• What to Do When Disaster Strikes • 5 Creative Ways to Travel for Free • Are You Due a Mortgage Refund? • Listen to a Legend There’s another side to disaster planning that sometimes gets overlooked: your pets. In the case of a natural disaster, you need to know what you will do with Rover and Fluffy. Some of the saddest stories to emerge from Hurricane Katrina and now the California fires were the tales of pets being left to fend for themselves when fleeing families were forced to abandon them. Most shelters will not accept pets, and deciding to stay in your home and ride things out could jeopardize you and your family’s lives. Here are a few tips for you: Make sure your pet wears a collar with identification. Consider having a microchip placed on your pet. These contain identifying information that can be traced back to you. See your vet for more info. Have a pet carrier ready for each animal. Make arrangements now for a temporary relocation place for your pet if you’re forced to evacuate. Just as you would do for yourself, be sure you have a stockpile of food and water for your pets. After a natural disaster you may have to wait awhile for necessities such as these. Here in the Dolan household, we’re stocking up on the candy to pass out treats (no tricks) when the kids coming knocking on our door on Halloween. We especially enjoyed Halloween when our daughter, Meredith, was little, but we’ve noticed in recent years just how big it has become. We came across a recent report from the National Retail Federation estimating that consumers will spend $5 billion on Halloween this year. That’s a lot of candy and costumes! Speaking of which, here are the most popular kids’ costumes this year: Princess Spider-Man Pirate Witch Fairy We’re thinking of dressing up as Beauty and the Beast. What do you think? On second thought, keep your comments to yourself, please. It may be fun to talk about ghosts, goblins and phantoms at this time of year, but the truth is there are an awful lot of scam artists out there who are pretty good at pulling off a magic disappearing act -- after they take your money, of course. Either that, or they promise to do something that would require voodoo to actually make it happen. Credit repair scams are a great example. Bad credit information cannot be removed from your credit report by a credit repair clinic (or anyone else). These bogus credit repairers, among other illegal solutions, show you how to misrepresent your Social Security number, name and address. Don’t fall for it. Remember, the only way to clean up your credit report is to make good on your debts. For our help in doing this, check out The Dolans’ Debt Clinic and Managing Out of Control Debts.

A Special Video
What to Do When Disaster Strikes

If you’re like us, you spent much of last week watching news coverage of the horrible fires in California and shaking your head in disbelief as you witnessed the largest natural disaster in the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina.

Our hearts go out to all who were affected, especially those who lost loved ones or whose homes were destroyed. We’re also inspired by the rescue workers and volunteers who worked so hard — in extremely dangerous conditions — to do what they could to help.

Having lived in Florida for the last seven years, we’re all-too familiar with the need to evacuate. Although we have never been forced to evacuate as hurricanes approached, we can tell you first-hand that it’s a horrible feeling.

Most evacuations don’t happen on as large a scale as they did in California or in killer hurricanes. It may be a neighborhood or an apartment building evacuation that affects a smaller number of people. You don’t hear about those in the national news, but they happen every day, often without much warning.

Travel
5 Creative Ways to Travel for Free

I’m (Ken here) getting one of the best presents imaginable this year—holidays with my family. It’s not that I don’t love them dearly, but that’s not even the best part… the best part is that I don’t have to step foot near an airport to be with them! We’re fortunate that our daughter and her husband live nearby, as does Daria’s mother, so we’re staying put for yummy turkey and Daria’s wonderful sausage stuffing!

If you are headed over the river and through the woods for Thanksgiving, we hope you’ve already made your flight arrangements, because there aren’t going to be many empty seats this holiday. Any seats you can find are going to cost you more, too. With strong demand and record oil prices, many airlines have upped their fares in recent weeks.

It may be too late to put the tips you’re about to discover to use for holiday travel, but if you have your eyes on a dream location for next year, we have some ways to help you get there at a reduced fare. How low are we talking? How does FREE sound?

Your Home
Are You Due a Mortgage Refund?

All the news we hear these days about our homes is depressing. Declining home values, foreclosures up, sales down — wouldn’t it be nice to get some good news about owning a home?

Well, read on, because we’re going to tell you how to find out whether your mortgage lender owes you a refund.

As you know, your lender collects part of your mortgage payment in an escrow account to pay your taxes and insurance. But several years ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that many lenders withheld more money than necessary. This led to a rule prohibiting lenders from collecting more than two months’ worth of money in your escrow account.

Lenders must analyze your escrow account once a year to make sure their calculations are up to par. Each year, they also have to send you an easy-to-understand escrow account statement (similar to a bank statement).

To find out if you’re due a refund, you need to check what kind of mortgage you have. If you have an FHA-insured mortgage, go to www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/comp/refunds/ or call (202) 708-1112 for more information. You can even search the online database to see if you have money coming to you. All you’ll have to do is enter your last name or your FHA case number.

Until Next Time…
Listen to a Legend

This past week, we couldn’t help but think back to a series of famous commercials from the 1970s and 1980s. They usually featured a room full of people with various conversations going on. The camera would focus on one conversation that happened to be about money, and one of the participants would say, "My broker is E.F. Hutton, and E.F. Hutton says…" and the room would fall silent waiting for the pearls of wisdom to follow.

The slogan was, "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen."

We think that same slogan applies to legendary investor Warren Buffett, because when he speaks, people really do listen.

Last week, he spoke about something we’ve been talking a lot about — the whole “sub-prime” mess. Mr. Buffett agrees with us that more pain lies ahead.

"In the next 6 months, one year, two years… the problems in the mortgage market can cause a lot of problems with consumers and hurt buying power in the United States," he said.

This is a serious issue that affects you and us and every other American. That’s why we’ve posted several articles with our advice for you at Dolans.com:

• Mortgage Meltdown: What the Sub-Prime Mess Means for You
• Income Investor Alert: The Mortgage Mess and Your Money Market Funds
• Washington Insights: The Madness Behind the Method

And if you’re trying to sell your home in this sluggish market, don’t miss our special video: How to Sell Your Home When Homes Aren’t Selling.

We’re committed to keeping you “in the know” on this critical money matter, so look for more news on the mortgage mess in the days ahead. We also encourage you to help get this advice to people who need it. Forward these articles and videos along to your family and friends.

By the way, did you know you can pass along articles, videos, audio alerts and just about everything else on Dolans.com? Just look for the link that says “E-mail This” at the top of each page and click on it. It’s simple!

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Ken & Daria Dolan

P.S. As we mentioned earlier, we won’t be traveling for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, but we already had more than enough frustration last week when we missed a connecting flight home. Daria’s writing about what’s wrong with our travel system in her next Washington Insights (and she’s mad!), which we’ll post for you soon on Dolans.com. In the meantime, if you’re flying anytime soon, make sure you know your rights as a passenger. Click here to listen to our special audio alert telling you exactly what they are.