The 10 Most-Hated Money Saving Tips [Free Money Finance]
personal finance
Is It Necessary To Freeze Your Credit?
By 11.22.07
We focus so much on identity theft and safeguards against it that it may seem like freezing your credit is the only solution in a world of identity thieves. That may or may not be an accurate assessment (ask me the next time my credit card is duped), but credit freezes aren’t for everyone. Consumerism Commentary offers a sort of beginner’s guide to the topic for readers who are trying to decide if it’s right for them.
How To Tell A Good Stock Picking Strategy From A Faulty One
By 11.21.07
Okay, so Jack Hough’s column in SmartMoney this week is really just an extended ad for his new book. But in this case, the content of the book is something valuable that we think a lot of Consumerist readers will want to know about: how to identify reliable stock picking strategies.
Set Up Your Own Funeral Trust
By 11.20.07
Don’t set up an irrevocable funeral trust through your insurance company, says MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe.
Which Retirement Funds To Tap First
By 11.19.07
So you’re an old geezer and you’re ready to start enjoying all the money you saved up for retirement. If you’re under 70.5, this is the order you should spend your assets in, according to the Autumn 2007 Vanguard report:
5 Myths Of Retirement Investing
By 11.19.07
Here’s 5 common myths people tell themselves that can end up bungling their retirement savings plan, cribbed from the Autumn issue of the Vanguard market report.
Saving Money The Lazy Way
By 11.17.07
If you’re like approximately 25% of the writers at The Consumerist, then prolonged talk of budgeting makes your eyes glaze over with boredom as you imagine yourself somewhere else doing something fun, like playing a video game or looking at pornography. Here, then, is a list of 10 so-called “easy” ways to save money, none of which require that you read a book or finally open that Quicken box your parents bought you two years ago. Many (or most) of the ideas may be of dubious value, but nobody said being lazy was profitable.
Cheap Ideas For Holiday Parties
By 11.16.07
Kiplinger set itself three basic rules to follow for affordable holiday entertaining: “make it a team effort” by splitting hosting duties or having guests bring food, “borrow what you don’t have,” and ” be creative.” Following these rules, they came up with ten ideas for holiday get-togethers that even people on tight budgets can pull off. Here are the first three.
10 Great Finance Books
By 11.16.07
Trent at The Simple Dollar read a new finance book every week for a year, ranking them according to how original and useful they were, and now he’s compiled a list of his top ten picks. According to Trent, if you read these ten books (and maybe the ones coming in at #11 and #12), “You’ll have absorbed basically all the useful material in every book on the list.”
His top pick is “Your Money or Your Life,” by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, a “big picture” book that looks at how and why you spend your money.
Help Me Get A Credit Card For Christmas
By 11.15.07
“I am 19, and have never owned a credit card, only debit cards. I have had a 47.50 (or so) debt in the past due to a large overdue fine to a Hollywood Video. I took my sweet time in paying that off and now after one credit card refusal, I expect that it has damaged my otherwise non-existent (to my knowledge) credit score, which (if I understand things right) puts me in a heck of a hole. How do I get out of it? I’m assuming that not building any credit, then going into debt just messed me up and I need to know how to get things right, but if I can’t get a card, how can I get good credit? This is a really unpleasant situation, especially with Christmas coming around.
Buying A Home? Don't Rack Up Debt Between Approval And Closing
By 11.15.07
Don’t open any new lines of credit or go crazy with the credit card purchases between your home loan’s approval and the actual closing date, warns Ilyce R. Glink (doesn’t it look like we just tapped a bunch of keys at random to spell that name?) at Inman Real Estate News. Your lender will pull a second credit report before closing to make sure that you’re still capable of paying your loan—so if you’ve done anything in the interim that could impact your ability to pay, rest assured it will show up.
6 Ways To Save Money This Season
By 11.15.07
All Financial Matters offers six interesting ways to cut costs between now and the end of the year, and although we don’t completely agree with a couple of suggestions, we still think it’s worth a look.
1. Actually look at the price tag before you buy each and every thing for the rest of the year.
2. Avoid items marketed for the season. Their example: red and green candles work fine—you don’t need “Christmas” candles.
Where To Get Your Real Credit Score
By 11.14.07
Finding your credit score can be hard if you’ve never done it before. There’s scam sites, conflicting information, and the credit bureaus offering their own version of the credit score. But if you want your FICO, the real score looked at by lenders to determine your credit-worthiness and interest rates, here’s where you can go:
ABCDEs Of Cutting Down Debt
By 11.14.07
No Credit Needed offers these “ABCDEs” for getting yourself out of debt.
By 11.13.07
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Starting in 2010, high school students in Ohio will be required to take a personal finance class before graduating. [WTOL11]
