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Posted
Jul 01 2008, 11:46 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
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 23 2008, 11:57 AM
by
Karen Datko
"NCN" at No Credit Needed has noticed a change on the personal-finance front that's due to the rising price of gas. Some gas stations are no longer taking credit cards for payment. Flexo at Consumerism Commentary reports about a variation on that practice: His favorite New Jersey station recently adopted a discount for cash customers. We can understand why both are happening. Gas stations pay a set percentage -- usually about 2% -- of each transaction involving a credit card. As the price of gas goes up, that 2% produces more revenue for the card companies, even though their costs for processing payments remain the same.
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Posted
Jun 16 2008, 06:25 PM
by
Karen Datko
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The federal government may not be winning many popularity contests, but our partner blogger J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly found a treasure-trove of wonderful consumer tips in a U.S. government publication, the 2008 Consumer Action Handbook.
The fact is, there are plenty of useful federal government Web sites about all sorts of personal-finance matters. (Two we've found particularly helpful are www.irs.gov and Social Security Online.)
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Posted
Jun 10 2008, 05:41 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Some of my friends put a rubber band around one wrist if they're supposed to remember something, like getting milk on the way home. Some of my friends send themselves e-mail or schedule events in Outlook. Some of my friends draw treasure maps and hide them behind paintings in their attics. (OK. No, they don't. That was from "The Goonies.") The point is, we all have little hacks we use to remind ourselves about things we are supposed or not supposed to do.
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Posted
May 20 2008, 01:46 PM
by
Karen Datko
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Lying to your spouse about your spending -- and your debt -- can be very damaging to your relationship. But that doesn't stop people from doing it, observes "Gibble" at Gather Little by Little. A survey done for Redbook and lawyers.com found that 29% of people between the ages of 25 and 55 have lied to their significant other about their spending. Also of note: 24% said truthfulness about financial fidelity/infidelity is more important than honesty about the nonfinancial kind, according to a post by Gibble. So, he asks, what should you do if you find out your spouse has been hiding, say, $20,000 in credit card debt?
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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, 05:18 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly. Ralph sent me an e-mail recently describing a clever budget trick he picked up from a friend: My wife and I had dinner last night with a couple of young women we know. We talked a little about personal finance. One of the girls has an interesting idea on forced savings. She calls it "reverse credit." "When I want to buy something expensive, I go to the store and buy a $20 gift card," she said. "I save these up. When I'm ready, I take all the cards and go get my new thing." I think this forced savings plan is brilliant, and told her so. I've actually been doing something similar.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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