“When your dream appears as an opportunity, you must have ready cash to take it home with you.”

- Anonymous

Welcome to Money-Smarts, MsMoney.com's weekly newsletter of financial facts, features, and tools. Money-Smarts is designed to provide quick and useful information to help secure your financial future. Enjoy, and tell a friend about MsMoney.com!

In This Week's Issue:

• Market Summary for Friday, October 6, 2000
• Tips for the Week: Daily Advice to Help Get You Through the Week
• Read the Latest: 10 Steps to Side-Stepping Used Car Scams
• Run the Numbers: What’s the Impact of Taxes and Inflation on Your Savings?

Market Summary for Friday, October 6:

Close

Net Change

Percent Change

DJIA

10596.54

-128.38

-1.20%

NASDAQ

3361.01

-111.09

-3.20%

S&P 500

1408.99

-27.29

-1.90%

30-Year Bond

5.845%

-0.054

N/A

Source: Reuters

Tips for the Week: Daily Advice to Help Get You Through the Week

Monday: Want to learn more about investing and teach your kids about the market? Get your family together and start your own investment club. Have everyone agree on a long-term goal--a family vacation, for instance--and then decide jointly on which investments will get you there.

Tuesday: Be smart: buy disability insurance. Although it can be expensive (between 1-3% of your income), it’s necessary protection: 1 in 8 people will suffer from a severe disability during their lifetime. Learn more about disability insurance.

Wednesday: You probably already know you should have a will. But there are other legal documents that may prove to be just as valuable to your estate plan--a durable power of attorney, living will, and health care power of attorney. Learn more about estate planning.

Thursday: In a rising housing market, own your home for at least 2 years before selling. If you sell within 2 years, your profits will be subject to capital gains tax. Learn more about buying a house.

Friday: Thanks to the power of compounding, the younger you start investing, the more your money will earn--by a substantial amount. Learn more about the power of compounding.

Read the Latest: 10 Steps to Side-Stepping Used Car Scams

By Emily McDowell

So you need to buy a used car, you don't know a carburetor from a carbohydrate, and you're facing the process alone. Here are a few tips to get you going:

1. Be Decisive
If you tell a dealer that you’re not sure what you’re looking for, he may try to sell you whatever he needs to get rid of.

2. Get Informed
You can never ask the seller too many questions about the car’s history. Comprehensive checklists of these questions can be found at www.carbuyingtips.com and www.carlink.com. Print them out and take them with you to the dealership.

3. VIN Is In
The VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) is essentially a car's "social security" number. Carfax (www.carfax.com) is a great consumer protection site that uses a car's VIN to instantly run a vehicle history report. This will tell you if the car has ever had major problems, i.e., been in a serious accident, flooded, salvaged or rebuilt. If anything questionable shows up on the report, don’t buy the car. More-->

Run the Numbers: What's the Impact of Taxes and Inflation on Your Savings?

Click here to calculate the future value of your savings adjusted for taxes and inflation.

Questions

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