Young Men pay higher auto insurance rates than young women because they’re more inclined to be reckless drivers?

MYTH 1. It’s a misconception that teenage girls get better insurance rates than teenage boys because they’re better drivers. It’s true that accident rates for young men are much higher, as are accident fatalities. The fatality rate for male drivers age is about 22 per 100,000 drivers, compared with 11 per 100,00 for women in this age group. It is also the case that alcohol is twice as likely to be a factor in fatal accidents involving male teens. However, the primary reason for lower insurance rates is that boys drive nearly twice as many miles per year as girls their age.

Double income couples with no children are in much better shape for retirement than couples with children.

MYTH 2. An increasingly large demographic group is made up of couples with “double income, no kids”-the DINKs. Even though parents may look enviously at their DINK neighbors, the DINKs’ apparent prosperity doesn’t mean that they’ve used their extra money to save fore retirement. After controlling for other differences, such as age and education, studies have found that DINKs actually have less wealth than comparable households with children. But the DIPPIEs (double income, plural pensions) tend to be better prepared for retirement than either singles or DINKs.

Most people under 30 don’t believe social security will be around by the time they retire.

FACT 3. Public opinion polls show that members of generations X and Y are skeptical about their prospects of receiving Social Security. In fact, the percentage of those polled that believed that aliens had landed on earth was larger than the percentage that believed Social Security would be around when they retired.

Men generally achieve better investment results than women because they’re willing to take more risk.

MYTH 4. Women tend to be more conservative investors than men. However, a recent study examining transactions in a large mutual fund found that the women investors ended up with better overall performance than the men. Although the women did, in fact, make somewhat more conservative investment choices than the men, the men made more trades, apparently “playing” with their money more. The men’s higher transaction costs left them with lower overall returns.

The average household owes money on several credit cards and has trouble making payments.

FACT 5. The average U.S. household has eight credit cards and owes more than $8,000 on them. About 50 percent report having difficulty making their minimum payments. The total amount of consumer credit outstanding in the United States increased 450 percent in the last 20 years, from $445 billion in 1983 to $2.1 trillion in 2003.