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Posted
Jul 31 2008, 11:40 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Martin H. Bosworth at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com. In the face of high gas prices, stagnant wages and a moribund housing market, Americans are using credit cards less and less. A new study by Javelin Strategy & Research found that all ages of Americans, across all income levels, are cutting back on discretionary spending with cards, buying only necessary items, and often having trouble with the balances they maintain. "The sharp decline in credit card spending challenges the popular belief that more Americans are charging basic goods in order to sustain their quality of life," said Javelin president James Van ***. "Consumers are making deliberate cutbacks like shopping at superstores, eating out less and watching what they charge."
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Posted
Jul 16 2008, 02:27 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Would you rather eliminate your debt with a snowball, or smack it down with an avalanche? "Flexo" at Consumerism Commentary says, "By choosing the debt avalanche method, you will pay off your total debt faster, you will pay less interest, and you are mathematically efficient." We're all for being mathematically efficient.
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Posted
Jul 01 2008, 11:46 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com. When large corporations face tough times, they often hire "efficiency experts" who come in and tell them how to save money. Households, struggling under the strain of higher gasoline prices, could use the same kind of service right about now. Playing the role of an efficiency expert, Consumer Reports magazine says it has looked for and found ways for the average consumer household to trim up to $500 a month from its budget. Even at $4 a gallon, that buys a lot of gas.
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Posted
Jun 25 2008, 12:35 PM
by
Karen Datko
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You're brown-bagging your lunch, driving less and clipping more coupons, but you're still not cutting expenses enough to compensate for higher gas and food prices. That's a common lament of many of our readers, who often ask, "Isn't there more I can do?" Hopefully you can find some inspiration in "101 ways I saved money this year" by "The Village Idiot" at an entertaining blog called Save, You Fool!
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Posted
Jun 17 2008, 06:51 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Nickel at FiveCentNickel altered his driving methods a bit and improved his gas mileage by 15%. Not impressed? That amounted to a savings of a little over 52 cents a gallon. Still not impressed? This savvy personal-finance blogger paid with a cash rewards credit card that gives him a 5% discount on gas. "Thus, my base price was really $4.019 - 5% = $3.82. The 15% mileage boost then takes that down to the equivalent of $3.32 a gallon." When was the last time you paid that for gas?
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Posted
Jun 11 2008, 03:03 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Sometimes a good way to learn is to examine other people's mistakes. Lately, personal-finance bloggers have written about two doozies. "Mrs. Accountability" at Out of Debt Again tells the story of Nancy, a woman she met about six years ago when both were poor and living in a trailer park. Nancy's life changed when her mother died. The will specified that some of the estate be used to buy Nancy a condo free and clear.
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Posted
May 13 2008, 06:52 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. When I was young, I used to write a fake company name on all sorts of papers to make it look like my company stationery, as if I were a big-swinging successful entrepreneur like Andrew Carnegie. We'd play football in the streets and pretend to be Joe Montana throwing yet another touchdown pass to Jerry Rice. We'd tackle each other in the field and pretend we were LT (no, not Ladainian Tomlinson -- the real LT, Mr. Lawrence Taylor) getting Joe Theisman, minus the snapping leg.
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Posted
May 12 2008, 12:04 PM
by
Karen Datko
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"Money Smart Life" remembers the forced frugality of college: beans and rice, water on cereal because milk is too pricey, buying the cheapest beer, no matter how awful the taste. He also knows how newly employed graduates are tempted to spend. For them, he recounts the tale of the guy who went to an all-you-can-eat buffet after spending four years stranded on a desert island: He goes into shock and almost dies because his appetite wrote a check that his stomach couldn't cash. "Of course you won't die from overspending, but you can literally kill your financial future for years to come if you go on a buying binge," Money Smart Life writes in this down-to-earth post.
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Posted
May 10 2008, 05:38 PM
by
Karen Datko
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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:
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Posted
May 07 2008, 12:07 PM
by
Karen Datko
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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.
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