Consumerist

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Personal Finance Roundup

By FMF 3.29.11

10 Things Groupon Won’t Tell You [Smart Money] “#1 ‘50% off? Not really.’ “

Why Your Nest Egg May Not Last [Wall Street Journal] “In short: After a good year, take out more, and following a bad year, less.”

11 New Websites for Your Job Search [US News] “Here are some new job search tools you should consider using.”

20 Tips for a More Affordable Auto Insurance Policy [PT Money] “There are two main ways to go about lowering your auto insurance premiums.”

If the Taxes Are Done, You Might Consider a Financial Tuneup [NY Times] “Instead of taking a mental health day off from work to recuperate from doing my taxes, I take a fiscal health day to knock off as many things from my financial to-do list as I possibly can.”

— FREE MONEY FINANCE

health

How To Game The Salad Bar At Whole Foods

By Ben Popken 3.25.11

Is your salad bar ripping you off? The New York Times Magazine investigated and found that ingredients at the salad bar, like cucumber, were 70% more expensive at the salad bar than if you had bought them from elsewhere in the store. So how do you get the best deal when you’re forking lettuce down your gullet? For one, go for the baby spinach and mesclun to get the best value, ladle on the cost-effective sun-dried tomatoes and go nuts on the toppings. These little guys will take a far bigger premium from your wallet off the shelf than from the lettuce trough. [More]

money

Utah Considers Making Gold And Silver Legal Tender

By Phil Villarreal 3.25.11

Utah’s state house took a step toward allowing gold and silver to be accepted as cash, passing a bill that would recognize government-issued gold and silver coins for not only their face value, but the value given to the items by collectors. If the bill passes, the state would study the idea of establishing an alternative form of currency backed by silver and gold. [More]

roundups

Personal Finance Roundup

By FMF 3.22.11

5 Reasons Why It’s OK to Get a Tax Refund [Wise Bread] “You may end up feeling a little less guilty when you collect your refund check this spring.”

6-Step Guide to Renting Out a Room in Your House [Money Crashers] “Here are six steps to ensure a comfortable boarder situation where everybody wins.”

How to make the case for a merit raise [CNN Money] “To get a formerly routine pay hike, you now have to ‘exceed expectations,’ says a new study. Here’s how to make your pitch.”

Do Programmable Thermostats Really Save Money? [Get Rich Slowly] “In theory, programmable thermostats are a great way to save on home energy costs.”

The 5 worst pieces of financial advice [MSN Money] “Here are five examples of bad financial advice — and how you really should be looking at the numbers.”

— FREE MONEY FINANCE

credit cards

Visa Letting People Send Money By Credit Card Could Be Boon For Scammers

By Ben Popken 3.18.11

Visa is launching a new service that will let people send each other money from their Visa or bank account to each other’s Visa debit, credit or prepaid card, as we noted yesterday. But while this will open up new vistas of convenience, and offer a way for people who are sick of scammers exploiting Paypal’s refund system to conduct transactions, I would at the same time expect to see new kinds of advance fee fraud using the service. [More]

lawsuits

Man Wins $5,000 Suing Debt Collectors, Thanks To Google Voice

By Ben Popken 3.17.11

Reader PJ sued a bunch of harassing debt collectors and won $5,000, and Google Voice made doing it really easy. Someone had put down his work cellphone number on their credit applications and ran up a bunch of debts and collectors started calling him multiple times per day. He told them he wasn’t the guy and asked them nicely to stop, but that only made it worse. [More]

money

Crooks Rob ATM Users With Glue Guns

By Ben Popken 3.17.11

No, they’re not pointing them into people’s backs and saying, “gimmie all your money,” but The San Francisco Examiner reports thieves using glue guns to rob ATM users are pulling off a “stickup” of another sort. [More]

readers

Just Use "Block Caller" In Google Voice To Beat Fraudulent Debt Collectors

By Ben Popken 3.17.11

Using the “Block Caller” function in Google Voice is a far easier way to beat fraudulent callers than the one we described 2 weeks ago, says reader John. [More]

atm fees

Chase Tests Out $5 ATM Fees

By Ben Popken 3.17.11

Banks are continuing to amp up the threat of making consumers pay for the price of increased regulation. Chase is testing out charging non-customers in Illinois $5 for withdrawal fees. In Texas, they’re trying a $4 charge on for size. Consumer advocates say its a scare tactic meant to muddy up Congressional waters, but banking experts disagree. “I think customers have taken for granted the cost of banks’ infrastructure,” says Margaret Kane, president and CEO of Kane Bank Services told ABC News. “ATMs are very expensive to install and maintain.” [More]

bank of america

Homeowner Turns SUV Into Anti-BofA Collage

By Ben Popken 3.16.11

A homeowner has affixed their SUV with a creative anti-Bank of America collage and slogans on posterboard and parked it outside a BofA branch in Austin, Texas. Reader Jeff is at the SXSW festival and sent in this picture he snapped of the scene. The driver of the car apparently has a loan with Bank of America and is accusing them of “fraud” though I can’t decipher from the medley of images what kind they had in mind. Nice pirate flag, though. [More]

roundups

Personal Finance Roundup

By FMF 3.15.11

5 Biggest Retirement Myths [Smart Money] “Here’s our look at five of the biggest, with a few alternatives for the reality-driven investor.”

12 Tips For Renting A Vacation Home [The Wisdom Journal] “Here are a few of my personal tips for making your vacation one to remember.”

How to purge your financial clutter [MSN Money] “Here are tips on what you should throw out and how to organize what you should keep.”

How To Save Money On Theme Park Visits [Not Made of Money] “[How to] stretch your budget and still have a great time.”

26 Ways to Save on Spring Break [Money Talks News] “It’s time for Spring Break! We’ve got lots of ways to save.”

— FREE MONEY FINANCE

money

Rich Don't Feel Wealthy Unless They Have $7.5 Million

By Phil Villarreal 3.15.11

While anyone with $1 million in the bank is technically a millionaire, it apparently takes a lot more money than that for the merely rich to feel truly wealthy. According to a survey of the ultra-rich by Fidelity Investments, the real benchmark for being wealthy is $7.5 million. [More]

credit cards

Europeans Guillotine Credit Card Magnetic Strips

By Ben Popken 3.14.11

The credit card magnetic strip might be on the path to becoming the 8-track of our times, and this time, it’s all the Europeans fault. The European Payments Council recently passed a resolution that declares that magnetic strips should only be allowed in “exceptional cases” and lets banks refuse magnetic strips if they feel like it. [More]

personal finance

Forgiven Credit Card Debt Over $600 Is Taxable Income

By Ben Popken 3.14.11

Did you negotiate a debt settlement in 2010 on your credit card? If the amount you knocked off is more than $600, LowCards notes, the IRS considers it income and you’ll have to pay tax on it. Sorry Charlie, you’re not out of the woods yet. [More]

money

Debit Cards Might Bounce Like Checks

By Ben Popken 3.14.11

Could a future where your debit card can “bounce” be that far off? That’s what this WSJ article suggests. If so, it would be the result of another creative bit of backlash the banks are mulling in response to the 12 cent debit card fee cap scheduled to go into effect in April. Here’s how it would go down. [More]

money

Readers Find Lost Money Using Unclaimed.org

By Ben Popken 3.11.11

Last week we told you about Unclaimed.org, a free non-profit site that’s a convenient portal for searching for unclaimed property state by state. Well Consumerist readers report they’re finding tons of cash under the couch cushions using it! Via comments and email, here’s what people have been hauling in: [More]

credit cards

Stop Yourself From Overusing Credit Cards By Demagnetizing Them

By Ben Popken 3.10.11

People who have a hard time exercising willpower over their credit card use sometimes find it necessary/helpful to take some extreme steps. Besides cutting them up or freezing them, Lifehacker points out that serial impulse-swipers can help limit their spending by demagnetizing their cards. Just rub a high-strength magnet, like the kind found in a hard-drive, over the strip. It will be harder to go for a spree at the mall because the card number would have to be punched in by hand, but you will be able to make purchases online for airline tickets and such. If the primary way that you overspend is through a real-world shopping romp, this could be one way to curb your bad habit. [More]

currency

Rising Cotton Costs Make Paper Money More Expensive To Print

By Chris Morran 3.8.11

Even though it’s referred to as “paper” money, most of the material used to produce U.S. banknotes is actually cotton. And with raw cotton costs at a 140-year high, it’s costing more money to print money. [More]

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