Travel Insurance - If your vacation plans include travel this season you may want to evaluate the option of obtaining travel insurance. The range of benefits available include coverage for trip cancellation or interruption, emergency medical care and evacuations, and lost, stolen, or delayed baggage. For people on Medicare or who have HMO or PPO health policies, it may not be the case that their existing coverage will apply outside of the United States. With changing family dynamics where increasingly we are caring for both children and aging parents, it is more common to have to cancel a trip on short notice. You may want to visit Travelex Insurance or AIG Travel for information about comprehensive policies; also Medjet Assist, which offers medical evacuation to any hospital of your choice in the world.

New Buzz Word - "staycation" def.: vacationing from your home but truly visiting the area as though a tourist.

Rewards Card - Kiplinger's reports that you can obtain a Pentagon Federal Credit Union Platinum Gas Cash Rewards Visa by joining the National Military Family Association for $20 at NMFA.org. The card rewards users with 5% back on gas purchases, 2% on groceries and 1.25% on everything else.

Interesting Statistic - The US Transportation Dept. reports that in March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles than in March 2007. It was a decline of 4.3%, the first time since 1979 that traffic has dropped from one March to the next.