The FAQs says $.19/min for the service, not per mile. I believe it would be from when the call for transportation is made until the person reaches destination, but not sure. That can add up, especially if there is a considerable lag between when call is made and pick up. We have never used this service and we’re put off by the fee.
Last time I looked into the driving education/class for senior/insurance savings - cost of the class eclipsed the insurance savings, but I know in the past it did help us – H and I both did an on-line class and submitted it for the insurance discount.
There is a lot of good advice on retirement/savings streamed with news sources now. One just has to adapt to one’s needs, desires, and other considerations.
SOSConcern, I did the update nine AARP class, which was less than $20. I think I will save $76 for 3 years.
Apologies. - someone said ipthread it’s 19 cents a minute. my friend whose parents use it said she thought that was just if you were having the information relayed to the family member ( i.e. Her ) but she wasn’t sure
@bookworm on what company insurance is the AARP driving class saving money on?
If you pay off your mortgage, at least if you pay it off early, you lose a sizable deduction for the interest. Are there deductions retirees are taking that are replacing that early & mid-life mortgage deduction? I am reviewing current tax returns and thinking about what it will look like when we retire & wondering what new areas to explore for tax deductions.
Not having the expense is always better than having a deduction for it.
At some point, hopefully your tax and mortgage interest deductions become less than the standard deduction, and you can just use that. I don’t see that ever happening for us under the current tax system, in property tax alone we exceed the standard deduction.
You could start donating all your money to charity and get a sweet deduction for that.
Hopefully you won’t be piling up deductions for out of pocket health care costs.
there is also this calculator for determining the cost/ benefits of keeping a mortgage vrs paying it off
http://www.calcxml.com/do/hom09
I have Amica. The online course took 6-7 hours. I couldn’t skip any sections and had to watch videos. Most was a pain, but I did learn some useful things. After completion, AARP emailed me a certificate. Amica told me where to send it.
My patients who did the course did it in person, which was easier.
AAA also has online and in person courses, and a lot of other companies that I never heard of. I preferred to stick with either AARP or Aaa.
“If you pay off your mortgage, at least if you pay it off early, you lose a sizable deduction for the interest.” - As the you get further into the mortgage, there is more and more princiap (yay!) each month. So the over time there is less advantage to the deduction.
I have AAA and I took the class when I became eligible at age 50. I believe it saved me about $250 over 3 years after the cost of the course. It’s been more than 3 years so it lapsed and I haven’t found time to take it again. It did take 8 hours, IIRC, and you couldn’t fast forward or skip anything. It really was painfully slow. DH refuses to take it as it doesn’t meet his cost to benefit criteria.
Between having very little mortgage interest to deduct as my house gets closer to being paid off and my D soon not qualifying as a dependent anymore, I’m expecting my taxes to rise before I retire.
I started an online driver course with Geico that I think would have saved me around $75 a year since I’m over 50. Its graphics looked like the web circa 1998 and like @collage1 it wouldn’t let you move forward unless you spent an inordinate amount of time on each section (seemingly for VERY slow readers). There was a quiz after ever section, so you’d think it wouldn’t matter how quickly you went over the material. And then I kind of forgot about finishing it (despite my $29 expenditure to take it) and BarbaTeen’s run-in with the guard rail jacked up our insurance rates, so I switched over to Progressive. I haven’t seen anything about classes with them.
Yes, our taxes are unexpectedly higher since H retired than when he was working, but then so is our income, so it has been a surprise. Paying off the mortgage felt and feels great, even if we lost the interest deduction. Our D is still a dependent and helps reduce our taxes. 
Our income, since H’s retirement has been lower than when he was working. Our mortgage interest is a very small amoit of our monthly payment in these last several years.
We decided to defer 2016 property taxes , payable in Dec Or Jan to Jan. We will then pay this year’s taxes in Dec. You are allowed to deduct taxes paid in the year paid, not the year due. So we get two years deduction in one year. This year we took the standard deduction for the first time since the 80’s. Next year we will double down on huge property taxes and take all of our income from 401k accounts.
I tried the strategy of piling deductions into one year so we could itemize, because a typical year’s deductions were not exceeding the standard. So I paid our property taxes twice in 2016 (once in Jan, then again in December), and we made extra charitable donations in 2016. We also kept a detailed log of miles driven for charities (which is a lot) so we could deduct mileage at the IRS permitted rate. And after all that, sure enough, our itemized deductions were greater than the standard federal deduction. But it didn’t make any difference because our income is so low we owe no federal taxes either way. We did owe some income taxes to the state, but the state’s standard deduction is actually more generous than the feds, so we didn’t itemize on our state return either. What a waste of energy that was!
If I live to be 70.5 income taxes will become significant when we start taking RMDs from IRAs and start receiving Social Security income as well. We might even look into moving to a zero income tax state - just to see what the financial impact would be. Still have a few years to go for that (7)
Our county assesses houses once a year and posts valuations and tax due for the current year in February. No way I can pay next year’s taxes this year. We have been taking standard deduction for several years now. We’ll see if the mortgage we had to get for the new place is worth keeping…
Our county issues taxes due Aug/September and February, so you could lump by paying Feb & Aug of the current year and Feb of the following year. We try to lump taxes every other year. I haven’t noticed that it really makes much difference either way if we lump or if we don’t. I will sit down with our CPA and talk to him about strategy after he gets a vacation after 4/18 and before his extensions are due.
Oh, between property taxes and healthcare premiums and costs I will be able to itemize deductions. Is that good news or bad news?