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Insurance stock ideas; A great approach to de-hacking

My favorite insurance broker, Matt Wood of Metz, Wood in Chatham, NY (click here) follows two brilliant investment techniques:

+ Dollar cost averaging into index funds with annual rebalancing. That way he can focus on his day-to-day business and doesn’t worry about market gyrations.

+ Three individual insurance stocks — the companies he deals with and likes: Travelers (TRV), Cincinnati Financial (CINF), and Chubb (CB). They show a nice even capital gain over the past five years. Each pays a dividend of between 2.1% (Chubb) and Cincinnati Financial of 2.53%.

I love re-positioning

Retail is dead.

As they say, “Once you’ve seen one mall, you’ve seen them all.”

But people are buying malls cheaply — ultra-cheaply — and re-positioning them as medical offices (same need for parking). Meantime, pop-up stores are popular.

Billing stuff

Everyone and their uncle are billing you months before your payment is due. Magazines, websites, membership renewals, etc.

Magazine are saying it’s your “last chance” — but they don’t mean last chance to renew your subscription. It’s your tenth “last chance” to renew their offer of  a free subscription to someone else (like one your kids). Most magazines have their expiration date on their invoice — often a year from now — when you got their latest “last chance” notice.

I just received a “service interruption from Network Solutions for this website. Yet it doesn’t expire until April 24. And today is… well, it’s not even close.

Hacking advice. Maybe this would have saved me $600? A brilliant reader writes:

Hackers are now planting ransomware bait into some of these ads, and the ads pop up on your screen as you browse. Anti-virus software cannot detect it. Simply cleaning out the browsers cache and history files may have been all you needed to do.

My suggestion to you is to install the Opera browser. It’s not made by Google and it has heaps of apps that you can use with it. One of which will prevent pop ups. The Chrome browser still rates No.1, but Opera is a close second with Firefox. You can still use Google as your search engine. My wife had an infection of ransomware on her computer too. The cache clean out solved it. I installed Opera on her machine and she hasn’t had a similar problem since.

Meantime, sign up for two factor ID with your online bank. Much better security.

Watch out for phishing. Don’t click on pop-up ads or respond to emails that say your password needs changing.

Grammar stuff

+ You’re and your are different. If you’re a manager, your boss will think you are an idiot if you get them confused.

+ It’s is different to its, also. It’s is it is. Its is its favorite tune.

I only nag on this nonsense when I’ve receive yet another wrong email. Like today. It’s OK to write sentences without verbs. Mr. Trump, our chief grammarian, does it all the time.

Battery life on the iPhone is fine — until you use Waze, which is a power suck, (but the absolute best app for the iPhone). Then you have two choices:

+ Plug it into your car’s power outlet.

+ Use it on battery pack. Until recently, there was one choice: Mophie. But there are now two new choices: Apple and Trianium. I do not recommend the Apple nor the Mophie. I prefer the Trianium — for technical and price reasons. For the iPhone 7 plus, the Trianium is only $60. Click here.

Litle Tikes bouncy house

littletikes

My son Michael bought Claire and Ted one as a house-warming present. It takes three minutes to blow it up using the pump provided. We used it in the basement, though it says it’s meant for outdoor use. Kids love it. It exhausts them, making it easy to get them to bed. Only $184.06 and worth every penny. Click here.

The value of education

A university student working part-time to pay his way delivers a pizza to an old man’s house.

“And I suppose you’re expecting a tip?” grumbles the old man.

“Well, that would be nice,” says the student, “but the other guy who does deliveries here told me I shouldn’t expect too much from you…he said if I got $2, I’d be doing well……”

The old man looks hurt. “Did he now? Well, to prove the little prick wrong, here’s $20.”

“Gee, thanks.” says the student as he turns to leave.

“By the way,” asks the old man “what are you studying?”

The student smiles, “Applied psychology….”

The problem

John told his wife, “I’ve got a problem.”

She stopped him right there..

“No dear, we have a problem. We’re in this together John. We married for better or for worse. Therefore, your problem is our problem.”

John sighed in relief. “Well, now it’s hardly worth mentioning.”

But his wife was insistent. “Go ahead John”, tell me. What’s wrong?”

John replied, “Somehow, we got your sister pregnant!”

HarryNewton
Harry Newton, who spent the weekend visiting Claire, Sophie and Ted in a town near Portland, Maine. My impressions: That coastal part of Maine is gorgeous. We had bright blue skies and a white dusting of snow everywhere. Heaven on earth. The economy up there is booming. Portland is the biggest town in Maine. It’s also become a great foodie town, like Portland, Oregon. Good indoor tennis courts, too. Worth a visit.

One Comment

  1. Lucky says:

    If that “Bouncy House” is used outside make sure it is very, very, very securely fastened down, especially in Oregon when Micro Bursts are common…many children have been injured when the wind takes them away or throws them out of their Bouncy House.

    Problems with pop-up ads? Install “Ad-Blocker” it is free…since I installed it on my computer, about 9 months back, I have not had to look at 267,532 ads including one on this page today. You can pause it or un-block with a click, if need be. Get it here getadblock.com
    I never click on blind ads…not even on your (supposedly) very safe page…never know who put it there.