That’s a great point on the credit card thing. I don’t typically use my credit card to extend warranty. Anyway, in this case, the new phone comes with a new warranty (according to the Sprint rep), so it’s effectively doubled anyway.

Generalize it: should you get the “extended warranty” or “insurance” on your TV, fridge, washing machine and dryer, computer, Treo and stereo? There is a decent chance you would use that insurance for a repair or replacement of ONE of those items. However, you’re probably paying a good chunk of change to insure all that. Say it costs $100/month for all those insurance policies. Within a few months you’ve covered the replacement cost of half the items on your list. Within two years you’ve covered everything on the list. There is no reason to insure yourself against small losses — it’s a very high profit margin for the insurer. “Self-insure” against small losses by keeping some money set aside to cover them.

Also remember that many credit cards offer automatic extended warranties/insurance when you use them to make that purchase. Make sure you aren’t double-insured. Find out which cards offer this and make these purchases with that card (just make sure you don’t carry that balance!).

2) Yes companies make money on insurance, but that’s because they profit on replacing the average phone – the $50 ones. Surely I wouldn’t pay $7 for that. However, if those people are subsidizing a potentially lost $650 phone (something like 9 years worth of insurance payments), that doesn’t seem like a bad deal.

3) I have Comcast’s DVR, but it’s not helpful for me for sports. Sports have to be watched live or reasonably live. There’s no thrill in it if I can fast forward to the next play. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work.

1. Financial day – dude, why don’t you use Quicken? With Quicken, every day can be financial day.

2. Treo Insurance – hell no! Company’s make a profit on insurance, which means that have computed the risk that they will have to pay, and charge a premium on top of that. You should only get insurance if you cannot bear the cost of replacing a damaged product.

3. MLB Games – I have one word for you: TiVO. So what if the games are on early, TiVo them (or use the DVR from you cable company). Comcast has a very good one.

I have no perspective on the phone. I always take the free phone they give you and keep it until they give me a new one every 2 years (w/verizon).

As for your phone insurance – I never get the insurance for my phone. $7 a month isn’t “expensive,” but its $84/year. When is your contract up? Or, I should ask – when would you be eligable for an upgrade with 2yr contract pricing? And the real kicker – how accident prone are you? I tend to take pretty good care of my mobile devices, plus they all pretty much come with a 1yr warranty anyway – so for me, the answer is a no brainer.

As for the sox – if you really like watching baseball, I’d do it, especially if I had a DVR or some other video recorder of sorts – if you really want to watch them that bad. Otherwise, I probably would pass.

We also set up a small joint account for just our monthly living expenses.