The “new normal” among consumers is to make due with automobiles long after they’ve lost that new car smell. Plenty of drivers plan on sticking with their aging cars well past the six-figure mileage marker, until they can’t be …
State Budget Cutbacks: A Job Market Drag?
One of the reasons you hear regularly thrown out to explain why unemployment has remained persistently high this recession and whatever you would call the period we are going through now (recovery, not quite) is state budgets. Government is typically the most reliable employer during a recession. But strapped states are having to …
Why Financial Reform Hasn’t Stopped Rogue Traders
After the financial crisis, regulators and politicians said they were going to rewrite the rules to ensure that big banks don’t end up with huge losses that put a country’s and indeed the world’s financial system at risk. Allowing the big banks to make big bets was out. And yet, here we go again. On Friday, U.K. authorities charged …
3 Ways to Save for the Holidays Now (and Why You Should)
Back-to-school shopping is barely behind us, so it might seem premature to start thinking about holiday shopping (despite the fact that some retailers are rolling out holiday merchandise in their stores this month). But the …
145 Money Tips: Get Free DVDs, Avoid Bad Restaurants, Save Money & Mother Nature at the Same Time
There are also money lessons to be learned in this roundup from millionaires who hate fees as much (or more) than you and I, high-profile pawn shop owners who are wise enough to walk away rather than lose money on deals, and …
The Right Way to Loan Money to Family and Friends
When a friend or a family members asks to borrow money, your first inclination is probably to help out. You can save yourself a lot of grief by knowing in advance how you'll handle these situations.
How to Know If You’re On Track for Retirement
Most folks have never run a retirement-income projection. How can they make a realistic plan? Here's a start.
Why Bankers May Regret Elizabeth Warren Isn’t Running the CFPB
Elizabeth Warren announced plans to run for Senate in Massachusetts next year, moving from one politically charged battle of wills to … another contentious tangle with the GOP.
Cocaine Use Down—Because It’s Too Expensive
Is the recession changing the way we get high? All sorts of quirky trends have been attributed as fallout from the global economic crisis—including, most recently, a decrease in the frequency with which parents change their …
Netflix: Fewer Subscribers, Plummeting Stock Price
When the announcement was made over the summer that Netflix was essentially raising membership plan prices by 60%, many observers considered it only a matter of when, not if, subscribers would begin fleeing the DVD and video streaming service. The price changes started taking effect on September 1, and we can already see the impact: …
Three Years After Lehman, Why Our Banks Still Don’t Work
Happy Birthday, Financial Crisis. Three years ago today investment bank Lehman Brothers failed, officially plunging world into the worst financial panic in history (not fact checked – but it seemed really bad). There is surprisingly little coverage of the anniversary today, at least not on the blogs I read. Barry Ritholtz over at the …
Q&A: What We Learned Skipping Supermarkets and Restaurants For a Year
Last October, Rachel Hoff and Tom Ferguson embarked on an experiment in hyper-locavore healthy eating. For the next 12 months, the couple from Vallejo, Calif., wouldn’t set foot in a grocery store or restaurant. Their family’s …