TODAY Money financial expert Sharon Epperson joined us for a live Web chat Wednesday to answer your questions.

Here’s one of her answers to questions from the live chat. (See below for the full QA and video of Sharon’s TV appearance this morning.)

Shawn asked:

“Hi Sharon. What do you think of gold as an investment for the common person. I’ve watched you for years reporting on CNBC report on the commodities market and I was curious if you thought the average person should invest in precious metals. Thanks!”

Sharon replied:

“I enjoy reporting about gold and commodities every day for CNBC and I do believe it is important to have a diverse mix of stocks, bonds and alternative assets in one’s portfolio. Gold can be a part of that alternative mix — say 5-10-% of your portfolio. A great way to get into gold, as you’ve heard me mention on the air, is an exchange-traded fund like the GLD or IAU. I also think you can get exposure to gold in some large cap mutual funds that invest in gold mining stocks. See more ways to invest in gold here.”

Here’s the full chat archive and Sharon’s TV appearance:

If you have a question for our TODAY Money experts, submit it here. 

To sign up for an e-mail reminder for our next chat, click here.

Associated Press

As I was driving my children home from an after-school activity recently, I had to brake as a herd of deer sauntered across the road in the dusk, their eyes glinting in the glare of my headlights. My children were thrilled to see them, but I was quietly relieved I had seen them in time to stop.

It turns out that we are in the peak time of year for deer-car collisions — October and November — because fall is mating season and the animals are on the move. State Farm says that deer vs. automobile crashes are on the decline, but they’re still a problem. An annual analysis of the insurer’s auto claims estimates that 1.09 million collisions between deer and automobiles occurred from July 2010 to June 30, 2011, down 7 percent from the prior year and 9 percent from three years ago.

State Farm says it can’t pinpoint a reason for the decline. (A quick check of state wildlife department Web sites suggests that the deer population in the United States remains robust.) Rather, it may be a result of reduced auto traffic in the slow economy. “It makes sense to us that during these challenging economic times, drivers in the U.S. are logging fewer miles,” a spokesman for State Farm, Dick Luedke, said in an e-mail. “Everything else being equal, the fewer miles we drive, the fewer deer we hit.”

The state where drivers have the highest odds of hitting a deer continues to be West Virginia. State Farm estimates the chances of a West Virginia driver hitting a deer in the next 12 months at 1 in 53. Iowa ranks second (1 in 77), followed by South Dakota (1 in 81). The lowest-risk state remains Hawaii, at 1 in 6,267 (about the same odds, State Farm notes rather oddly, that the driver is a “practicing nudist”). You can see a map ranking states by their deer-collision risk here. (Turns out I live in a high-risk state.)

The bad news is that the average cost of damage from deer encounters went up by more than 2 percent over last year, to $3,171. Your auto insurance policy will generally cover such repairs, but there’s usually a deductible that you’ll pay out of pocket.

The Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, offers these tips for avoiding a deer while driving:

If your car does strike a deer, don’t touch the animal; a frightened and wounded deer can hurt you or further injure itself. Get your car off the road, if possible, and call the police.

Have you had an encounter with a deer while driving?

Experian

People who live in New York or Los Angeles may gloat about their superiority of restaurants and cultural amenities, but towns in the Midwest have something to brag about, too: better credit scores.

A new report from credit monitoring agency Experian finds that eight of the 10 cities with the highest average credit score are in the Midwest.

On the flip side, eight of the 10 cities with the lowest credit scores are in the South.

Wausau, Wis., takes the top spot, with an average credit score of 789. It’s one of four Wisconsin cities that are in the top 10 in terms of average credit scores.

Harlingen, Texas, has the lowest average credit score of 686. It’s one of four Texas cities that fall into the bottom 10 in the credit score rankings.

Credit scores generally range from 501 to 990. A higher score is considered better, with those consumers expected to be most likely to pay off their debt on time. The survey looked at representative sample of consumers in the first half of this year.

The national average was 749, little changed from 2010. Exerian estimated that average U.S. debt, excluding mortgages, was $24,542, down slightly from the previous year.

New York ranks 37th with average credit scores of 762. Los Angele is 96th with an average score of 738.

The report notes that there’s a clear link between unemployment and credit scores. Many of the cities making the top 10 had lower-than-average unemployment rates.

The exception was San Francisco, which had an average credit score of 781 and an average unemployment rate of 10 percent during the period being studied.

Want to see how your city fared? Check out this interactive map or take a look at this list of cities.

The Cost of Being Gay

A look at the financial realities of same-sex partnerships.

American Express is the latest company to equalize the cost of health insurance benefits for heterosexual employees and employees with same-sex partners.

The movement to reimburse gay employees for the extra taxes they must pay has gained momentum in recent weeks: American Express joins Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, which also recently announced that they would adopt the policy.

We’ve been keeping close tabs on which companies have decided to equalize the cost of benefits in this chart. As it stands now, a total of seven big financial institutions equalize benefits for workers, trailing only law firms, where, last we counted, 16 firms offered the reimbursement. Four big technology companies and five big consulting firms do the same.

Under federal law, employer-provided health benefits for domestic partners are counted as taxable income, if the partner is not considered a dependent. On top of that, the employees cannot use pretax dollars to pay for their premiums — unlike their opposite-sex married counterparts.

Since gay unions are not recognized by the federal government, same-sex couples can not avoid the extra costs by getting married. So while many large employers offer health insurance coverage for domestic partners, these employees must pay more to use it.

Like many of its competitors, American Express is only reimbursing employees with same-sex partners and their dependents. The policy will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2012, and employees will receive the reimbursements — also known as a “gross up” — every pay period, a company spokesman said.

Who are we missing? Will Citi and JPMorgan Chase be next? Please let us know if you learn of any other companies that decide to reimburse their gay and lesbian employees.

The good news: Social Security recipients are getting their first cost-of-living raise, 3.6 percent, since 2009. The bad news: Rising Medicare premiums will eat into that increase for many, and could erase it entirely for a small percentage.

Advocates for older Americans say prices on necessities like drugs continued to rise even during the years when no increases were given. Plus, volatile food and energy prices strain the budgets of retirees on a fixed income. On Wednesday, the government reported that consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in September, driven by higher prices for food and for gas. Minus prices hikes for those items, inflation rose a mere 0.1 percent in the month.

Still, in the latest 12 months, rising prices were enough to justify the 3.6 percent increase.

Related:Social Security recipients getting 3.6% raise, first in two years

“Seniors have basically been in a standstill for two full years, and some of that breathing room is going to be wiped out by the fact that premiums are going up,” says Cathy Weatherford, CEO of the Insured Retirement Institute, a trade association for providers of annuities, insurance and financial planning.

There’s no argument that Americans rely too heavily on programs like Social Security for their retirement income. More than half of married seniors depend on Social Security for 50 percent of their income; slightly less than a quarter rely on it for 90 percent of their income, according to the Social Security Administration. While the Medicare increase won’t be dire for everyone, the concern it’s generating raises a red flag that many Americans are woefully underfunded for their so-called golden years.

According to Paul Van de Water, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, about 3 percent of Social Security recipients will see their entire COLA increase wiped out by the Medicare Part B premium hike. The COLA increase works out to an average of $40 a month per beneficiary. While the exact details on the Medicare Part B premium won’t be announced until next month, Van de Water says the most recent estimates project an average $10 per month.

The average senior will still come out ahead, he says. “The COLA is doing exactly what it’s supposed to” by giving seniors a hedge against rising inflation, he says.

A statement issued by the AARP says the rise in Medicare premiums is one of many issues contributing to the financial pressure seniors face. Of course, a COLA can’t be a hedge against a drop in property values or stock portfolio values, which is why the IRI’s Weatherford says people need to take more of an active role in their retirement planning.

“It’s a clarion call for those of us that are making plans to live on Social Security to start thinking about this,” she says. We’ve got to be much more personally aware.”

October 19

Wednesday Reading: What to Ask a Financial Adviser

What to ask a prospective wealth adviser, home prices feed consumer gloom, a security app for iPhones and other consumer focused news from The New York Times.

AP

Gas is among the expenses that may be pinching families these days.

Your bills seem to be going up, and yet you seem to be bringing in less money. Sound familiar?

You don’t have to be unemployed to feel the nation’s economic squeeze. Several recent economic reports have pointed to the difficulties even those who have held on to their jobs are facing.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported last month that personal income fell very slightly in August, meaning that overall people earned slightly less than they had in July.

Despite that drop, however, consumer spending rose a bit in August as Americans were hammered by higher prices for food and gas.

On Wednesday, the government said that consumers once again likely paid more for food and gas last month, as compared to the previous month. But consumer prices for everything else rose only very slightly in September.

The reports are discouraging because they come after years of tough economic times. Median income has fallen 6.4 percent since 2007 after adjusting for inflation. A deep recession that officially lasted from December 2007 until June 2009  has been followed by a sluggish economic recovery and a high unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent.

A story in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek compares the state of working Americans today to those in the 1960s, when  household debt was low, savings were high and salaries were on the upswing.

Cut to today and the case of Tamra Loomis, a 32-year-old single mom who earns $17 an hour but has to cut corners where she can, using coupons, growing vegetables and even using her parents’ Internet connection instead of paying for her own.

“At this point, I’m paycheck to paycheck,” Loomis told the magazine. “A lot of people aren’t hiring, and when they are, they offer even less than what I make.”

Related:

Living paycheck to paycheck, or worse

Frugal food: Protein that doesn’t kill your pocketbook

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