Prominent personal finance blogger Liz Pulliam Weston recently repeated her disdain for giving plasticized cash as gifts. I agree that in many instances giving a gift card can imply a lack of tact or thought, but I won’t go so far as to say that gift cards are evil across the board. They do have … Read more
A family I know has raised a whole bunch of kids — the number is somewhere between the Brady Bunch and Cheaper by the Dozen — on a fairly modest income. The parents don’t worry about paying for college, because they’ve told all of their children flat out that once they graduate high school and … Read more
These two threads over at the MSN Money Message Boards give but a taste of how much customers and retailers seem to hate each other: Annoying customer tricks and Top annoying retail tricks The first one has over 400 messages in a week. The second has about 900 messages in two and a half weeks. … Read more
In my post on finding time to invest in yourself I mentioned that one time sink can be video games. Being a child of the 1980’s I spent a lot of time on my Odyssey2 and way too much time in the arcade playing Centipede, Galaga, and Ms. Pac-Man, so I’m guilty of this too. … Read more
The Evansville, IN, headquarters of Liberty Dollar was raided by federal agents earlier this month. The Liberty Dollar is an alternative currency backed by precious metals that is designed, and encouraged, to compete with current US currency as an “inflation-proof currency.” Documents, precious metals, and other equipment were seized. The Liberty Dollar website is a … Read more
My family and I were out shopping late Sunday afternoon. We went to Target and Best Buy. I was really surprised how few shoppers were in the stores. Now, it wasn’t Friday 8 AM, but it was still the first weekend of the Holiday Shopping Season. This weekend was supposed to be their big payday … Read more
Checks aren’t as useful overall as they used to be but they still have their place. They’re useful for donations and such where you might want a paper trail. Our local treasurer’s office doesn’t accept credit cards, so we need to pay water bills, property tax, etc., either by cash or check. Costco doesn’t accept … Read more
A friend at work chatted with me earlier this week about a early-twenty-something couple he knew that were renting and really wanted to buy a house so that they could start a family. It sounded like the couple was letting the housing market “put their lives on hold” because they didn’t want to raise their … Read more