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Retiring to a foreign country can be a cultural epiphany if you’re seeking exotica. But without realistic expectations and careful planning, your move abroad could be fraught with frustration.

Even mundane tasks like opening a bank account or getting a plumber to fix a leaky sink could take ages for people used to getting things done quickly in the U.S.

“It’s vitally important to relate your pace to the culture,” says Rosanne Knorr, seasoned traveler, expatriate and author of “The Grown-Up’s Guide to Running Away From Home.”

Before taking the expatriate plunge, spend a minimum of several weeks in a country immersing yourself in the local culture and honing your foreign language skills, experts say.

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There aren’t many musicians today who could get away with calling an album “It Is Time for a Love Revolution,” but as a throwback to another generation in all the right ways, Lenny Kravitz pulls it off with aplomb.- advertisement -

The 44-year-old Kravitz has been drawing fans for almost two decades with a stripped-down style of straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll that earned him Grammy awards four years in a row, from 1999 to 2002. His latest album, which features him on every instrument, gives back more of the same.

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Dear Terry,
I have a specially equipped wheelchair-accessible vehicle. It is a 2008 Honda Element with a lowered floor, manual foldout ramp, and wheelchair tie-downs. It cost about $20,000 to customize the car, giving it a total price of $42,000.
I want to make sure I have the appropriate insurance coverage for it. I stated the value at $39,000 (the amount I financed) for the insurance company so that the loan would be paid off. I have a standard five-year loan at 6.7 percent through a credit union. (more…)

Perhaps the most dreaded time for people whose cars and trucks are leased comes when it’s time to turn the vehicle back to the leasing company.

Even if the miles on the odometer show the driver is under or at the allowable mileage, there’s that gray area referred to in most lease agreements as “normal wear and tear.”

The problem arises when it comes to who’s deciding what’s normal.

While a few paint nicks from parking lot door encounters may seem like normal wear on a 4-year-old car, the leasing company could decide that the door needs repainting and bill the customer after the car is turned in.

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On July 31, Fair Isaac announced that its latest credit-scoring model, dubbed “FICO 08,” will include authorized user accounts when calculating someone’s FICO credit score.- advertisement -

The company estimates that 50 million consumers are “legitimate” authorized users on someone else’s credit card. Legitimate authorized users, such as spouses, parents and children, have relationships with the primary accountholders and reasons to share access to the accounts.

FICO 08 was originally designed to ignore authorized user accounts, in an effort to stem “piggybacking” on a stranger’s credit card and artificially inflating one’s score.

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As consumers continue to be rattled by a seemingly bottomless pit of bad financial news, they’re looking for ways to ensure their entire bank deposits are covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.- advertisement -

It’s not difficult to exceed the $100,000 limit on individual accounts, or the $250,000 limit on certain retirement accounts. In fact, the FDIC says that less than 62 percent of the $6.88 trillion on deposit in FDIC-insured banks was covered at the end of 2007. That leaves more than $2.5 trillion unprotected in the event of bank failures.

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Exchange-traded funds have proven to be very popular with do-it-yourself investors and financial advisers since their introduction in 1993. But their popularity has led to the market being swamped with them, and as a result, some investors have seen their funds liquidated.- advertisement -

ETFs present a cornucopia of investment choices in low-cost trading vehicles that trade like a stock. But, similar to mutual funds, each ETF represents a variety of companies, thereby mitigating some of the risk associated with single-stock investments. As investors have scooped them up in their portfolios, issuers have introduced more and more ETFs to the market.

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It was probably a matter of time before it happened. My personal information was exposed in a data breach. On June 10, my alma mater, the University of Florida, announced that more than 11,300 current and former students had their names, addresses, student record information and Social Security numbers exposed online. - advertisement -

I’m one among many who have seen their personal information lost or revealed in a breach. Linda Foley, the founder of the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center, says her nonprofit group has counted 309 data breaches this year as of June 12, resulting in the exposure of 16,795,000 known records total.

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