Housing prices going down ... Health-care costs going up

Housing prices going down: That makes news because it has happened so rarely.

Health-care costs going up: That makes news even though it happens all the time.

In both cases, the potential hit to Americans' pocketbooks is huge. And that's why looking at what made news in Personal Finance in 2006 is such an important exercise:


You want to know where your money is going to disappear in 2007.

In the case of housing, the news is only mortifying if you're a home seller and need to unload quickly. Otherwise, the fact that sales are chilled and values stagnant has only a psychological effect: How much less rich will you feel when your No. 1 asset, your home, isn't appreciating at a double-digit pace anymore?

With health care, the news is only bad if you get sick, or if you happen to be among the millions of workers getting smacked by bigger insurance premiums from their employers. Unfortunately, that covers almost everyone -- unlike our health-insurance system itself, which will leave at least 40 million without coverage in 2007.

There are other issues as well that will affect your personal finances in 2007, and in our Year-End Review & Outlook we pinpoint eight more. Read our coverage, plus find out from Robert Powell what Social Security calculations are important for you to be making today and learn why paying points to buy down the interest rate on your mortgage turns out in almost every case to be a bad deal, on Thursday's Personal Finance pages.

With the long run-up in housing prices, you kind of expected that we were due for a fall. If only the same could be said about health-care costs.

Source: MarketWatch.com

Steve Kerch, assistant managing editor/personal finance

Tuesday's Personal Finance Stories - Marketwatch.com

Marketwatch.com

The retail analysts who track sales this time of year say American consumers are hanging back on holiday shopping, waiting, perhaps, until they think merchandisers have slashed price tags as far as they are going to slash them ahead of Christmas. After banging down the store doors the day after Thanksgiving, consumers have played this buying season tepidly.

Maybe that's not because they are waiting for prices to fall. Maybe they aren't shopping in the stores at all, or shopping for "things" at all. It could just be they are online buying "experiences," anything from a behind-the-scenes tour at a local zoo to a test drive in one of Nascar's speediest vehicles.

These sorts of gifts touch on a growing trend among aging boomers and 20-somethings alike to add more meaning not just to the holidays but to life. Experience gifts can bring culture, spirituality, health and adventure into the seasonal mix. And they come with an added advantage for last-minute givers: They need no box or wrapping.

Then again, maybe the selling season is falling flat for another reason entirely. Maybe, as Paul B. Farrell postulates, people are fed up with the dark spirit of commercialism that has overrun Christmas. Maybe they aren't waiting for sales, but for salvation.

Steve Kerch, assistant managing editor/personal finance

Tips on Giving Gifts of Money to Children

Source: Philly.com, Jeff Brown, Dec. 10, 2006

With the holidays upon us, lots of financial gifts - money, savings bonds, stocks and so on - will be ending up in little hands. And lots of givers have some sort of personal-finance goal on top of ordinary giving.

So I have a suggestion or two.

For starters, it isn't necessary for every financial gift to contain a life lesson. If the idea is to give a young person money in lieu of an iPod or scarf, just give it - no strings attached.

I've seen all kinds of tips from experts about how every dollar a child gets should be divided among spending money, college savings and charity. The idea leaves me cold. If you gave a $50 badminton set, you wouldn't expect the net to be set aside for grad school.

On the other hand, many parents - and especially grandparents - want to make gifts whose primary purpose is financial training.

Read Jeff's complete article HERE.