Archive for February, 2012
10 Best Free Online Budget Tools
You know you need to create a spending plan. You know you need to prepare for the future. But you don’t know how. Thankfully, good budgeting software can help you take charge of your finances – and free online budget tools are easily available. You can get help for nearly any budgetary need you have. Here are some [...]
Today’s Deals: Paper, Cameras, Cleaning Supplies, and Free Kung Fu
I’ve subscribed to the promotional emails of 500 companies and brands so you don’t have to. I sift through 1,000 deal-touting emails every week. Most are worthless, but a handful offer valuable coupons, promo codes, sales, and freebies – which I collect and organize for you here. Happy Leap Day! Office and school supplies Paper: [...]
6 Ways to Save When You’re Shopping for One
I spent a couple of decades raising – and feeding – six children. Then one day they were all grown and I found myself living alone. I had become an expert at shopping for a crowd on a tight budget. But would my tried-and-true saving techniques still work now that I was shopping for one? [...]
8 Weird Ways to Make Extra Money
There are two ways to get ahead financially: Spend less or make more. Unfortunately, you can’t give yourself an instant raise or make long-term changes to your spending habits overnight. But that doesn’t mean you can’t turn a quick buck if you want or need to. In the video below, Money Talks News founder Stacy [...]
8 Money Lessons I Learned Watching Opera
I spent six butt-numbing hours at the movies on Saturday, watching the Metropolitan Opera’s live broadcast of “Gotterdammerung” – the last of four operas based on the same Norse mythology that informed Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” It had spectacle, pageantry, and a buff-and-bitchin’ Siegfried who turned out to have a down-home Texas accent – [...]
Leap Year Trivia: 11 Things You Didn’t Know
How many days are in a year? 365, of course, except when we add a leap day every four years. Well, not anymore. It takes Earth about 365.2422 days to revolve around the sun. So Julius Caesar rounded up to 365.25, or 365¼, says the U.S. Navy Observatory. Then he added one extra day to [...]
Are Student Loans the Next Debt Crisis? 6 Ways to Stay Out of Trouble
Bankruptcy lawyers are warning that student debt could trigger an economic mess on par with the mortgage crisis. “Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards,” says a study released by the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys this month. “Total outstanding loans exceeded $1 trillion for the first time last year.” And unlike [...]
Ask Stacy: Can a Short Sale Be Removed From My Credit History?
Here’s a recent reader question about trying to heal a short-sale wound… I have a question about removing a bad mark I got on my credit as a result of a short sale that occurred almost a year ago. I was in the Air Force but was forced to leave when I sustained a service-connected [...]
Today’s Deals: Denim, MP3s, Video Game Rentals, and Free Doctor Who
I’ve subscribed to the promotional emails of 500 companies and brands so you don’t have to. I sift through 1,000 deal-touting emails every week. Most are worthless, but a handful offer valuable coupons, promo codes, sales, and freebies – which I collect and organize for you here. Arts and crafts Hobby Lobby: 40 percent off [...]
11 Luxuries People THINK the Richest 1 Percent Have
The Occupy Wall Street movement popularized the phrase, “the 1 percent.” But a new survey shows most people don’t really have a clue what that means, beyond “pretty rich, right?” and “That ain’t me.” According to a survey this month by 463 Communications, a majority of Americans think the threshold for being in the 1 percent [...]