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Posted
Jun 16 2009, 06:44 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Wal-Mart is in hiring mode -- a rarity in this job-shedding economy. As reported by our sister blog Top Stocks, it's filling 22,000 new jobs at its U.S. stores this year.
If you were jobless, would you consider working there? Bargain Babe posed that question to her readers.
"I'm very conflicted about Wal-Mart," Bargain Babe blogger Julia Scott wrote. "I don't like to feature their deals on BargainBabe.com because of their checkered past. But I know for many people shopping at Wal-Mart is a way to make ends meet."
Here's how her readers responded to her poll:
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Posted
Jan 30 2008, 06:11 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Renting your first apartment is one of those rites of passage to adulthood. So, when you're meeting with a landlord, try to act like an adult. That's No. 1 in David's "10 tips for first-time apartment renters" at My Two Dollars. "You might not want to wear your baseball hat backwards or continue smoking that cigarette," David advises. "It could reflect badly on you." The tips are excellent, covering essentials like having a good credit score because the landlord likely will run a credit check on you. Read the lease and understand it. Find out if parking is included or extra. Here's another good one: Talk to neighbors before you sign a lease. "Between finding out about the guy that sings love songs to his old girlfriend at 3 a.m. to the chain smoker in the apartment next door, you can learn a lot just by being friendly with one of the neighbors," David writes.
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Posted
Aug 27 2008, 05:06 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. You've decided to invest in your future. You've picked the perfect mutual fund. You're ready to go. Now what? How do you actually go about buying shares of a mutual fund? The good news is that buying shares is quick and easy. If you've never invested in a mutual fund outside of your employer's 401(k), the process can seem overwhelming. But the truth is that for DIY investors there are only two options to consider, and both options are inexpensive. I'll cover them both in this article.
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Posted
Aug 27 2008, 09:28 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
It's tough to be frugal in your 20s, according to a Smart Spending message board reader posting as "byebyestudentloans." Your peers seem to spend most of their time in malls, restaurants and nightclubs. And you?
"I'm brown-bagging my lunch, limiting my driving, work a full-time and part-time job," says the reader, who contributes to a 401(k) and has two other financial goals: pay off student loans and save to build a home. And all in the next two years.
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Posted
Aug 07 2009, 01:52 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Trust us. Monevator is not your run-of-the-mill personal-finance blog. "The Investor" can deal with rather high-brow topics like "the uncomfortable truths" of quantitative easing.
His ruminations on whether to buy an iPhone -- plus his analysis of his analysis -- probably exceed the mental energy some people expend before buying a house.
And this UK blogger has never had consumer debt. "The closest I've got to the D-word was in my second year at university, when I borrowed money from a friend between grant cheques to buy a stereo," he writes.
So, we were delighted interested to read that The Investor has made some money mistakes, just like the rest of us. But his are not typical.
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 09:12 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Just for the heck of it, I counted my "found money" collection. So far this year I've found $6.56. Yeah, I pick up change on the street -- and so do a lot of other people, judging from the response to "See a penny? Pick it up!"
What surprised me was that $2 of the $6.56 total was made up of dimes. Twenty people dropped them and didn't retrieve them.
Lately I've also seen dimes in the "need a penny, take a penny" cups found at many cash registers. What gives?
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Posted
Jan 21 2009, 05:12 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
When we graduated from college years ago, jobs were very hard to come by. We joined VISTA for a year and then headed back to school, hoping a master's degree would improve our chances of getting a job in our newly chosen profession. (It worked.)
History is repeating itself, and college graduates are again facing dismal job prospects. For instance, Adam at Your Money Relationship had no luck getting hired when he entered the labor market late last year with a master's in financial planning.
Here's some of his advice from a post called "10 things to do when you graduate without a job":
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Posted
Jul 31 2009, 04:41 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Mr. ToughMoneyLove at Tough Money Love.
Recently the Tough Money Love blog had its first anniversary. To help me celebrate, I invited my blogging colleagues to tell us about a personal-finance lesson he or she learned the hard way. Many responded with their own versions of the hard truth.
I encourage you to read every one of their contributions for their entertainment and educational value.
Patrick at Cash Money Life writes:
I learned about high mutual fund expenses the hard way when I made my first mutual fund purchase. The fund was front-loaded and came with a 1.5% annual expense ratio. It gets worse. The fund basically mimicked the S&P 500, so an index fund with an expense ratio of 0.20 or less would have been a much more efficient way to go. It was an expensive lesson, but I learned that brokers do not always act in your best interest. Since then I have taken it upon myself to learn as much as I can about the basics of personal finance and investing.
Pinyo at Moolanomy shares his story about falling into vending machine hell:
The worst one I made was going to a "free" business opportunity seminar. This one was about candy vending machines. Got all pumped up about the opportunity without doing any research whatsoever. Then fell for the classic "buy your equipment today for half off -- a one-time-only deal." Well, you know how the rest of the story goes.
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Posted
Jul 14 2008, 02:05 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
With American icon Budweiser becoming a foreign-owned brew, and the cost of hops and other ingredients driving beer prices up, maybe it's time to get downright domestic about beer. Honestly, folks, it's not that difficult to make beer at home, as Lise notes in a two-part post at Frugal in the Fruitlands. We used to do it -- and were amazed at the quality of our results. Some upfront investment is required for carboys, fermentation locks, bottles and some other equipment -- but you may be able to find them on Freecycle. You can also have your friends save their beer bottles, Lise says.
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Posted
May 29 2008, 02:04 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
"Finance Girl" at Finance Gets Personal has mentioned her problem with being on time before, but we didn't realize how bad it is until she blogged about "Operation Get Out of Bed." Her efforts to get up and get to work on time are legion, yet she still can't pull it off. She wrote: "What does that have to do with finances, you ask? Everything! Being chronically late can cost mucho dinero in terms of lost raises/promotions, missed-appointment fees and the like."
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