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Posted
Jul 16 2008, 02:27 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
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
Jun 25 2008, 12:35 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
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
Rating:
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
Rating:
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 12 2008, 12:04 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
"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
Mar 19 2008, 03:01 PM
by
Karen Datko
Unlike Betamax owners of years gone by, buyers of HD DVD players can get some compensation for picking a technology that suddenly became obsolete. The New York Times has alerted the buying public that Best Buy will give $50 gift cards to the 200,000 people who purchased HD DVD players or attachments from the chain before Feb. 23, about the time Toshiba announced its surrender to Sony's Blu-ray in the latest format war. You can keep the HD DVD player and use it for your old DVDs and HD DVDs. Best Buy is offering a double bonus: If you no longer want your player or HD DVD movies -- no matter where you bought them -- you can trade them in for a Best Buy gift card. You'll be able to get a value for them at www.bestbuytradein.com beginning March 21. And this from the Circuit City Web site: "If you purchased a Toshiba HD DVD player from Circuit City in the last 90 days, you can return the player to your local store to receive your purchase amount back in the form of a Circuit City store credit." HD DVD players generally cost about $250 to $400.
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Posted
Mar 18 2008, 01:50 PM
by
Karen Datko
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"NCN" at No Credit Needed had trouble sleeping the other night and flipped on the boob tube. Soon he was captivated by the TV shopping networks. "Now I'm hooked," he writes. "Not on the products -- but on the way that the products are presented and promoted." Among his observations: Every product is a "special value" or an "amazing deal," and can be purchased in several handy installments. Dazzled shoppers call in, praise the product, and gush even more about the host. "I find it fascinating (perplexing, and a bit sad) that the callers seemed to consider the hosts to be their 'friends,'" NCN says. And invariably this: By the end of each segment, the item is "nearly sold out." "And, as the host talked to the 'producer,' she'd be informed that those who 'called right now' could be assured that the product would be available, but they needed to call 'right now,'" NCN writes.
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Posted
Mar 12 2008, 05:54 PM
by
Karen Datko
March Madness is upon us (thank goodness, because we need something to do after football season ends), and it's really heating up. We're talking about the annual contest in the personal-finance blogosphere. Every March, Free Money Finance hosts head-to-head battles between posts submitted by PF bloggers. In this March Madness, readers determine the winners with their votes. (For an explanation of the competition, click here.) You'll find some gems among these posts. The second round includes one by "Penny Nickel" of Money and Values about a credit card sleeve you can print out -- or make yourself -- listing questions you should ask yourself before you use the card. Penny calls it "a wallet-sized reminder of your priorities."
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Posted
Feb 27 2008, 12:49 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Mike Richard at Master Your Card was intrigued by the LifeLock commercial in which the company CEO shares his Social Security number with the viewing public, as if to say, "LifeLock's services are so good that I dare you to try to steal my identity." So Mike decided to check out LifeLock's anti-identity-theft service -- which costs $120 -- to find out what all the fuss is about. "As it turns out," he writes, "every preventive service they offer is relatively easy, convenient and readily available for consumers to do themselves."
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