Entries Tagged 'Spending and Saving' ↓

While doctors may no longer make house calls, electric carmaker Tesla now does. Tesla announced that it would send technicians to the homes or offices of their vehicle owners to take care of maintenance, software upgrades and many repairs.

Tesla’s “Mobile Service Rangers” will drive to owners even if they are hundreds of miles from the nearest dealership. The upstart carmaker has only four dealerships around he country: Menlo Park, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York. But the company has sold 700 Tesla Roadsters and now has customers in every state.

Because Tesla’s electric technology is so now, the average service station can’t work on the cars. Before this service, Tesla’s customers had to ship their car to the nearest dealership if they couldn’t drive in. To minimize the hassle, Tesla rolled out its mobile tech teams.

The service won’t be free, however. Vehicle owners will pay $1 for every round-trip mile that the technicians travel from the nearest Tesla service center. The minimum charge is $100.

Of course, Tesla Roadsters cost about $109,000, so this will be small change for the company’s vehicle owners.

The insurance industry is a competitive one so, in general, it pays to comparison shop when selecting your car insurance, health insurance quotes and other coverage. Websites like Very Cheap Car Insurance make it easy to compare rates from multiple carriers with just a click of your mouse.

However, this rule does not necessarily apply if you already have insurance with a carrier. You will often save money by bundling your policies together and keeping them with the same company. If you already have homeowner’s – or renter’s – insurance with a specific company, talk to them about adding your car insurance. In most cases an insurer will provide a significant discount if you keep your additional policy with them. It’s the same concept as buying in bulk: the more you buy, the more you should save.

Once you have gotten the quote from your current insurer, it would pay to continue shopping around. Now that you have one quote to work with, you can compare that to other insurers. If the first few quotes you get are higher than your existing one, then it means you should stay put. But remember, even if you have a policy, shopping around is the best way to get very cheap car insurance quotes. It’s time to go out there and start saving!

The anonymity os Swiss bank accounts is quickly becoming a thing of the past. U.S. authorities recently hammered out an unprecedented agreement with the Swiss bank UBS to allow access to personal date of 4,500 accounts held by Americans. Authorities suspect these customers of tax evasion.

Analysts said the agreement – one of the first of its kind – marks a significant step in the fight against tax evasion.

Under the agreement, authorities in Washington will initially have access to the accounts of 4,500 American customers of UBS, but the investigation led by the Treasury Department could unearth the identity of over 10,000 customers may have evaded tax authorities.

In total, the account have a value of over $18 billion. A representative of the Treasury said these customers have the option to present themselves to the authorities until September 23.

The Swiss Minister of Justice stated that this agreement does not violate the country’s bank secrecy law. The law is not intended to protect criminals the minister said. UBS will notify customers before their bank data will be made available to the U.S.

It is the second agreement between UBS and the U.S. this year. To avoid a justice case, the bank admitted in February that it helped Americans to avoid paying taxes. UBS has agreed to pay a fine of $780 million and will make available the names of 250 customers suspected of tax evasion.

If you own a home, homeowner’s insurance is one of the financial burdens you just have to put up with. But following a few simple steps can bring this burden to a manageable level.

Here are some tips on how to save on homeowner’s insurance:

Shop around. Comparison shopping for policies could take some time, but it could also save you serious money. There are dozens of homeowner’s insurance comparison websites around to make this task easier.

Increase your deductible. If you are comfortable with a bit more money coming out of your pocket in the event of a natural disaster or other damage to your building, increasing your deductible to over $1,000 can save you as much as 25% on your policy.

Get your rebuilding costs right. You should not be insuring your home for its full value, which includes both the home’s structure and the land it sits on. When calculating rebuilding costs, only include the value of the structure itself, not the land.

Improve your house’s security. Intstalling burglar alarms, smoke detectors, and dead-bolt locks can cut your homeowner’s insurance premium by over 15%.

Ask for discounts. Most insurers have a variety of discounts available, such as if you are over 55 or have an auto insurance policy with the same company. be sure to ask what’s available when shopping for a policy.

With a bit of planning you can get a great homeowner’s insurance policy without paying an arm and a leg for it.

At the end of last week French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a warning to French banks about the return of outsized employee bonuses. The warning came after news reports that BNP Paribas – France’s largest bank in terms of market capitalization -has allocated almost one billion euro or 14% of revenue in the first half of this year for bonuses. BNP Paribas had received 5.1 billion euro from the government to get through the credit crisis.

In contrast to Sarkozy’s statement, the chief of France’s central bank, Christian Noyer, said that the package allocated by BNP for bonuses are within the guidelines for banks established by G20 nations in April.

A political conflict was triggered last week after opponents on the left said that the BNP Paribas bonus plan proves that Sarkozy and the govenment have not managed to bring the banking sector under control following the collapse of the credit markets.

G20 Reshaped the Culture of Bonuses

In April, leaders of the largest economies of the world came together to reform the so-called “culture of bonuses” of the banks considered to have generated a wave of risky transactions with derivatives that triggered the crisis on the credit markets worldwide. The G20 agreement states that multi-year guaranteed bonuses should be eliminated that that employee incentives should be closely linked to the overall performance of the bank.