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Posted
Jun 23 2009, 03:21 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
"Fame! Fortune! Advice from Liz!" screams a headline at Liz Pulliam Weston's personal-finance blog.
Liz admits that it's a tad over the top. But she is seeking families to star in a series of webisodes produced by MSN. And they will get advice from Liz, author, award-winning columnist at MSN Money, and the Web's most-read personal-finance writer by far.
She writes in her "casting call":
We're looking for families with children who have questions about money issues, such as the best way to save for retirement or college, how to create a workable budget, the right way to pay off debt, protecting yourself from identity theft, how to polish your credit scores, and more.
Here's what you need to know if you want to volunteer:
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Posted
May 18 2009, 11:50 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Looking for the best Web resources for bargains, coupons, cheap travel, personal-finance tools and other ways to save money?
One excellent list is Liz Pulliam Weston's "The 100 most useful Web sites," posted at MSN Money. Now our partner blog Wise Bread, whose bloggers recently authored the entertaining "10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget," has produced a similar effort -- "190 best ways to save money online."
There is some overlap. For instance, everyone loves RetailMeNot and one of our favorite sites, Bankrate. And both Liz and the Wise Bread folks are fans of Tim Ferriss, Zen Habits' Leo Babauta and Smart Spending. (We are honored.)
But each list has its own strengths. Here's how to make the best use of both.
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Posted
Mar 04 2009, 03:18 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Here's a new trend we can do without: Having trouble collecting bad debts from the living, bill-collection agencies are increasingly going after the debt of those who no longer share our space.
It appears to be working, says a story in The New York Times. Relatives of the deceased are scraping together payments -- when they are under no obligation to pay.
The story says: "The law varies from state to state, but generally survivors are not required to pay a dead relative's bills from their own assets. In theory, however, collection agencies could go after any property inherited from the deceased."
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Posted
Feb 25 2009, 02:01 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Is there nothing credit card companies won't do these days to alienate customers?
Raising rates and paying cardholders to close their accounts are just a few of their tools as they try to reduce customer default rates. Now there's more. Before you think about calling your credit card company to ask for a lower interest rate, read this first:
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Posted
Dec 24 2008, 12:03 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Everyone is out to get your hard-earned money -- automakers, the federal government, OPEC, banks, Nick at Punny Money notes. But did you know that banks sometimes swipe your stuff? Nick sounded the alert in a post called "How to save your safe-deposit box from all the people trying to steal it." Of course, Nick's post is satire, but it's based -- however loosely -- on reality.
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Posted
Oct 29 2008, 07:49 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
While I love transferring prescriptions to earn free gift cards, lately I've found something even better: $4 generics.
Since late July I've been taking maintenance medications for a couple of common health conditions. At that time I was thankful that I'd been able to buy into a health insurance plan that included discounted prescriptions. Somehow I managed to overlook weekly newspaper ads and frequent radio spots touting "$4 for a 30-day supply or $10 for a 90-day supply."
And I call myself a frugalist.
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Posted
Oct 24 2008, 09:07 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
When the phone rings in the wee hours, my immediate reaction is "Who died?" This time, though, the caller was a panicky tenant. He was vacationing in a different state, his car had been towed and he couldn't claim it from the impound yard without proof of ownership. A friend would come by to get the title; could I possibly let him in?
Apartment-house managers get the best phone calls.
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Posted
Sep 05 2008, 10:19 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
I.C. Jackson's experience with unemployment benefits is enough to make anyone cringe. After she lost her job, she took her mother's advice and applied for benefits -- even though she had been fired for being chronically late. Her claim was approved. Months later, her former employer apparently won an appeal. "I was ordered to pay back every dime of a benefit that I was told legally belonged to me," I.C. wrote at Debt Blog. "... Who knew that just like buckshot spraying from a barrel, applying for unemployment benefits could blow up in your face?"
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Posted
Aug 11 2008, 01:27 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Guess what country this paragraph from a New York Times story describes: Outstanding card debt here ballooned to nearly $18 billion last year, six times the level five years earlier. Default rates spiked and consumer groups protested sky-high interest charges. It's Turkey, where less than a generation ago consumer debt was almost unheard of and came with a heavy burden of shame.
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Posted
Jul 31 2008, 09:59 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
If you're paying big bucks to credit-repair companies to piggyback on other people's good credit and artificially increase your score, the credit-score police will no longer be fooled.
So says Fair Isaac Corp., the company that devised the widely used FICO credit score. Fair Isaac has figured out a way to detect when people are abusing the privilege of authorized-user status on other people's credit cards. "Fortunately, we were able to come up with technology that makes it much harder to game the system," Fair Isaac chief operations officer Mike Campbell told CreditCards.com.
This is good news for consumers.
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