You’ve got a migraine. You go to the pharmacy and, throbbing headache aside, are feeling quite pleased with your choice of Advil or Tylenol. After all, there’s a reason they’re trusted brands and, you expect, you’re getting higher-quality ingredients, product safety and, best of all, a much more efficient cure for just a small premium in price.

This is exactly the thinking that leads most people to overspend on medications by as much as 80%. Brand name drugs cost more simply because the companies that make them spend a ton of money on research, marketing and advertising. Once a drug’s patent expires and is up for grabs by generic drug makers, brand names have little to do but come up with various marketing gimmics: liqui-gels, 8-hour tablets and what have you. The truth: generic drugs are made of exactly the same active ingredients (ibuprofen or acetaminophen) and have to comply with the same safety requirements. And, as we saw with the recent Tylenol recall and the ongoing FDA investigation into alleged deaths and other serious side effects, just because a drug carries a well-known brand doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s perfectly safe.

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If you’ve already splashed out on the huge flat-screen tv, a state-of-art Blu-Ray player, and a satellite dish with a monthly subscription that brings with it hundreds of channels, then it probably seems like it’s a small price to pay for HDMI cables. But, this is exactly the mentality that gets people to pay for this habitually over-priced bit of technological excess. The truth, as our infographic points out, is that there is absolutely no difference between the cheapest and most expensive HDMI cables, at least over shorter runs. If you’re wiring an entire house, you may find these cables to be worth it.

To understand why you shouldn’t pay extra, you need to understand the difference between analog and digital. With analog cables, the signal degrades, with digital cables such as HDMI, it either works or it doesn’t. The signal doesn’t degrade any more than your JPEGs degrade when you put them on a thumb drive.

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Our country’s history is rife with examples of unscrupulous individuals and financial institutions that have preyed on the unfortunate. Con artists seemed practically as common as bankers in the industrial age (some even consider them to be one and the same thing). From Charles Ponzi, so infamous he had a “Get Rich Quick” scheme named after him, to the former chairman of NASDAQ, Bernie Maddof who plead guilty in March 2009, to 11 federal crimes built on Ponzi’s example, those in a position to offer loans do so in a manner guaranteed to get the maximum amount back. Here’s a look at a few schemes (not all strictly illegal but certainly of questionable ethics) that deliberately prey on people who are poor and unsophisticated about money.

For more personal finance visualizations see: WallStats.com

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If you spent most of your Christmas morning tearing and swearing as you tried to get the packages open, you may be wondering if all of this wasteful packaging is really necessary. Consider these facts about the role of packaging in our consumer economy. One third of our waste comes from packaging from the 430 billion dollar global packaging industry. That’s larger than the global auto manufacturing industry. So what can you, as an individual, do about it? Here is one look at the disposable stuff that comes with a famous 11.5 inch doll, herself an icon of American consumer culture.

For more personal finance visualizations see: WallStats.com

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Americans lead the world in charitable contributions, giving $300 billion a year to charities. Sounds like a lot right? But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the over One Trillion Dollars needed to keep US charities in operation, more than the US government collects in taxes. The rest comes from their own assets, government support, and foreign investment. Our visual guide to giving shows who’s paying and offers some tips on how to pick a charity of your own.

For more personal finance visualizations see: WallStats.com

Interested in mortgage calculator canada?

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At MintLife we strive to make complex financial topics easy-to-understand. Most homeowners are already familiar with the concept of a mortgage. A Reverse Mortgage lets you borrow money against the value of your home without your needing to pay it back until either one of two things happen; either you die or you sell the home. With recent government regulations in place, the Reverse Mortgage is a financial instrument set to explode with the wave of retiring baby boomers. These mortgages not only affect the borrower, but their heirs as well, so it’s important to understand the ins and outs of process and product. The Reverse Mortgage can be a lifesaver for some, but is not for everyone. This factsheet will show you how it works.

Provided by Reverse Mortgage Guide

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Next: Computers and Mathematics

In order to help compare and contrast the economic differences, we have simplified the data from the CIA World Factbook and NationMaster.com. For the exact numbers in any category, check here and here.

For more personal finance visualizations see: WallStats.com