Browse by Tags
-
Posted
May 10 2008, 05:38 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Did you know that you can learn a lot about personal finance from the Rolling Stones? They said, "You Can't Always Get What You Want." "They didn't say, 'Put it on a credit card,'" writes Debbie Dragon at Destroy Debt. Debbie identifies 28 songs that contain lessons about money management. Here are some of our favorites:
Read More...
-
Posted
May 07 2008, 12:07 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This tip from reader "kara17" is a good one, but only if you have unwavering discipline: We put absolutely everything on credit cards with cashback rewards. (Warning: This obviously doesn't work if you don't pay your full balance every month. If you're paying 15% interest, a 5% cashback reward isn't doing much good.) We both have cards (from different companies -- one from Discover and one from Citi) with 5% cash back on gas, 3% cash back on groceries, and 1% cash back on all other purchases. There is a limit on how much you can get 5% cash back on (I think ours is $2,000 a year), so once we hit that limit, we switch to using the other card we have. These percentages may not seem high, but if you put everything on the cards, the cashback savings really add up.
Read More...
-
Posted
May 07 2008, 05:16 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. Have you ever found yourself at the store or gas station ready to pay, only to realize that the last $20 in your purse or wallet is gone? It's a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize you can't pay for something. This happened to my mom all the time when I was a kid. My parents went from one financial crisis to another and were always short on cash. I recall vividly my mom yelling at my stepdad because he had taken money out of her purse and left her with nothing. She usually figured out that she had no cash just after putting $5 worth of gas in the car (gas was a lot cheaper back then). A resolution to this problem always seemed simple to me, even if it eluded my parents.
Read More...
-
Posted
May 02 2008, 01:10 PM
by
Karen Datko
Freedom awaits, new high school graduates. After all, "the world is your oyster, and who doesn't like oysters," says brip blap's Steve, a thoughtful guy and somewhat of a jokester. But so does the boogeyman: You'll have to start paying for all the stuff parental units used to take care of. "Yes, of course, the luxuries of shoes, Wiis, ironically detached rock band T-shirts and overpriced notebook computers used primarily for Facebook, but also items you didn't realize were so horribly expensive while Pops was paying for them -- milk, cell phone bills, iTune downloads," Steve says. Steve's 10 tips can help you find your way as you embark on a college career.
Read More...
-
Posted
Apr 29 2008, 05:33 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Back in the days of personal checks and monthly bills, "doing the bills" was an arduous task that took hours and hours. Back in the days of check registers and balancing a checkbook, doing the bills was like accounting lite. With the advent of online checking and electronic bill-payment systems, there isn't any logical reason why you should be spending an hour or two each month dealing with bills. By setting up your bill-payment details and conducting your transactions entirely online, you can add months to your life.
Read More...
-
Posted
Apr 25 2008, 03:55 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
"Fox" at Squawkfox emptied her purse the other day, and it wasn't a pretty sight. Honestly, Fox, do you need to carry wadded-up paid and unpaid bills, expired coupons, chocolate and dental floss, not to mention mounds of makeup and assorted other girl things? "Are there things we should never carry in our purse or wallet?" she says. "Certainly, bringing bags of bills along with me every day is silly. But seriously, could a cluttered purse or wallet cost you if lost or stolen?" Oh yeah, and No. 1 among those things that should be left at home with the bills is your Social Security card.
Read More...
-
Posted
Apr 23 2008, 03:31 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Credit cards are about to get smarter. A story in BusinessWeek reports that MasterCard is about to introduce the inControl card for corporate clients, which will allow the boss to limit how, where and when employees use a company card on business trips. This has prompted one credit card expert to ask why the technology isn't being offered to regular consumers who have trouble controlling their credit card use but aren't willing to cut them into tiny pieces.
Read More...
-
Posted
Apr 17 2008, 02:58 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This guest post by "paidtwice" at I've Paid For This Twice Already won the personal-finance bloggers' March Madness competition hosted by Free Money Finance. I have had several questions lately about snowflaking -- what is it, why do I do it, can we see examples of it -- so I thought I would write a quick primer answering those questions and more.
Read More...
-
Posted
Apr 15 2008, 05:12 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. I had lunch with my beautiful wife the other day at a local Baja Fresh. It's something we don't do often because her office is 45 minutes away, but we were able to because she had an appointment in the morning. After we parted ways she discovered that she had left her purse behind. Fortunately, a customer turned in the purse or one of the workers picked it up. Baja Fresh had it securely behind the counter. Whew! Disaster averted. The first thing my wife said to me, after she explained that it was missing, was that this never happens to her -- she didn't bring up the fact that she had misplaced her license for about a week -- to which I thought to myself, "Of course not, this isn't supposed to happen ever." That made me think about the importance of capturing a snapshot of your wallet or purse, on a monthly basis, in the event that you lose it.
Read More...
-
Posted
Apr 14 2008, 04:35 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Do you automatically think that "budget" is the name of a rental-car company? Chances are you have a problem with spending. A post by Ron at The Wisdom Journal identifies 24 signs to look for to determine if you're a mega-consumer. He said he was inspired to write the post after his kids noticed that someone they know has four yard sales a year and asked, "How much stuff do they have?" Another sign: "You cannot fit anything else in your garage -- and you don't even have your car in there."
Read More...
More Posts Next page »
|
