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Posted
Feb 13 2008, 03:53 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
On the plus side, college sophomore Bill Box earns $200 a month delivering pizza, and his grandmother gives him $100 a semester if he's not flunking out. On the minus side, he owes $1,200 on credit cards, mostly for cigarettes and alcohol, and $12,000 so far in student loans. He lives in a dorm, has a meal plan and buys books at the college bookstore. Bill doesn't know it, but he's already on the highway to debt hell. Fortunately, he's about to get some tough love from fellow student Patrick at SchoolisHard.com. "College students are notorious for living outside of their means," writes Patrick in a post called "Make a debt-free college budget." "I know you are broke, but go cry to that shiny new Nintendo instead of me."
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Posted
May 21 2009, 05:34 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
How many ways is your iPhone saving you money? If you've overlooked its personal-finance potential, David at My Two Dollars lists 10 PF applications he's trying out.
David Weliver at Money Under 30 topped My Two Dollars' David with a list of his 16 favorite money-management iPhone apps. Banking, buying stocks and tracking your spending are just the beginning. The only finance activity these apps can't do is make money grow on trees. And many are free or dirt cheap.
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Posted
Apr 21 2008, 10:09 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Joseph S. Enoch at partner bog ConsumerAffairs.com. Consumers around the country are complaining that Afni Inc., a debt-collection agency, has been calling and mailing, demanding that consumers pay old Verizon telephone debts, some of them as much as 10 years old.
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Posted
Mar 27 2008, 06:18 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Carrie Kirby at partner blog Wise Bread. I was hard on cell phones as a carefree single gal. Now that I have two little kids, I'm impossible. Teething slobber and juice in a diaper bag knocked out the first two phones of my parenting years. When phone No. 3 slipped from my sweater pocket into the toddler's tub shortly after I'd extended my service plan to replace phone No. 2, I was stuck. I wouldn't be eligible for an upgrade for at least a year. I couldn't bear the thought of paying more than $100 out-of-pocket for a new phone, but -- pregnant and with a small child -- I didn't feel right walking and driving around Chicago without the safety net of a cell phone. I mentioned my trouble to my father-in-law, who laughed and said he had two unused phones from the same carrier sitting at home. He'd changed providers, and the phones had belonged to members of their family plan. With relief, I switched my SIM card into one of them. It was old, a bit clunky, with no camera or other frills, but it worked great. Last weekend, on a work/family trip to California, I forgot to zip the pocket of my ski jacket on the slopes of the Sierras. One major wipeout later, it was goodbye, hand-me-down phone.
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Posted
Dec 14 2007, 03:07 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
You pay good money for that cell phone service, but how often does it let you down? Paul Michael at partner blog Wise Bread notes that your reception usually is bad when you need it most: when your car breaks down or an axe murderer is chasing you through the woods. So his post about "5 quick ways to boost your cell phone reception" is a must-read. Most of these methods are incredibly simple. Paul tested each one and reports on the results.
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Posted
Jul 21 2009, 12:56 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Since 2003, the government has known that drivers talking on cell phones experience the same potentially deadly distraction whether they are using a handheld device or hands-free technology, records obtained by consumer advocacy groups Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety show.
By keeping this information secret from the public for the past six years, the government has endangered even more lives, the groups said.
Cities and states across the country have passed laws and ordinances requiring drivers to use hands-free phones, mistakenly believing those devices to be safe and encouraging drivers to use them.
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Posted
Jan 02 2009, 11:47 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Were you billed unwittingly for ring tones, news alerts, graphics, games and other digital stuff on your cell phone or those of your kids? You have until Jan. 30 to file a claim for a refund.
TopClassActions.com spells out the details for getting your ring-tone revenge. (And while you're at it, bookmark that Web site. It comes in handy.)
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Posted
Jun 14 2008, 08:22 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Here's a concept we can wrap our mind around: A Bankrate article talks about 12 "new necessities" of modern living that are actually "entitlements" we can do without. The article quotes psychotherapist Olivia Mellan by way of explanation: A lot of us in wealthy, overspending America are either born or raised with a tremendous sense of entitlement. We say to ourselves,"I work hard or, I work at a job I hate -- at least I should be able to have a Starbucks coffee every day or eat out for lunch." But of course, those are not needs, they're wants. They're pleasures.
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Posted
Mar 13 2008, 10:44 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We are among the four or five people in the country over the age of 12 who don't have a cell phone. Do we really want to be in touch with everyone all of the time? Why do we need to have a conversation about what the cat threw up, or what Oprah said, when we're driving, boarding airplanes or browsing in supermarket aisles? Admittedly, a cell phone would come in handy once in a while: When you break leg on a mountain, your car dies in the middle of nowhere, or you really need to make a call and there's no pay phone in sight. "Paidtwice" at I've Paid For This Twice Already says a prepaid cell phone plan is the way to go for the occasional cell phone user.
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Posted
Apr 09 2009, 08:17 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Julie Rains at partner blog Wise Bread.
I had been thinking about shedding my land line for a while. I was attached to the convenience for a long time and, more recently, unlimited calls for one price in the United States. What I wanted most from a land line, though, was reliability; but, for me, neither the cable company nor the traditional bell company could deliver. So, after more than four decades, I cut the cord.
Here's how I'm getting along without a regular phone:
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