I recently saw a TV ad for Gerber Life College Savings. The commercial was very similar to the Gerber Life Insurance ads that I've seen in the past. However these new ads were for a college savings plan instead of life insurance.... or at least thats what the TV ads pitched. In actuality they're just selling a cash value life insurance plan and pitching it for college savings.
I set out to find more information on the plan. The Gerber site has little detail. But others have examined it.
Market Watch doesn't like it. They wrote This college savings plan flunks the test
In fact they really don't like it, they said : "I will use words like “awful” and “lousy” and “Stupid Investment of the Week.”
But what about people who don't hate cash value insurance? The Insurance Pro Blog wrote their Gerber College Plan Review on the plan. The point out a major problem with the plan is that it apparently fails an IRS test and the investment returns lose preferential tax deferral treatment. Yet they do favor cash value for college savings. They conclude with "The Gerber College Plan falls well short of what we can accomplish with high quality cash value life insurance products."
The Gerber Life website says : "For example, putting aside $35.42 monthly for 18 years will get you $10,000" If thats a real example of a real policy then that turns out to be around a 3.1% return and its taxable. Given today's low rates that isn't awful but its not very good either.
The Gerber plan also has no special tax benefits that 529 plans do. Most states offer some form of tax benefit for 529 plans.
Bottom Line : Avoid it. Overall the Gerber Life College Savings plan seems to be a pretty poor choice.
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April 7, 2013
Is Gerber Life College Savings any Good?
April 5, 2013
Best of Blogs for Week of April 5th
Every Friday afternoon I share some of the more interesting or notable
posts that I have seen in the personal finance blogs and other sources
for the past week
GetRichSlowly questions Is it possible you don’t need an emergency fund?
DQYDJ built An Inflation Calculator – With Data for Any Day Since 1913!
Retireby40 shares his experiences how Owing a 4-plex can be a pain…
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Entertainment.com Coupon Books is Back (still) in Business
Recently I had passed on news that the Entertainment Coupon book company had abruptly shut down and filed for bankruptcy. However they are actually still up and running and now looking at a bid from a buyer.
One of their marketing folks said: "We are excited to announce that we have resumed operations
Read their press release : Entertainment Promotions Continues Operation During Ownership Transition
You can get all the details from their press release, but key points :
Entertainment.com is up and running.
They are resuming sales of coupon books
Merchant network is operational
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April 4, 2013
Everybody Isn't Moving to Texas... Kinda
I've gotten the impression that some people think that half of the people in California are in the process of packing up their lives in order to move over to Texas. I'm not sure if this is really a wide spread notion or if its just something a few people think. I can understand the concept that people would be compelled to move from high cost, high tax California over to lower cost, lower tax and relatively booming economy of Texas. (Setting other preferences aside).
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| (click image for full size) |
People ARE indeed moving out of California every year and more people move from California to other states than move from other states to California. Many people are moving into Texas and in fact Texas was the state with the highest number of people who moved there from other states with 514,726 new arrivals from other states in 2011. However those 514,726 new arrivals from other states account for only 2% of the population in Texas. Oh, and by the way California is the #3 destination after Florida with 468,428 people moving there from other states. But wait while you do have a lot of people moving into TX, CA and FL you also at the same time have a lot of people simultaneously moving out of each state. The real question is what is the total net migration to a state from other states?
First lets look at the state to state movements for 2011.
I got the State to state migration flows from the Census which shows the number of people that moved from each state to each state for a year.
Here is the break down of the percentage of each states current population that moved in from another state versus moved out and the net change of state to state migration for 2011:
| IN | OUT | NET | |
| Alabama | 2.5% | 2.3% | 0.2% |
| Alaska | 4.9% | 12.5% | -7.6% |
| Arizona | 3.5% | 3.3% | 0.2% |
| Arkansas | 2.4% | 2.7% | -0.3% |
| California | 1.3% | 1.5% | -0.3% |
| Colorado | 4.0% | 3.2% | 0.8% |
| Connecticut | 2.0% | 2.6% | -0.6% |
| Delaware | 3.8% | 3.0% | 0.8% |
| D.C. | 7.9% | 8.1% | -0.3% |
| Florida | 2.6% | 2.3% | 0.3% |
| Georgia | 2.8% | 2.6% | 0.2% |
| Hawaii | 4.2% | 4.6% | -0.3% |
| Idaho | 3.9% | 3.7% | 0.2% |
| Illinois | 1.7% | 2.1% | -0.4% |
| Indiana | 2.0% | 2.2% | -0.2% |
| Iowa | 2.3% | 2.5% | -0.1% |
| Kansas | 3.0% | 3.3% | -0.4% |
| Kentucky | 2.5% | 2.3% | 0.2% |
| Louisiana | 2.2% | 1.9% | 0.3% |
| Maine | 2.6% | 2.6% | 0.0% |
| Maryland | 2.7% | 2.9% | -0.2% |
| Massachusetts | 2.1% | 2.2% | -0.1% |
| Michigan | 1.4% | 1.9% | -0.5% |
| Minnesota | 1.9% | 2.0% | 0.0% |
| Mississippi | 2.3% | 2.3% | 0.0% |
| Missouri | 2.5% | 2.3% | 0.2% |
| Montana | 3.4% | 3.2% | 0.2% |
| Nebraska | 2.9% | 2.9% | 0.0% |
| Nevada | 4.1% | 4.3% | -0.2% |
| New Hampshire | 2.8% | 3.3% | -0.5% |
| New Jersey | 1.6% | 2.5% | -0.9% |
| New Mexico | 3.0% | 3.0% | 0.0% |
| New York | 1.5% | 2.0% | -0.5% |
| North Carolina | 2.8% | 2.4% | 0.4% |
| North Dakota | 4.8% | 3.9% | 0.9% |
| Ohio | 1.7% | 1.8% | -0.1% |
| Oklahoma | 2.9% | 2.2% | 0.7% |
| Oregon | 3.3% | 2.9% | 0.5% |
| Pennsylvania | 1.9% | 1.7% | 0.2% |
| Rhode Island | 2.6% | 3.0% | -0.4% |
| South Carolina | 3.4% | 2.6% | 0.8% |
| South Dakota | 3.4% | 3.6% | -0.2% |
| Tennessee | 2.7% | 2.4% | 0.3% |
| Texas | 2.0% | 1.6% | 0.4% |
| Utah | 3.1% | 2.6% | 0.4% |
| Vermont | 3.3% | 2.9% | 0.4% |
| Virginia | 3.2% | 2.9% | 0.3% |
| Washington | 3.1% | 2.8% | 0.3% |
| West Virginia | 2.7% | 2.5% | 0.2% |
| Wisconsin | 1.9% | 1.9% | 0.1% |
| Wyoming | 5.5% | 5.7% | -0.2% |
I'll sort those and rank them in terms of highest to lowest net flows. Positive net numbers mean that more people moved in and negative numbers mean the state lost people. :
| NET | |
| North Dakota | 0.9% |
| Colorado | 0.8% |
| Delaware | 0.8% |
| South Carolina | 0.8% |
| Oklahoma | 0.7% |
| Oregon | 0.5% |
| Texas | 0.4% |
| Utah | 0.4% |
| North Carolina | 0.4% |
| Vermont | 0.4% |
| Virginia | 0.3% |
| Florida | 0.3% |
| Louisiana | 0.3% |
| Washington | 0.3% |
| Tennessee | 0.3% |
| Kentucky | 0.2% |
| Montana | 0.2% |
| Alabama | 0.2% |
| Georgia | 0.2% |
| West Virginia | 0.2% |
| Missouri | 0.2% |
| Arizona | 0.2% |
| Idaho | 0.2% |
| Pennsylvania | 0.2% |
| Wisconsin | 0.1% |
| New Mexico | 0.0% |
| Maine | 0.0% |
| Mississippi | 0.0% |
| Nebraska | 0.0% |
| Minnesota | 0.0% |
| Massachusetts | -0.1% |
| Ohio | -0.1% |
| Iowa | -0.1% |
| Maryland | -0.2% |
| Nevada | -0.2% |
| South Dakota | -0.2% |
| Indiana | -0.2% |
| Wyoming | -0.2% |
| California | -0.3% |
| Arkansas | -0.3% |
| D.C. | -0.3% |
| Hawaii | -0.3% |
| Kansas | -0.4% |
| Rhode Island | -0.4% |
| Illinois | -0.4% |
| New Hampshire | -0.5% |
| Michigan | -0.5% |
| New York | -0.5% |
| Connecticut | -0.6% |
| New Jersey | -0.9% |
| Alaska | -7.6% |
Relative to their large populations the +0.4% inflow into Texas and the -0.3% outflow from California aren't what I'd call any kind of 'exodus' either direction. Many other states see much larger percentage migrations in or out.
You might have heard about the boom in North Dakota due to the growing oil industry there. I would guess that accounts for N.D. being #1 on the list with the highest % population growth due to influx from other states. Look at that whopping 7.6% net outflow from Alaska to other states. Now thats what I'd call an 'exodus'. Poor Alaska... nobody wants to live in the cold.
Granted those are just percentages and so a few people entering a small state like N.D. shows higher than a lot of people moving to a large state like Texas. Looking at it as far as total numbers for state to state net migration and heres the rankings :
| NET | |
| Texas | 109,887 |
| Florida | 61,395 |
| Colorado | 41,501 |
| North Carolina | 40,144 |
| South Carolina | 36,218 |
| Virginia | 27,903 |
| Oklahoma | 27,869 |
| Georgia | 22,185 |
| Pennsylvania | 19,164 |
| Oregon | 18,111 |
| Washington | 17,863 |
| Tennessee | 16,726 |
| Louisiana | 12,545 |
| Utah | 12,006 |
| Arizona | 11,061 |
| Missouri | 11,035 |
| Alabama | 10,920 |
| Kentucky | 10,775 |
| Delaware | 7,281 |
| North Dakota | 5,947 |
| West Virginia | 4,112 |
| Wisconsin | 4,069 |
| Idaho | 2,505 |
| Montana | 2,349 |
| Vermont | 2,291 |
| New Mexico | 699 |
| Maine | 89 |
| Mississippi | -86 |
| Nebraska | -739 |
| Wyoming | -1,340 |
| D.C. | -1,666 |
| South Dakota | -1,877 |
| Minnesota | -2,224 |
| Iowa | -4,111 |
| Rhode Island | -4,296 |
| Hawaii | -4,398 |
| Nevada | -5,598 |
| Massachusetts | -6,039 |
| New Hampshire | -6,277 |
| Arkansas | -7,381 |
| Kansas | -10,540 |
| Maryland | -11,062 |
| Ohio | -14,271 |
| Indiana | -15,354 |
| Connecticut | -19,793 |
| Michigan | -47,347 |
| Illinois | -52,804 |
| Alaska | -53,766 |
| New Jersey | -76,175 |
| California | -93,915 |
| New York | -95,591 |
Looking at it that way we do see that Texas gained the most people of any state and California lost the 2nd most.
What about foreign migration?
All the numbers above are just state to state migration. At the same time we also have people moving into and out of each state from or to foreign countries. If you consider foreign migration it changes the picture considerably.
Lets look at the change in population if we include the foreign immigration.
| Net including foreign | |
| Texas | 283,215 |
| Florida | 206,069 |
| California | 171,696 |
| Virginia | 86,608 |
| North Carolina | 82,091 |
| Colorado | 76,012 |
| Washington | 71,391 |
| Pennsylvania | 68,829 |
| Georgia | 63,483 |
| South Carolina | 54,014 |
| Arizona | 53,630 |
| Massachusetts | 49,272 |
| New York | 48,684 |
| Oklahoma | 43,998 |
| Oregon | 40,913 |
| Tennessee | 40,547 |
| Missouri | 34,475 |
| Maryland | 30,787 |
| Louisiana | 27,802 |
| Utah | 26,471 |
| Alabama | 25,168 |
| Kentucky | 24,876 |
| Minnesota | 22,349 |
| Ohio | 20,755 |
| Wisconsin | 18,942 |
| Illinois | 16,550 |
| New Mexico | 12,132 |
| Hawaii | 11,839 |
| Delaware | 10,978 |
| Iowa | 9,234 |
| North Dakota | 8,779 |
| Idaho | 8,559 |
| West Virginia | 8,049 |
| Nevada | 7,128 |
| Mississippi | 7,049 |
| Nebraska | 5,846 |
| Indiana | 5,833 |
| D.C. | 5,698 |
| Vermont | 5,140 |
| Montana | 5,055 |
| Maine | 4,573 |
| Kansas | 3,561 |
| Rhode Island | 2,940 |
| South Dakota | 1,701 |
| Arkansas | 1,254 |
| Wyoming | -58 |
| New Hampshire | -964 |
| Connecticut | -1,112 |
| Michigan | -5,001 |
| New Jersey | -19,843 |
| Alaska | -50,069 |
Interesting California jumps all the way from 2nd to last up to 3rd. Again, poor Alaska is rock bottom as apparently not even hardy foreigners want to move to the frigid North. One point of interest is that if you include the foreign migration all but 6 states have positive numbers.
The above numbers are all just for the year 2011 so that is just a one year trend. Another way to look at things is to measure the percentage of a states population which is born in other states or foreign born. That gives us an idea of how many people have moved into the state in question (and stayed) over the long term.
For this data I pulled up some custom tables from the American Community Survey
Here is a table showing the percent of the people in each state that were born in another state in the U.S. or were foreign born:
| Born in other state | Foreign born | |
| United States | 27% | 13% |
| Alabama | 26% | 3% |
| Alaska | 51% | 7% |
| Arizona | 47% | 13% |
| Arkansas | 34% | 4% |
| California | 17% | 27% |
| Colorado | 47% | 10% |
| Connecticut | 27% | 13% |
| Delaware | 44% | 8% |
| D.C. | 47% | 14% |
| Florida | 42% | 19% |
| Georgia | 33% | 10% |
| Hawaii | 25% | 18% |
| Idaho | 46% | 6% |
| Illinois | 18% | 14% |
| Indiana | 26% | 5% |
| Iowa | 23% | 4% |
| Kansas | 33% | 7% |
| Kentucky | 26% | 3% |
| Louisiana | 18% | 4% |
| Maine | 31% | 3% |
| Maryland | 37% | 14% |
| Massachusetts | 20% | 15% |
| Michigan | 17% | 6% |
| Minnesota | 24% | 7% |
| Mississippi | 26% | 2% |
| Missouri | 29% | 4% |
| Montana | 42% | 2% |
| Nebraska | 27% | 6% |
| Nevada | 54% | 19% |
| New Hampshire | 51% | 6% |
| New Jersey | 24% | 21% |
| New Mexico | 37% | 10% |
| New York | 12% | 22% |
| North Carolina | 34% | 7% |
| North Dakota | 29% | 2% |
| Ohio | 20% | 4% |
| Oklahoma | 32% | 6% |
| Oregon | 43% | 10% |
| Pennsylvania | 19% | 6% |
| Rhode Island | 26% | 13% |
| South Carolina | 35% | 5% |
| South Dakota | 32% | 3% |
| Tennessee | 33% | 5% |
| Texas | 22% | 16% |
| Utah | 29% | 8% |
| Vermont | 44% | 4% |
| Virginia | 37% | 11% |
| Washington | 38% | 13% |
| West Virginia | 27% | 1% |
| Wisconsin | 23% | 5% |
| Wyoming | 55% | 3% |
Now as you can see theres pretty wide variations there.
For the two people who managed to get through this whole article, if you're still interested in reading more on the topic you might also find these interesting :
Lifetime Mobility in the United States : 2010 which is the source for the graphic image that is in the insert above.
Magnet or Sticky?: A State-by-State Typology from the Pew Research Center which looks at figures for 2005-2007.
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