shuffle the contents. And that's in electrical engineering, where Ohm's Law has never been repealed...
12. Did it ONCE on a recon. VHS-C camera. 50% of the purchase price and a waste of money. If it fails, it will normally go within 6 months and the Sale Of Goods Act will apply. Of course, you might be buying a crap design, no guarantee will help there....

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I would add that those who actually win the lottery often use the money unwisely and end up no better off than before.