Weekly roundup of some of the best personal finance articles from around the web.
Lost amid Equifax and Capital One hacks: Children with no credit histories are increasingly lucrative to identity thieves (MarketWatch). Some good advice for parents.
H&M, Zara, and other fashion brands are tricking shoppers with vague sustainability claims (Fast Company). “Sustainability” is all the rage, but what does it really mean?
The 4 legal documents your college-age child really needs (Kiplinger). You got them some back-to-school clothes and a dorm-size fridge, but is their paperwork in order?
Never mind (Humble Dollar). Removing the pressure to keep up with the Joneses.
Three financial aid mistakes that could make college more costly (CNBC). The early bird gets the aid.
Why you should never sign up for overdraft protection (Clark Howard). There’s more in it for your bank than for you.
Who really owns your digital assets? (Wise Bread). Estate planning in our modern age.
Driving the same car for 53 years (YouTube). Do the basic maintenance (and keep the miles low!), and it’s amazing how long your car might last.
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I always enjoy this roundup. However I was dissapointed with the overdraft protection article. Being declined at the register is not necessarily a problem. Having a check bounce or automated payment not go through is another matter, that could both incur fees for you and inconvenience others. That said some banks are better than others. My online bank offers free automatic transfers from savings to cover a checking account overdraft. Don’t want to use that, but it did happen. There was a local bank that my parents had dealt with for years. We were in hard times, and my mom went into the bank for a routine small cash withdrawal without realizing the money wasn’t there and the teller handed her the cash without even warning her that it was an overdraft that would incur a fee. Any credibility that they had as a “small town” bank disappeared right there.
Marlin – Thanks for writing. What happened to your mom is beyond wrong. So sorry to hear about that.
As for overdraft protection, I see your point about some of the dangers of not letting a check with insufficient funds go through. But I think the main point of the article was to help people understand what overdraft protection is really all about. Just the word “protection” sounds like it’s something everyone should choose, and many probably do without realizing what they just signed up for.
Ideally, of course, it would be best for all of us to keep tabs on our balances, but I realize life gets messy sometimes.