3 New Ways to Save on Gas

In search of diaper deals and cheaper milk, Erin and Chris Smith joined their local warehouse club. To their surprise, the Cary, N.C., couple found their biggest savings at the pump: They saved about $200 last year at the club’s filling station, which discounts fuel for members. Cheaper gas is becoming popular territory for warehouse clubs and supermarkets – a bigger play for customer loyalty, and a new opportunity to pad their own bottom lines.
Warehouse clubs and grocery chains are increasingly offering discounted fuel at their U.S. stores — often up to 10 cents or more per gallon lower than other stations a few blocks over. There are about 5,000 of these so-called “hypermarts,” up 37% over the last five years, with another 200 expected to open next year, according to EAI, Inc., which tracks the petroleum sector. About 70 supermarket chains now include fuel stations at some of their stores. But this growth in discount gasoline comes with a catch: To get the deal, customers usually have to spend a certain amount of money in the store, or they have to be warehouse club members – at $40 a year or more.
For their part, retailers barely profit from their fuel station sales, says Ron Santicola, a consultant focused on retailing and fuel distribution at Gerson Lehrman Group, a research firm. But it’s worth it: The lure of cheap gas leads customers to spend more money inside the stores, analysts say. That $200 Smith says she saved last year? It went right back to BJ’s (BJ: 47.16, -0.38, -0.79%). “Instead of having hot dogs for dinner, we might have steak,” she says. For retailers whose in-store margins average 25% per product, even small additional sales can have a big impact, says David Livingston, an independent supermarket analyst.
Still, with gas prices up 9% this year, the savings can be significant. The average American household spends about $2,000 per year on gas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; a $200 annual savings cuts that budget by about 10%. That’s money that could be saved, or used to pay down debt, or even have steak instead of hot dogs. To make these programs work for you, SmartMoney looked at three popular ways to get fuel on the cheap — and their potential savings and pitfalls.

1. Loyalty rewards at supermarkets

How it works: Shoppers with the supermarket’s loyalty card are eligible for discounted gas – usually about five to 10 cents cheaper than nearby filling stations. Then it gets a little complicated: Customers can earn deeper discounts by spending more money in the store. The more they spend, the deeper the discount. In some markets, Kroger customers who spend $400 in the grocery store can get a discount of up to 40 cents per gallon. On a 25-gallon fill-up, that’s a $10 savings.
The downside: Loyalty programs – whether they net savings on gas, air miles or some other reward –  tend to kill the comparison shopping instinct. When it comes to gas and groceries, consumers whose gas discounts are tied to store loyalty cards could end up paying more for grocery items that could be found cheaper elsewhere, simply to earn points for discounted gas, says Livingston. For example, Marci Loehner, a stay-at-home mom in Cincinnati admits that she barely comparison shops anymore, in order to maximize her loyalty points – and save $24 on gas each month. As a result, supermarkets can raise prices without customers noticing, or caring, Livingston says. A spokeswoman from Safeway, which offers up to a 10-cents-per-gallon discount on gas to loyalty club members who spend $50 or more, says that product pricing and gas pricing are unrelated. Kroger declined to comment on pricing.
Who wins: Families who buy several hundred dollars worth of groceries per month. They’re already spending enough to be eligible for the added gas discount, says Santicola.


Read more: 3 New Ways to Save on Gas - Spending - Autos - SmartMoney.com http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/autos/3-new-ways-to-save-on-gas/#ixzz177YG8fWb

Read more »

10 Things Your Landlord Won't Tell You

1) “This building is in foreclosure.”
In late 2009, Melody Thompson called her landlords to ask about the well-dressed picture-takers outside her four-bedroom Portland rental home. “Oh, we’re refinancing,” she remembers them telling her. Then in late April, a formal bank notification arrived in the mail, stating that the home was in foreclosure and would be put up for sale in late August. “I was immediately angry,” says Thompson, the executive director of Financial Beginnings, a financial literacy nonprofit. “They lied.” The sale has been postponed twice as the landlords apply for a mortgage adjustment, but Thompson is still hunting for a new place.
Renters accounted for 40% of families facing eviction from foreclosure in 2009, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. And unfortunately, they often hear about it as Thompson did -- from the bank, just weeks before the sale, says Janet Portman, an attorney and the managing editor of legal book publisher Nolo. “The landlord wants the tenant in there, paying rent,” she says. The lack of notice was so pervasive that last year Congress passed the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, which gives tenants at least 90 days from the foreclosure sale to move out. (Previously, they had as few as 30 days, Portman says.) Provided the new owner doesn’t want to live there, the law also lets legitimate tenants -- those who signed a lease before the sale and pay a market value rent, among other qualifications -- stay through the end of their lease.
2) “You should complain more.”
When a steady drip, drip, drip of water from the ceiling led a third-floor tenant to complain, Adam Jernow, a principal at property management firm OGI Management in New York City, assumed they were dealing with a leaky pipe. It wasn’t until a week later, when the tenants on the top floor two flights above that apartment finally called, that he realized they were dealing with a big roof leak from heavy summer rains. Had upper-floor tenants complained sooner, Jernow says, they could have limited the damage, and that third-floor tenant might not have had a problem at all. So while renters often assume quirks like hot-then-not showers or moisture on the walls is just part of big-city living – or that complaining to the landlord will just open up a can of worms – keeping a property owner informed can actually help a problem get fixed faster. Besides, most states require landlords to keep the property in good repair, with home systems and appliances in working order.
3) “There’s more to negotiate than the rent.”
Rental markets in many cities around the country have improved this year, which means landlords have less incentive to cut you a break. Just 31% of landlords lowered rent in 2010, versus 69% in 2009, according to property marketplace Rent.com. All the major real estate investment groups are asking for higher rent on new leases, and about half are doing so on renewals, says Peggy Abkemeier, the president of Rent.com.
But the market hasn’t improved so much that landlords don’t have incentive to keep good tenants, she says. The survey found that 44% of landlords are willing to lower security deposits, and 22% will offer an upgrade to a fancier unit (think better views, quieter neighbors, newer kitchen) without raising rent. And there’s still that 31% of landlords who will offer a price break. “It never hurts to ask,” Abkemeier says. In markets where vacancy rates are still high, such as Atlanta, Las Vegas, Orlando and Phoenix, tenants have a better chance.


Read more: 10 Things Your Landlord Won't Tell You - Spending - Rip-offs - SmartMoney.com http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/rip-offs/10-things-your-landlord-wont-tell-you/#ixzz177Y3Ueie

Read more »

5 Closed-End Funds to Watch

If you missed the brief window two weeks ago when closed-end funds sold at radical discounts, you weren't alone. The $215 billion market makes up just 10% of the mutual fund universe. But investors who follow these products are looking forward to another buying season right around the corner.

Every December, closed-end funds tend to trade at a discount -- shares of the fund are limited (unlike those of an open-end fund), and they sell for less than the value of the underlying investments. Because the bulk of closed-end funds invest in municipal bonds, and investors in these funds tend to be very tax-sensitive, a year-end selling pattern tends to open up buying opportunities between late December and February, says Cecilia Gondor, an executive vice president at Thomas Herzfeld Advisors. Of course, as more investors catch on to this trend, the discounts get less steep, but in the past 10 years, closed-end fund share prices have dropped, on average, 0.74 percentage points between the end of October and the end of December, and then gained an average 2.36 percentage points between year-end and the end of January, according to data from Thomas Herzfeld Advisors.
The selling season could be especially dynamic this year, Gondor says. Investors are already jittery about the value of the municipal bonds that make up many closed-end fund portfolios, making them eager to sell when the time comes. Also, uncertainty about the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts could intensify the year-end selling, although it seems increasingly likely that they’ll be extended for most investors, says Tom Roseen, a senior research analyst at Lipper.
And it doesn’t take much to create a discount window. These funds typically are not very liquid, so even one or a couple of investors selling out of a position can be enough to move its price. Most closed-end muni funds will trade between a few thousand and 20,000 shares a day, but there are many funds that are less liquid than that, Gondor says. Investors who are concerned about radical price movements should look for funds that tend to trade around 10,000 shares every day, but in this small market, predictions are impossible: One fund saw its price drop by 40% in a week, simply because one large shareholder had died and the estate had liquidated those assets, says Mike Taggart, a closed-end fund strategist with Morningstar.
If you’re hoping to pick up a closed-end fund on sale, put in an open order to buy a few shares of a fund or two at a price below the current market price, Gondor says. If that order gets executed, it’ll be like an early-warning system that will alert you to a buying opportunity, she says. A word of caution: “Never buy anything at a premium,” says Maury Fertig, the chief investment officer at Relative Value Partners, a firm that manages more than $500 million in assets and specializes in closed-end funds. It’s hard to justify paying more than a dollar for a dollar’s worth of assets, and if the market hits a rough patch, funds at a premium have the farthest to fall, Fertig says.
Here are five funds to watch through December:

Foxby Corp.

Ticker: FXBY
This $6.6 million fund invests in tech stocks and, at just $1.09 a share, could almost be considered a penny stock itself, Roseen says. It’s trading at a 34% discount, a little wider than its three-year average. It’s a very focused fund with a less-than-great track record – but it’s cheap, and holds some strong names, including Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN), Roseen says.

Putnam Muni Opportunities

Ticker: PMO
This $724 million municipal bond fund has a distribution rate of 6.87% and is currently trading at a 2.7% discount, narrower than its three-year average of a 7% discount. It’s one of the higher-yielding muni funds, and it could be a buy if the discount widens to about 5%, Fertig says.

DWS High Income Opportunities

Ticker: DHG
This $317 million fund just changed strategies – it used to be an equity fund but, as of Wednesday, is now focused solely on high-yield bonds, and it’s trading at a 6% discount. (The average high-yield bond fund is trading at a premium.) Its current distribution rate is 6.7%, but that could rise because of the new strategy, Fertig says. Management is also authorized to regularly buy back shares, he says, which is good for fund owners.

Nuveen New York Muni Value

Ticker: NNY
This $147 million fund invests entirely in New York municipal bonds with an average duration of less than 5 years. “It’s not nearly as volatile as some of the other funds,” says Ronald Deutsch, the managing director of Sage Capital Management. It’s currently trading at between a 2% and 3% discount, close to its historical average, and Deutsch says he’s watching for further dips.

Tortoise Energy Infrastructure

Ticker: TYG
This $1.1 billion fund invests in master limited partnerships in the energy infrastructure sector. It’s currently trading at more than an 11% premium, higher than its three-year average of 8.65%, and though some would say never to buy at a premium, Deutsch says he’d buy in if a year-end dip brings the fund below about a 2% premium.

Read more »