Are you still renting your phone?

Back in the days when rotary phones were considered new technology, Ma Bell would rent telephones to its customers.

Its sounds crazy today, but even 30 years ago, people rented telephones because you couldn't buy one. Millions of people rented phones, including my parents, who had five of six telephones in the house, which they rented for maybe $10 to $20 per month.

In the mid-80s, customers were given the option of turning in their phones and buying their own. Most of the 40 million phone renters did just that.

But Ester Strogen, a widow in Canton Ohio, never stopped renting her telephone. According to news reports, her family estimates she paid more than $14,000 for her two black rotary phones she got from AT&T in the 1960s. She's been paying $29.10 for her phones for more than 40 years.

Worse, Lucent Technologies, which handles the residential leasing service for AT&T, says that 750,000 other customers have continued renting their phones.

Is that really a silver dollar in your pocket?

Last summer, I watched a reenactment of a famous Civil War battle.

For me, the most interesting part of the day was walking around the tent communities, looking at all the Civil War memorabilia. One "General" had many examples of Civil War currency, printed and minted by a variety of different people.

Today, it's illegal to use "alternative" money -- that is, coins or dollars printed by anyone other than the U.S. Mint.

But a Liberty Dollar coin, made almost entirely of silver and backed by what its proponents say are stocks of silver and gold in a vault in Idaho, has been circulating for eight years. Its makers claim to have $20 million in coins in circulation.

The Justice department says using Liberty Dollars is a crime and last week it issued a rare warning that only the U.S. Mint can produce currency that is valid in the U.S.

It's not the 1860s, folks.

Medicare Costs are Rising for the Wealthy (and Not So Wealthy)

One way to pay for soaring Medicare costs is to ask some Medicare participants to chuck in a bit more.

Tucked away in the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Bill is a little-noticed provision that adds a surcharge to Medicare premiums depending on how high your income is.

If your adjusted gross income is $80,000 to $100,000, your surcharge will be about 13 percent. If your income is more than $200,000, your surcharge will be 73 percent. By 2009, you'll pay between one and a half to just over three times the standard amount.

If premiums rise just 10 percent per year, which is considered a relatively conservative forecast, affluent beneficiaries will pay Medicare Part B premiums of more than $375 per month in 2009.

Under current law, the $80,000 threshold and income brackets are scheduled to adjust each year to keep pace with inflation. If you're going to pay the surcharge, you might just want to examine your other options.

Travel Cheaply Inside and Out of the US

I got an email this week from a WSB listener who wanted to know how to find great travel bargains abroad. She's flying to Europe and then Asia and wants to find cheap ways to fly between cities.

The best tool ever invented for cheap air travel has to be the Internet. With a few clicks on a search engine, you can find airfares between foreign cities that are unavailable in the U.S. -- or are much more expensive.

To get out of the U.S., look for "so-called" consolidator sites or farecompare.com. For foreign sites, go to azworldairports.com. That site will link you to hundreds of airports world-wide. Look up what airlines fly in and out of those airports and then find the websites for the airlines.

When booking a trip from London to Scotland last year, I bought tickets on Ryan Air through their website. It cost me half as much as if I had booked the same flight through Travelocity.

Can't Sell Your Home? Your Builder May Help You

I'm hearing from people caught in the proverbial middle.

You've committed to buy a new house but can't sell your existing home. What can you do? I wouldn't have normally said this, but you might want to talk to your builder.

Builders have been offering buyers plenty of incentives over the past few months, like free options and upgrades and even lowering the price of some units.

But now they're testing services in some markets to help buyers sell their existing homes. The Wall Street Journal reports that in about a dozen markets, Pulte is connecting home buyers with professional home stagers, and paying for $2,000 of the service. In Phoenix, Lennar has arranged for sellers to pay a 3 percent commission if buyers use Coldwell Banker. Toll Brothers is paying Detroit buyers' mortgages of up to $2,500 per month for six months.

If you want to buy a new home but can't sell your existing one, see if your builder can help.