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personal finance
The Little Lies We Tell To Let Ourselves Spend
By 10.30.07
Frugal For Life lists some of the things we tell ourself that rationalize irrational buying decisions, things like “I’ve been working really hard” or “this one little thing won’t be a big deal.” One that I’ve been guilty of is, “I have plenty of allocated disposable income and I never got the nice things as a kid that other kids got so now it’s my turn to have the toys.” We all do it, the trick is to catch yourself doing it and counteract the impulse by asking if the purchase is really important, necessary or of good value. What do you find yourself telling yourself makes you spend or spend extra for the upgrade?
5 Ways To Prepare For A Surprise Layoff Or Firing
By 10.30.07
If it’s truly going to be a surprise, there’s not much you can do on the day it happens, other than roll with the punches and maybe meet up with some friends after work for a beer. However, you can take some important steps to insure that you’re well-protected if you ever find yourself in this situation, so that you can improve your odds of landing another job quickly, before that creepy desperation sets in and you start to make recruiters and HR specialists uncomfortable. Consumerism Commentary describes 5 ways to prepare yourself for unexpected “career mobility.”
By 10.29.07
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Keeping up with the Jones may seem hard, but here’s an easy way to be better than 73 % of rich parents: talk to your kids about money. A survey by PNC Wealth Management found that only 27% wealthy parents had discussed family budget with their children.
1 in 3 Lottery Winners Broke Within 5 Years
By 10.29.07
The sad news is that 1 in 3 lottery winners are in serious financial trouble or even bankrupt within 5 years. Why? The suddenly wealthy often never learn to manage their money.
Government Wants To Sneak Financial Info Onto Soaps And Telenovelas
By 10.29.07
When we posted about “30 Rock” last Friday, a reader SHOUTED IN ALL CAPS that someone—either NBC, or Tina Fey, or maybe The Consumerist, we’re not sure—is a government shill for basically being paid by the gov to write about financial advice. Turns out Mr. Shouty is right, sort of: the U.S. Treasurer, Anna Escobedo Cabral, was on the radio news program “Marketplace” a couple of weeks ago to talk about how she’s been meeting with the creative teams of soap operas and telenovelas to find ways to incorporate financial storylines into their plots.
Live Without Credit Cards
By 10.27.07
The best way to escape from our mindless purchase economy is to ignore your credit cards in favor of pure, reliable cash. Credit cards undoubtedly have value – purchase protection, rewards, convenience – but only for consumers who use credit responsibly. No Credit Needed wrote a useful guide for anyone willing to live the credit-free life.
NBC Teaches Personal Finance Lessons On "30 Rock"
By 10.26.07
NBC is taking the “workplace comedy” concept to new levels of realism, by including a couple of scenes about a major character’s lack of a savings plan in this week’s “30 Rock” episode. After being awarded a $10,000 “GE Followship Award” for being such a great follower, Tina Fey’s character stuns her boss by revealing she doesn’t have a 401(k)—or, apparently, even a savings account.
Reader Lowers Credit Card APR From 15.74% To 1.99% By Threatening To Cancel
By 10.26.07
After reading our posts about getting your credit card APR lowered by threatening to do a balance transfer to a lower rate credit card, Brandon got his Citibank Mastercard APR lowered from 15.74% to 1.99%. It’s an introductory rate that goes up to prime plus 4.99% after a year, but it’s definitely worth it for the time being. A factor that probably helped him was the $10,000 balance he was carrying, making his business more valuable to Citibank.
By 10.26.07
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How one blogger bought a used minivan without borrowing a dime, just straight-up cash on the barrelhead. [No Credit Needed]
6 Basic Things Teens Should Know About Credit Cards
By 10.25.07
Organizations like the Jump$tart Coalition and NFCC have rolled out programs that help you teach your kids about the ins and outs of credit cards, credit ratings, interest rates, etc., but Janet Bodnar at Kiplinger says that there are some basic facts that you should focus on. She thinks too much detail bores a kid; we think it depends on the kid, but agree that at the very least, hitting each point on the following list would give your offspring a decent foundation for making good credit decisions.
Track Accounts Online With Geezeo
By 10.25.07
Geezeo is a personal-finance management site that helps you keep track of all your accounts in one place. Like Mint.com, you give it all your account user names and passwords to use it. Also like Mint, Geezeo is a front-end system, but based on CashEdge instead of Yodlee. Unlike Mint, it has support for tracking your car loan, mortgage, and brokerage accounts (although they don’t interface yet my my fave, Vanguard), with plans to add support for student loans….
BoA Jacks Up Your Rates To 32.24% If You're Late With Two Payments
By 10.24.07
Bank of America gave Timothy a fun new “change in terms” yesterday that says if he pays late on his Visa at least twice in 12 months, they’re reserving the right to jack his rates up to a higher APR. It could go high as up as an effective APR of 32.24%. Hey, gotta make up for that 32% earnings drop somehow.
Put Impulse Spending To Work As A Savings Builder
By 10.24.07
If you’re the type of person who thinks “discretionary spending” means “I can buy what I want, when I want,” read this person’s idea for how to create an Impulse Buy Savings Plan. It gives you a methodology where you can effectively trap your impulse purchases in a cooling-off period, while also seeing how that money would look if it were saved instead.
Use Halloween Candy To Educate And Annoy Your Kids
By 10.24.07
Sometimes parents like to drive their kids crazy by showing up on Facebook, or listening to rap music, or professing that Zac Efron is a cutie-patooty, but Grad Money Matters suggests a whole new level of annoyance: use their Halloween candy to teach them about money. Here’s how: on Halloween night, you buy all their candy off of them, then give them a pre-set limit of how much they can spend each day to buy choice pieces back, and as the days go along, you drop the “prices” on the candy so that they can purchase more if they want or forego the sweets in order to increase their savings.
5 Expenses You Can't Afford If You Have Credit Card Debt
By 10.23.07
5) Cable. Your Excuse: “But, but, but I need cable! I get a good deal! It’s only $100 a month! I use it a lot! It’s bundled with my phone and my internet. I’ll only save $30 a month if I cancel it.”
Mint.com Responds To Security Concerns
By 10.23.07
Some people think that using Mint.com is crazy because of the security risk of handing over all your banking user names and passwords. FiLife asks them some tough questions about their security procedures and gets straight answers, like:
Let’s say you get hacked. Banks normally would protect me if they get hacked, but do I lose my protection if I’m using Mint to access the bank but the breach happens through your systems? You’re legally protected for $0 liability on credit cards and $50 on bank accounts if fraud is reported within two days. These rights are not voided by using Mint, Yodlee, Quicken, Microsoft Money or similar programs.
They also say all user names and passwords are kept on Yodlee’s servers, not anyone else’s. Every lock can be picked, but we’re more concerned about identity theft resulting from our local big box retailer’s lax security procedures than from Mint.com.
