Search results for The Dough Roller
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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 06:18 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Particularly for those looking to buy their first home, the big question is always: How much house can I afford based on my income? I can still remember when my wife and I tried to crunch the numbers when we bought our first home back in 1993. I was scared to death that we wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage payments. But we did, and as the months and years went by, our mortgage payments became more manageable.
If you're considering buying a home, it helps to have an idea of how much you can afford. It's very important to think of this question from two different perspectives.
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Posted
Sep 18 2009, 07:21 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Here is one of the most frequently asked questions in all of personal finance: "How do I get out of debt?" At one level, eliminating debt is simply about following a few steps:
- Stop going into more debt.
- Spend less than you make.
- Pay off debt with the difference.
If you follow these steps, eventually you'll be debt-free. The problem is that following these steps isn't always so easy. And to make matters worse, there is a lot of "help" out there that can make matters worse. From debt-consolidation companies to books like Kevin Trudeau's "Debt Cures," which I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy, there are a lot of promises being made that getting out of debt is easy. It's not.
In fact, tackling your debt may be one of the hardest things you'll ever do. You have to control your emotions, which can play a big part in how we make financial decisions. You have to educate yourself about everything from home loans to credit cards to credit scores. And you have to discipline yourself in the way you manage and spend money.
The fact is that controlling your spending and paying off your debt is not an easy thing to do. But the good news is that you can do it. If you want to be debt-free bad enough, you can make it happen.
To help you reach your goal of being debt-free, I've assembled a list of 23 tips and tools. If you know of others, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post.
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Posted
Sep 11 2009, 07:13 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
I can still remember my first ATM card. I was a teenager in high school when ATM and debit cards first arrived on the scene. I had a passbook savings account with our local bank, and they issued a debit card that I could use to make deposits and withdrawals to and from my account.
Taking money out of my account when the bank was closed was nothing short of amazing. But my ATM card of the 1980s was a lot different from debit and prepaid cards for teens today.
The most important difference was that it was not part of the Visa or MasterCard debit network. When ATM cards first came out, they could be used only at a bank automatic teller machine. I couldn't use the card at a store. And of course there was no Internet, so we couldn't check our account online, either. On top of that, the debit card didn't work with all ATM machines. You had to make sure that the ATM was on the same network as your bank, or the card wouldn't work.
With the advent of the Internet and the Visa and MasterCard debit networks, a whole new generation of financial products was born. And recently, companies have begun using those tools to market debit and prepaid cards and other financial products to teens.
Let's look at a few of those new financial products (some recently reviewed by Smart Money), and then I'd like to hear your view on these products.
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Posted
Sep 04 2009, 06:39 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
What costs more per ounce than imported Russian caviar? At $22 per quarter-ounce, the cost of printer ink cartridges reminds us of why we got that inkjet printer for "free" when we bought our last computer.
Last month my wife took our kids to Staples to get school supplies. They called me while they were there to ask if we should get replacement printer cartridges for our HP OfficeJet 6310 printer. We then spent 10 minutes on the phone figuring out how many we needed, how many we could afford, and questioning why HP printer cartridges cost so much.
And every time we need to buy printer cartridges, I promise myself I'm going to look into lower-cost alternatives. Even if it means buying a new, more expensive printer, it's worth the investment if the ink refills don't cost an arm and a leg. The problem is that the ink cartridges run out of ink so fast, we're back to the store to buy more before I've figured out an alternative.
Well, I've finally done the research and found some lower-cost alternatives. The alternatives include: finding places to buy brand printer ink cartridges for less, using remanufactured ink cartridges, using printer ink refill kits, and buying printers that use less-expensive ink. None of these solutions will make printing "cheap," but they all can save a lot of money.
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Posted
Aug 21 2009, 06:16 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller:
Improving your FICO credit score has never been more important than it is now. Your credit score affects whether you are approved for a loan, the interest rate your pay, and even the cost of insurance. Credit card companies now use credit scores and credit history to determine not only the interest rate that will apply to the account, but other terms such as the length of no-interest balance transfers. And your credit score can even impact whether you get a job.
In short, your credit score has a big impact on your finances. The good news is that you can begin to improve your credit score today with a few simple steps. I've been monitoring my FICO credit score through myFICO.com, and I've noticed that my score has gone up about 15 points in the last month. So I thought it was a good time to review the simple steps we all can take to increase our credit scores.
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Posted
Aug 14 2009, 10:45 AM
by
Teresa Mears
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Particularly in difficult financial times, the last thing we should do is spend money on stuff we don't need or even want. Yet that's exactly what many of us do. I'm guilty of it, even though avoiding those expenses is really easy to do.
So I thought it would be a good time to put together a list of things many of us buy but really don't need. If you can think of other things we waste our money on, please add to this list by leaving a comment.
Extended warranties. Service contracts and warranty extensions are my biggest pet peeve. I love it when a store clerk asks me if I want to spend $39.95 to add one year to a warranty for something that costs $150. Are they serious?
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Posted
Aug 07 2009, 05:58 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
The memorial for Michael Jackson cost the city of Los Angeles $1.4 million, according to The Associated Press. While most of us won't be remembered at the Staples Center in front of 11,000 people, funerals are expensive.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, a traditional funeral costs about $6,000, and many funerals run well over $10,000. Costs include the casket, embalming, the service, cemetery site, and grave liner. In short, death is big business in the United States.
And to make matters worse, most of us plan a funeral while dealing with the emotional trauma of the death of a loved one. We find ourselves making important financial decisions in the midst of an emotional crisis with very little time to consider our options. Our sadness for the loss of a loved one, moreover, sometimes expresses itself in high cost funeral decisions.
With a little effort, however, we can plan a respectful memorial without breaking the bank. What follows are a number of tips, resources and links to help you plan a low-cost funeral.
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Posted
Jul 31 2009, 06:33 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
One of the features of many 401(k) retirement plans is that you can borrow money from your own account. While 401(k) plans are not required to permit plan participants to take out loans, many plans do.
Much has been written about the pros and cons of 401(k) loans. One of the potential drawbacks comes into play if you leave your job (voluntarily or otherwise) while you still have an outstanding loan from your 401(k) plan.
When this happens, you generally have two options: Pay back the loan in full within 60 days, or don't. If you follow the second option, the IRS will treat the loan as an early withdrawal from your 401(k) plan and, with some exceptions, smack you with a 10% penalty of the outstanding loan amount AND require you to pay taxes on the distribution.
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Posted
Jul 24 2009, 07:05 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.
Earlier this week we took a look at how to get your free FICO credit score from myFICO.com. Operated by the Fair Isaac Corp., creator of the FICO credit score, it offers consumers a free credit report and FICO credit score when they sign up for a 30-day trial of Score Watch. The FICO credit score myFICO.com provides is from Equifax, one of the three major credit bureaus.
And that's where some confusion can creep in.
There are three major credit bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. And each of these credit bureaus calculates a consumer's FICO credit score, which can be and usually is different for each credit bureau. In other words, you likely have a different FICO credit score from each of the three major credit bureaus. And to add to the confusion, each of the credit bureaus calls its version of the FICO credit score by a different name.
So let's quickly sort all this out:
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Posted
Jul 17 2009, 06:12 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This is a condensed version of a post at partner blog The Dough Roller.
Student credit cards kind of remind me of the movie "A Few Good Men," starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. If you've seen the movie, you remember well Lt. Daniel Kaffee's (Cruise) cross-examination of Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Nicholson). In that powerful cross-examination, all Lt. Kaffee wants is the truth.
When it comes to student credit cards, the truth is all we want, too. We want to peel away all the marketing hype that surrounds student cards, understand the pros and cons, risks and rewards of student cards, and then make an informed decision.
To do that, we've created this College Student's Guide to Credit Cards. The aim of this guide is not to convince anyone that credit cards are good or bad. Instead, the guide is designed to arm college students (and parents) with the information they need to make sound financial decisions about credit cards.
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