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.,...

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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....

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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....

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