Monday miscellany: Porch pirates edition.

It’s not enough that inflation and supply-chain issues are putting a crimp in preparing for the 2021 holidays. Those dirty rotten porch pirates are back in business, too.

According to a study from SafeWise, more than 60 percent of U.S. residents have had a package stolen in the past year.

Obviously the holidays are prime time for package crime, because so many things are being ordered as gifts, or sent as gifts. In either case, the packages are likely pretty valuable. SafeWise also pointed out that holiday parties, visits and shopping leave people away from home longer than usual, opening the steal-this window even wider.

“Porch piracy is a low-entry crime. There are no special skills needed to walk up a driveway and steal a package,” notes criminal justice expert Ben Stickle.

The risk is low, he says, and punishment tends to be low as well. That is, assuming the perp is even caught.

SafeWise suggests the usual security measures: lockbox or package delivery locker, video doorbells/security cameras, talking with neighbors about package theft, and asking carriers to leave items in a more discreet area vs. right there on the front steps.

The 10 worst metro areas for package theft are:

• Denver
• San Francisco
• Salt Lake City
• Seattle
• San Antonio
• Austin
• Portland, OR
• Greenville, SC
• Raleigh
• Hartford

Incidentally, I dislike the phrase “porch pirates.” Giving the phenomenon a cute name disguises what this actually is: larceny, thieving, stealing. Fie on them all, and I hope they get bleeding piles.

 Or at the very least, run into a situation like the one I heard about via the New Orleans Police Department’s Facebook page. A woman in that city’s Second District reports that after setting up her new television, she put the old (broken) one in the box and set it outside. She shared a still from her security video of a thief carrying away the box: “He saved us a trip to the dump and got his just karma.”

Am I the only one who hopes he sold the TV to an acquaintance and got his butt kicked when the new owner found out the device wasn’t functional?

Credit card gotchas to avoid

Got bad credit, or no credit? You might be targeted for some pretty sub-par credit lines. Rather than be thrilled that you’re being offered any credit, take a hard look at what they’re offering.

That’s the advice of one of my personal finance cronies, Ben Luthi. In an article called “8 signs of a bad credit card,” at U.S. News & World Report, he says that some of these cards are “borderline predatory.” 

Among those warning signs:

• Annual fee, but no rewards/perks to go with it
• Other fees, such as a monthly fee or processing fee
• Card doesn’t report to the three major credit bureaus
• Very high annual percentage rate

Decent cards do exist for people with low/no credit, Luthi notes, and there are other ways to help build/rebuild your credit score. Some due diligence upfront could keep you from falling for a card that “can do more harm than good to your financial situation.”

(Note: Luthi is one-third of the Freelance Writer Academy, a team that offers courses and bundles about how to make a living at home in your PJs. He and the other two writers who created FWA all make quite nice salaries for themselves, working on their own terms. They’re offering a temporary 50 percent discount on courses and course bundles, including those purchased on the extended payment plan option. If you choose to buy, use the discount code BLACKFRIDAY. The offer ends tomorrow night, Nov. 30, and FWA has a 30-day money-back guarantee. They also award a certain number of scholarships each year.)

Women and retirement savings

Allianz Life’s 2021 “Women, Money and Power” study reveals a dismaying – but not surprising – trend. More than four in 10 women (42 percent) say they can’t even think about saving for retirement at the moment, because it’s all they can do to take care of current daily expenses.

The study also notes that women are “less engaged” in finances (their own or their family’s) overall. This shorter-term view is to be expected after what the company calls “the disproportionate economic and career impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic dealt women.”

On the bright side, just over half (51 percent) of the women surveyed said they’re paying lots more attention to what they’re spending and saving. However, only 35 percent have given serious attention to their retirement planning.

Such trends are “troubling,” according to Allianz Life spokeswoman Aimee Johnson.

“Women can’t be relinquishing control and need to be actively involved in understanding and planning when it comes to addressing risks to their financial security,” she said in a press release.

This is especially true since women tend to live longer than men, and some women are still in the dark when it comes to money: “Divorce and widowhood can plunge women into dealing with their finances for the first time. It’s important to be proactive, rather than reactive when it comes to our finances.”

I feel for the women in this position, because I’ve been there myself. When you spend all available time and energy just putting out that day’s financial fires, it can feel impossible to think about the future.

But here’s the thing about the future: It’s coming, whether or not we’re prepared for its arrival. Every year that we put off retirement savings is more than just the loss of a year’s worth of money. It’s also the loss of compound interest that can make even smaller savings grow over time.

Readers: Do you already have a retirement plan in place? If not, what’s the ETA on getting one?