Misleading Property Tax Reassessment Mailings

Many of us homeowners received solicitations in the mail last month from "Property Tax Reassessment."  These looked like "official" documents from the assessor's office although the return address was a PO Box in Los Angeles.  Initially it appeared that I needed to respond with a $171 processing fee to reduce my property taxes by $1,973 per year.  And pay a $67 late fee if not returned by 9/5/08.

It didn't seem right.  I read the form more carefully and soon realized this was a very cleverly and carefully worded advertisement.  I did some searching and discovered the Ventura County Assessor's Office issued a "Scam Alert" for these types of solicitations and there was also a Ventura County Star article on the issue a few weeks ago.

They were offering a service to file a form to claim your property value has declined below its Prop 13 value.  It costs you nothing to do so yourself (visit the Assessor's Office website above for more info).

The Assessor's office does its own reassessment of local properties and sent out 30,000 decline in value notices this summer.  The office goes on to say that most houses purchased before 2004 have not declined in value below Prop 13 increases (which are limited to 2% per year).

I carefully read the front and back of the solicitation.  Nowhere does it "guarantee" you a tax reduction.  (They can't of course.)  So don't get ripped off!  If it looks too good to be true, do some research!

Let Conejo Joe know if you come across more scams like this so we can all stay aware!

Time to Carpool (or at least start thinking about it!)

Last week we explored ways to save money on skyrocketing gas costs.  Let's take a closer look at carpooling options. The best approach is to find others at work who live in your vicinity.  But if this doesn't pan out, how about trying to connect with people online?

There are many carpooling websites but most of them are not worthwhile for the Conejo Valley.  These include:  www.NuRide.com (not available yet in our area), www.ridecheck.com (mostly for 1-time rides, not regular carpools), www.carpoolworld.com (just didn't seem very user friendly nor helpful), www.ridesearch.com (was useless to me) and www.ridester.com (mostly 1-time rides).  And ride-sharing social network sites www.zimride.com and www.goloco.org were too much effort to figure out.  I prefer something immediately USEFUL!

The one website that seemed to have a decent selection of potential carpoolers in the Conejo Valley area was www.eRideshare.com.  The site is geared towards daily commuters and did not take long to figure out.  I quickly found 50 possible carpools originating within a 10 mile radius of Thousand Oaks.  Type in your zip code and see what is available. You still must register (for free) to contact other users.  This one is worth checking out.

You can also try the Ventura County craigslist rideshare link (http://ventura.craigslist.org/rid/).  This turned up a few possibilities but is mostly geared towards 1-time rideshares.

I had high hopes for www.ridematch.info as it is sponsored by various local transportation authorities.  They make you register before searching for carpools which I did not like.  After that somewhat painful process I found very few options.  The site has potential but was not user friendly.  I would not recommend it.

Another alternative is the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train, which runs from San Luis Obispo to San Diego.  With local stations in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Moorpark and Simi, you can take the train to Glendale, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and other destinations.  Amtrak can be pricey for a 1-time commute (currently $32 round-trip Moorpark/Los Angeles) but if you buy a monthly pass ($302) and use it all the time you can really save a lot of money and wear and tear (both you and your car).  Visit www.AmtrakCalifornia.com for more information.

So good luck and let me know if you have other carpooling ideas!

Life Insurance for Babies? Worthwhile?

It has been 4 1/2 years since this posting, so we have updated our analysis as of January 2013.

So I'm sitting here in my family room with my young boys, TV blaring in the background.  A commercial for Gerber Life Insurance, the "Grow-Up" plan, appears on the screen.  What the?  Why would I want to spend money on life insurance for a baby??  Does this make any sense to consider?

The plan is summarized at www.gerberlife.com.  It is a whole life policy with coverage ranging from $5K to $35K.  You can buy the policy for a kid (or grandkid) anytime between the age of 14 days and 12 years. At age 21 the policy automatically doubles in value as long as the premiums are paid.  At age 28 your kid can increase coverage by a factor of 10 at the then applicable rate.

I took a closer look at the $30K policy, with a monthly premium of $20.46.  They say that after 20 years the "cash value" of the policy equals or exceeds the premiums you paid.  That would be $4900 in year 2028.

If you took that $20.46 each month and invested in a college savings plan and it earned an average of 5% or 8%, you would have $8400 or $12K in year 2028.  To me, that makes a lot more sense than an insurance policy.

Would this Grow Up plan make sense for anyone?  The policy makes sense if your child dies, as the payoff would pretty much cover the funeral and burial costs; not much more than that.  Statistics in the U.S. indicate a death rate of 1 in 5000 children aged 1 to 14 and 1 in 1400 for teens ages 15 to 19 (the California rates are roughly 10% to 15% better than these averages). 

Seems to me that the premiums are better spent on college savings then the possibility of death at an early age.

One last argument for the policy is that it guarantees your child the ability to increase coverage by a factor of 10 at age 28.  This would only pay off for someone who otherwise is unable to get life insurance at that age.  To me, this is not worth forking out 27 years of premiums for.

Learn All About Fuel Economy

Visit www.FuelEconomy.gov, a website maintained by the U.S. Environmental Agency, for everything there is to know about auto mileage.  The site provides gas mileage tips, miles per gallon on cars going back to the 1985 model year, tax rebate information on new hybrids, quick and easy MPG comparisons for cars and much more.

Tonight I learned the EPA changed the way it measures MPG in 2008 to reflect faster speeds, faster acceleration and increased air conditioning use.  Apparently MPG measurement standards had not been changed for decades.  So if you want to see the old vs new MPG estimates for your old clunker, click here.  The MPG on my cars was about 10% lower than the original estimate (which is no surprise).

You can also use the site to compare MPG on cars.  I compared the mileage on a Toyota Highlander 4WD vs Hybrid 4WD and learned that the hybrid gets about 7 MPG more than the non-hybrid, which would save $800/year if I drove 15,000 miles per year.  Based on my mileage, the hybrid would save me maybe $500 per year in gas, assuming $4 per gallon.  This is not enough to make up for the additional cost of the hybrid.  But the top-rated Toyota Prius Hybrid with city/highway mileage of 48/45, looks tempting.

The last thing I checked out was the current tax rebate status of hybrid cars and discovered that rebates are no longer available on the Highlander have not been available since Sept 2007 (the rebate phases out after 60,000 vehicles have been sold).  But I see there is a $3000 tax rebate on your income taxes if you buy a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid.

Thanks to my wife for pointing out this useful and informative site.  With gas prices at an all-time high, it is getting hard to ignore finding ways to save money.

Save for College Tax Free

Anyone with kids who has not opened a Section 529 College Savings Plan take note.  A 529 plan allows anyone age 18 or older to open a savings account for future college costs (such as tuition, books, room and board, supplies, etc.).  The California ScholarShare plan (www.ScholarShare.com) allows California residents to save for college and any earnings are TAX FREE as long as withdrawals are used for college costs.

There are a number of other nice features about these plans:

• If your child doesn't attend college, you can use the funds for another child or even use them for yourself.  Or grandkids, siblings, nieces, nephews, (fill-in-the-blank)-in-laws and spouses of any of these individuals.
• Funds can be used at any 2 or 4 year college, university or vocational school.
• There's a very low $50 minimum initial investment and no annual account fees.
• Fidelity has 10 different investment options, including several "age-based" plans that automatically invest more conservatively as your child nears college age.
• If you are leery of the stock market, there are conservative investment options like money market and treasury bond funds.
• You as the account holder control the account, not your kid! 

These plans are pretty much a no brainer if you know someone in your family will be attending college and you will be paying for it.  Sign up now to start saving for college while cutting your taxes!