Inheritance and debt
If your parents run up a lot of
bills before they die, you will not inherit their
debt. But creditors can collect
the proceeds from assets sold from the estate.
That
means, if your parents owe $50,000 to creditors but own a house worth
$60,000, heirs will only be able
to inherit $10,000. On the other hand, if your
parents die with a lot of debt and
no assets, you won't be responsible for the
debt. You will be responsible for
any loan you co-signed.
Creditors
can collect from a parent's estate even if property or stocks are
promised to a child in a will. Insurance
policies and retirement plans are
generally protected, but that's
all.
Phone shields do little
Several
types of shields on the market claim to protect the user from cell
phone radiation. But there is no
evidence that the shields do very much.
Studies
of five types of shields by the Good Housekeeping Institute found
that none significantly reduced
the amount of radiation reaching the head of
the user.
Cremation: personalized
urns
A quarter
of Americans who died last year were cremated. By 2020, the
Cremation Association of North America
predicts that half of the population
will choose less costly cremation
option.
Urn
makers are filling a demand for personalized ash containers.
TheUrnStore.com sells mantelpiece
statues in the shape of dolphins, eagles,
or golfers for $500 to $1,360.
Canuck's
Sportsman's Memorials in Des Moines will sew ashes into a
basketball or insert them into a
duck decoy (starting at $400).
Refinancing and
spending
As home values rise, some owners are doing a little profit taking.
They refinance
and take tens of thousands of dollars out of the home's new
value. Often a lower interest rate
makes payments just slightly higher.
Economists say this is one reason
consumer spending is so strong.
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