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Do you know these basic but potentially eye-opening facts about your money? Below is an excerpt from UsaToday.com that might just help you keep an eye on your nest-egg and maybe even help it grow…

10 things you may not know about your finances

By Stephanie Armour, Anna Bahney, Sandra Block, Kathy Chu, Christine Dugas and John Waggoner, USA TODAY

1. Medicare doesn’t cover nursing home care

Nearly 60% of Americans think Medicare pays for nursing care, and 52% assume that it covers assisted living, according to a 2006 survey by AARP.

Not so. Medicare’s coverage of long-term care is extremely limited. It’ll cover part of the cost of a skilled nursing facility while you recover from an injury or illness. But this coverage lasts just 100 days.

Medicare doesn’t cover custodial care, such as help with bathing and dressing. Need to enter a nursing home because you’re no longer able to take care of yourself? Medicare won’t cover any of your costs. Medicaid, by contrast, will cover nursing home costs — but only for people with little or no assets.

2. The way banks process checks and debit-card transactions can cost you BIG

Banks tend to process transactions from the largest to the smallest dollar amount, rather than in the order they’re received. This policy is another way for banks to boost profits, says Ellen Cannon, managing editor of Bankrate.com. That’s because processing first high, then low, dollar amounts makes it easier for banks to hit consumers with multiple overdraft fees.

Say you have $100 in your account, and you have four transactions processed one day, for, in order, $20, $45, $30 and $90. The bank will process the $90 transaction first, so it can charge you a fee — of up to $39 — for each of the three transactions that will then bounce. If the transactions had been processed in the order in which they’d been received, you’d face only one fee. Most banks charge more than $30 each time you overdraw. Some also charge a fee of $5 or more for each day that your account remains overdrawn.

3. Once you turn 50, you can put away more pretax money for retirement than younger workers can

Many older workers fail to exploit the 401(k) "catch-up" rule, which lets people 50 and older contribute an additional $5,000 a year to their 401(k) accounts.

At some companies, higher-paid workers aren’t allowed to contribute this year’s full $15,500 maximum to a 401(k) if not enough lower-paid workers at their company invest in the plan. But the catch-up rule lets all older workers — even the higher-paid ones — boost their annual contribution by $5,000. This is especially beneficial if only one member of a couple has access to a 401(k) plan, and the couple would like to boost their family retirement savings. It’s also helpful to women who return to work after an extended absence.

4. If you didn’t get a tax rebate this year, you might be able to claim it when you file your 2008 tax return

Millions of taxpayers have received rebates, or will by mid-July. But many others will get only a reduced amount, or none at all, because their 2007 income was too high. Congress phased out the rebates for single taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of more than $75,000, and married taxpayers with AGIs of more than $150,000.

Here’s what many taxpayers don’t realize: Some of them will get a second chance to claim the rebate. The rebate is actually an advance credit on 2008 taxes. But since the Bush administration wanted to get money into consumers’ wallets as fast as possible, the rebates were calculated using 2007 tax returns.

So if your income has dropped this year, you can claim the rebate when you file your 2008 return. This second-chance provision will also benefit those whose rebates were shrunk or eliminated because their 2007 income was too low.

5. Real estate isn’t a very lucrative investment over the long run

The real estate party over the past decade or so — even when you factor in the recent price drops — has left many people assuming that real estate is the surest long-term investment out there. Not so. Over the long haul, on average nationwide, returns from real estate fall far short compared with other investment categories.

Housing has returned a 4.7% average annually over the past 25 years, according to an analysis for USA TODAY by Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. Over the same period, the S&P 500-stock index produced an average return of 13.3%. Other investment options also outperformed real estate. The three-month Treasury bill produced a 5.4% annual return and the 10-year T-bond 7.1%.

This story is courtesy of www.usatoday.com; read it by clicking here…