The week's best financial advice

Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial advice, gathered from around the web:

The tricky math of survivor benefits

Be sure to carefully crunch the numbers before taking Social Security survivor benefits, said Mark Miller at Reuters. When a spouse dies, the survivor must choose between taking the late partner's benefits or his or her own. Usually it's straightforward: Those age 70 and over "should take the larger of the two benefits." But in some cases, widows and widowers can increase their lifetime payout by taking their spouse's benefit first, even if it's smaller, and letting their own benefit grow by 8 percent a year until age 70. Much depends on the survivor's life expectancy and the late partner's earnings. For instance, a 66-year-old widow whose own benefit would be $2,000 a month might first choose to take her late husband's $1,500 a month benefit, and let her benefit grow to a monthly $2,640 by age 70. As long as she lives to 73 years and two months, her lifetime cumulative benefits will be higher with that strategy.

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College laptop? Tap a 529

A 529 college savings plan can be used to pay for a lot more than just tuition, said Susan Tompor at the Detroit Free Press. Computers and related equipment now count as a qualified expense under new rules that went into effect in December. That means "you're not paying taxes on any earnings or facing any penalties when you withdraw that money to cover that specific expense." But pay attention to the fine print. If you're buying a computer, it needs to be used primarily for school. So if your student is taking a gap year, it won't yet count. Other expenses come with fine print, too. If the student is enrolled less than half time, room and board costs don't qualify.

With friends like cable companies…

Loyalty doesn't pay for cable customers, said Kate Cox at Consumerist. Among the seven largest cable and internet providers, newly enrolled customers generally pay $10 to $20 a month less than current ones. Customers who live in a competitive cable market should shop around. Unfortunately, only 37 percent of Americans have a choice between two or more broadband providers. "If you can't quit, you may as well negotiate." In 2015, Consumer Reports found that 42 percent of customers who tried to negotiate their bill were able to have it reduced or get more services for the price they were paying. "Anecdotally, however," we found that "big companies aren't as interested in negotiating as they used to be." Still, that shouldn't stop you from trying.