Latest Articles From The Money Scribes

2010 Plutus Awards

From Bargaineering on Mar 09, 2010

My friend Flexo at Consumerism Commentary has created the Plutus Awards, to celebrate the best in personal finance. The awards are broken up into two categories. The first goes to personal finance products and services while the second focuses solely on the best the personal finance blogging world has to ...

2010 Consumer Action Handbook and Unautomate Your Finances

From Get Rich Slowly on Mar 09, 2010

Last autumn, I shared a list of essential personal-finance e-books. These books covered a variety of topics, and many of them were free. Today I want to draw your attention to two new e-books that you may want to consider. Consumer Action Handbook First up is the 2010 edition of the Consumer ...

Your Human Capital

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 09, 2010

When I post my financial reports each month, they reflect only a small piece of who I am as a person. My bank account balances are only a small part of my life although they are center stage on Consumerism Commentary. I try to avoid labels for this reason; when ...

3 Easy Steps to a Greener Kitchen

From Bargaineering on Mar 09, 2010

Home sweet home – I’ve always love that saying. There is something wonderful about coming to place where you can feel safe, peaceful and rejuvenated. With all of the known dangers out in the big world, home can be a wonderful respite. Sadly, we are bombarded on a daily basis ...

Sallie Mae Bank Savings Account Opening Review

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 09, 2010

At the beginning of March, the banking arm of Sallie Mae, a publicly-traded corporation whose main business is student loans, began offering high-yield savings accounts. As I’ve mentioned before, “high-yield” is currently a joke; just a few years ago, you could deposit cash in high-yield savings accounts and count on ...

The New Credit Card Statements Are Here!

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 09, 2010

I never thought I’d put an exclamation mark on a sentence about credit card statements, much less be sincerely excited about it, but here we are. You have to pick your battles in life, and clearly-displayed information is one of mine. Educating people about credit card danger is another. Today, ...

Consider Self-Insurance Against Calamities

From Bargaineering on Mar 09, 2010

Last week, as I was research the “catch” on a return of premium life insurance policy, I wondered if it was possible for you to self-insure your life. The idea behind self insuring is that you take a lower level of insurance protection and save the difference into an account. ...

The High Cost of Clutter

From Get Rich Slowly on Mar 09, 2010

This post is from new staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. Last week, J.D. wrote about Stuff; today, Sierra shares her thoughts on the costs of clutter. Do you have piles of papers lurking on your desk? Mountains ...

Saving Money on Car Insurance?

From Five Cent Nickel on Mar 09, 2010

Our homeowners insurance (and now life insurance) agent gave called last week. He wanted to see if we would let him price an auto insurance policy for us as “rates have gotten more competitive.” He seems determined to get us to use him for all our insurance needs. I told ...

Daily Links: Inbox Zero Edition

From Get Rich Slowly on Mar 08, 2010

I did it! After months of struggling and hours upon hours of typing, I’ve finally reached that mythical state of Inbox Zero. My inbox is empty — or nearly so. (I still have a handful of messages about stuff I’m actually working on at this moment, such as publicity for ...

How to Handle a Missing W-2 Form

From Five Cent Nickel on Mar 08, 2010

This is a guest post from Jim at Bargaineering. If you like what you see here, please consider subscribing to his RSS feed. If you haven’t yet received your W-2 form, which reports your wages for the past year, chances are the post office monster ate it. By law, your employer ...

How to Keep Your Skills Fresh When Unemployed

From Bargaineering on Mar 08, 2010

There’s a security out there that tracks the average (mean) length of time someone is employed and that figure broke thirty weeks in January. The average person looking for work will not find it in seven months… seven months of job hunting. Seven months of going to job fairs. Seven ...

Giveaway: 5 Extreme Finance Packages (TurboTax, Quicken, and QuickBooks)

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 08, 2010

Thanks to the team at Intuit, Consumerism Commentary has “extreme finance” packages to give to our readers. This is a complete package that covers personal finance management, tax filing, and even business accounting. Five of these packages are available. Although the company balked at my initial idea of giving away ...

Find and Plug Your Money Leaks

From Bargaineering on Mar 08, 2010

How many times have you run into this scenario at work: you start a task that seems ridiculously inefficient or outdated, bring it up to your supervisor only to hear them say “that’s how we’ve always done it.” Sadly, it happens all too often and it’s the product of the ...

TurboTax Online Review, New Features

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 08, 2010

Last year was the first year I abandoned my own tax return preparation, deferring to a professional to do the dirty work. I’m glad I did; he suggested I restructure my business retroactively, resulting in a savings of about $15,000. I still haven’t seen most of this; the IRS is ...

What Did Your Parents Teach You About Money?

From Get Rich Slowly on Mar 08, 2010

February was National Parent Leadership Month, which highlighted the role parents play in shaping the lives of their children. As a sort of tie-in, the most recent poll in the Get Rich Slowly sidebar asked: “Did your parents prepare you well for financial independence?” Over 1000 GRS readers responded; the ...

Don’t Let Short-Term Events Disrupt Long-Term Planning

From Five Cent Nickel on Mar 08, 2010

This is a guest post from Darwin’s Finance. If you please consider subscribing to his RSS Feed. While it’s difficult to overcome the urge to react to unexpected events in our lives, patience and consideration of the facts almost always yields better results than emotional reactions. We encounter this every day, ...

Podcast 46: Your Money: The Missing Manual, J.D. Roth

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 07, 2010

Today’s guest on the Consumerism Commentary Podcast is J.D. Roth, founder of the website Get Rich Slowly.J.D. has made the transition from blogger to published author. In this episode, Flexo, Tom Dziubek, and J.D. discuss the financial advice in his new book, Your Money: The Missing Manual. We also discuss ...

Reader Story: How I Paid Off $18,000 in Student Loans While Still in Graduate School

From Get Rich Slowly on Mar 07, 2010

This guest post from Andrea is part of the new “reader stories” feature here at Get Rich Slowly. Some reader stories contain general “how I did X” advice, and others will be examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. I am a graduate student, working towards ...

Crap: Hard to Open Packaging That Requires a Chainsaw

From Stop Buying Crap on Mar 06, 2010

Or in this case, a butcher knife. I swear to Xenu, lord and dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, that if I ever encounter another packaging that requires stabbing motion to open, I’m going to send Tom Cruise and his Scientology pals after the person responsible. In all seriousness, from today forward, I’m ...

Dallas’s Smart Power Meter Problem

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 05, 2010

I wrote last November about a rollout in my city to upgrade everybody’s power meters to the “smart” kind which should allow the power companies to operate and communicate remotely with our electricity. They should also enable us consumers to have more data about which devices in the house waste ...

How to Report Visa and MasterCard Violations

From Five Cent Nickel on Mar 05, 2010

In the past week, I’ve written up the credit card acceptance guidelines for both Visa and MasterCard. But what if a merchant doesn’t follow the guidelines? What recourse do you have? In short, you can report them to Visa or MasterCard and (hopefully) corrective action will be taken. Here’s how to ...

When Your Friends Become Social Sellers and Multi-Level Marketers

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 05, 2010

I can’t completely fault companies like Amway, Mary Kay, and Lia Sophia. They know that friendship results in two important qualities: trust and guilt. These two qualities are important to companies because they make the process of selling products much easier. I find it relatively easy to politely decline — ...

Your Take: Does Unemployment Insurance Reward Laziness?

From Bargaineering on Mar 05, 2010

The Huffington Post shared the thoughts of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) on unemployment this week: Unemployment insurance “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,” The title of the article is a little misleading. In quotes, Kyl ...

Living Like No One Else

From Get Rich Slowly on Mar 05, 2010

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a quote from J.D.’s review of The Total Money Makeover: Printed on the bottom of every page…is the book’s motto: “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.” My ...

MasterCard Credit Card Acceptance Guidelines

From Five Cent Nickel on Mar 05, 2010

Last week I wrote about Visa’s credit card acceptance guidelines. This week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at MasterCard’s merchant guidelines. MasterCard credit card rules What follows is a synopsis of MasterCard’s rules regarding card acceptance straight from their merchant guide. The rules regarding card acceptance aren’t ...

Sallie Mae Introduces High Interest Savings Account

From Five Cent Nickel on Mar 04, 2010

This is interesting… Sallie Mae, traditionally a provider of federal and private student loans, has just entered the retail banking world. Their initial products include a high interest savings account and CDs with fairly competitive rates. The current rate on their savings account is 1.35% APY, and their CD rates range ...

Unexpected Income: What Should You Do With a Windfall?

From Consumerism Commentary on Mar 04, 2010

This article is presented by Kelly Whalen, Consumerism Commentary staff writer, who hosts a weekly internet show called the ¢entsible show.Unexpected income is a problem many people would love to have, but it happens more frequently than people realize. Whether it’s a $20 birthday check from your eighty-something grandmother or ...

Ban Credit Checks for Job Applications

From Bargaineering on Mar 04, 2010

Chris at The Consumerist referenced a story this week about how there are 16 states, including here in Maryland, considering a ban on using credit scores to make hiring decisions. Iv’e never personally experienced this or heard of a friend get denied a job because of their credit score, but ...

What is Return of Premium Life Insurance?

From Bargaineering on Mar 04, 2010

Life insurance sucks. If you outlive your policy, you spent a lot of money for not much of anything. If you don’t outlive your policy, well shucks you didn’t waste your money on premiums… but you’re dead. So when my insurance company sent me a package detailing one of their newest ...

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