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
DoughRoller tells us How to Get Out of a Bad Variable Annuity
The Big Picture shares Picking Investments is Nothing Like Buying a New Car which they picked up from Visual Capitalist
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November 11, 2016
Best of Blogs for Week of November 11th
November 4, 2016
Best of Blogs for Week of November 4th
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
ESI money shares their thoughts on How to Select a College
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November 2, 2016
Annual Increase In Per Capita Health Care Spending 2001 to 2014
Not too long ago healthcare spending was going up around 8% a year. That has slowed down recently. I thought it would be interesting to see the rate of change in per capita spending recently.
I got the data on the CMS site where it says that "The National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) are the official estimates of total health care spending in the United States."
Annual rate of increase in per capita spending :
| 2001 | 7.5% |
| 2002 | 8.6% |
| 2003 | 7.6% |
| 2004 | 6.3% |
| 2005 | 5.8% |
| 2006 | 5.5% |
| 2007 | 5.5% |
| 2008 | 3.7% |
| 2009 | 3.0% |
| 2010 | 3.1% |
| 2011 | 3.1% |
| 2012 | 3.0% |
| 2013 | 2.1% |
| 2014 | 4.5% |
They only have data up to 2014 so far.
The most recent 5 years have been going up ~3% a year. However during those years inflation in general was only averaging about half of that in the 1-2% range.
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October 30, 2016
Points Costs When Redeeming American Express Membership Rewards for Merchant Gift Cards
I signed up for an American Express Premier Rewards Gold card recently to get the sign up points.
Their Membership Rewards program has various ways to redeem your points. One option is to get gift cards from a variety of merchants. The redemption varies from around 0.7¢ to 1¢ per point. Theres no simple way to get a complete list on the Amex site and you have to click on each merchant to see the dollar value. So I created a table for reference.
Most cards have multiple redemption options such as options to get $25, $50 or $100 gift cards. I'm only listing the minimum redemption option and the higher value cards are just multiples. Note Mercedes Benz offers maintenance and some movie theatres offer movie tickets Those gift cards have variable dollar value and I estimated typical market value
Keep in mind : The table below is going to change over time and I don't plan to update it.
Here are the gift card choices and the dollar value / point spent. (I haven't listed some theme parks and snow lodges)
| points | card value | value/points | |
| Aria hotel | 10000 | $100 | $0.0100 |
| Bellagio hotel | 10000 | $100 | $0.0100 |
| Best Western Hotels | 5882 | $50 | $0.0085 |
| Delta airlines | 7143 | $50 | $0.0070 |
| Fairmont hotel | 50000 | $50 | $0.0010 |
| Four Seasons | 14286 | $100 | $0.0070 |
| Hilton | 3571 | $25 | $0.0070 |
| Hotels.com | 7143 | $50 | $0.0070 |
| Hyatt | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Mandalay Bay | 10000 | $100 | $0.0100 |
| Mandarin Oriental | 5882 | $50 | $0.0085 |
| Marriott | 7143 | $50 | $0.0070 |
| MGM Grand | 10000 | $100 | $0.0100 |
| MGM Resorts | 10000 | $100 | $0.0100 |
| Ritz Carlton | 14286 | $100 | $0.0070 |
| Amtrak | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Avis | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Enterprise | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Hertz | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Mercedez Benz | 100000 | $1,000 | $0.0100 |
| Mercedez Benz service A | 26000 | service A | $0.0077 |
| Mercedez Benz service B | 58000 | service B | $0.0100 |
| Benihana | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Bonefish Grill | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| California Pizza Kitchen | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Chilis | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Flemings Prime Steakhouse | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Legal Sea Foods | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Lettuce Entertain you | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Maggiano's Little Italy | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Morton's The Steakhouse | 10000 | $100 | $0.0100 |
| OpenTable | 3751 | $25 | $0.0067 |
| PF Changs | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Ruth's Chris | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Seamless.com | 1000 | $10 | $0.0100 |
| Seasons 52 | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Starbucks card | 3571 | $25 | $0.0070 |
| The Capital Grille | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| The Cheesecake Factory | 2941 | $25 | $0.0085 |
| AMC | 1200 | 1 ticket | $0.0083 |
| Cinemark | 1125 | 1 ticket | $0.0089 |
| Facebook games | 588 | $5 | $0.0085 |
| Regal | 1200 | 1 ticket | $0.0083 |
| Showcase cinemas | 3600 | 2 ticket + consession | $0.0028 |
| Athleta | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Banana Republic | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Barnes & Noble | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Bath & Body works | 1000 | $10 | $0.0100 |
| Bergdorf Goodman | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Brooks Brothers | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Coach | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Cole Haan | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Crate and Barrel | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Gap | 1000 | $10 | $0.0100 |
| Gap Brands | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Groupon | 1500 | $15 | $0.0100 |
| Intermix | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| itunes | 1176 | $10 | $0.0085 |
| J Crew | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Neiman Marcus | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Nike | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Old Navy | 1000 | $10 | $0.0100 |
| PB Teen | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Pottery Barn | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Pottery Barn Kids | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Ralph Lauren | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| REI | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Restoration hardware | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Saks Fifth Avenue | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Spafinder | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Staples | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Target | 7143 | $50 | $0.0070 |
| The Home Depot | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| Tiffany & Co | 25000 | $250 | $0.0100 |
| Victorias secret | 2500 | $25 | $0.0100 |
| west elm | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Williams-Sonoma | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
| Zappos.com | 5000 | $50 | $0.0100 |
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