A quick shout-out to a Time.com Q&A with Boston University professor Ellen Ruppel Shell, who has a new book out titled Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. The author is right on the money, excuse the pun, that, when it comes to saving, just plain buying less is a much smarter approach than buying lots of cheap stuff. Also, it’s …
Knowing how sports fans from outside the New York metropolitan area feel about the city’s sports franchises (“Evil Empire” anyone?), people from around the U.S. must get a little joy in watching the Big Apple squirm just a bit as it looks to soon be home to five big-time sports venues—and no realistic plans to fill all of the seats on …
Apparently, some members of the Amish community in Indiana have been living beyond their means, buying second homes in Florida, splurging on fancy horses, and pimping out their carriages with velvet and LED lighting.
Hyundai has a promotion starting today: If you buy or lease a new Hyundai between now and August 31, you’ll receive a special gas card that guarantees you’ll pay $1.49 a gallon for one year. The promo would have been an even more enticing a year ago, during the days of $4 a gallon, but still, it’s a pretty decent deal if you’re in the …
With few exceptions, people are spending less nowadays. Spending is down on everything from home improvement to organic milk to Mother’s Day gifts. So, obviously, the recession affects the way all sorts of people—such as an unemployed couple, a sports CEO, an ER doctor, and others profiled in a Time package—make decisions about how, …
As the WSJ reports, many states are boosting revenues by collecting so-called “abandoned property,” including unused retail gift cards. If a card is not used in as few as two years after being purchased, the states can claim the card’s value.
There’s an interesting conversation over at the Boston Globe website. Even after Massachusetts dropped the maintenance fees on time-saving Fast Lane transponders, one-third of tollpayers still go to the booth to hand over payment in person. Cars with the transponders zip along past tolls, while those without wait in line gathering …
On Saturday, 35,000 tickets were given away for Virgin Mobile’s FreeFest, an all-day concert on August 30 in Columbia, Md., with Blink-182 at the top of the bill. Tickets are (mostly) free: Attendees are being asked to donate $5 per ticket to homeless youth organizations. But USA Today reports that fans who were shut out of the initial …
Even with drug makers agreeing to discount medicine for seniors on Medicare, people are still struggling to pay bills at the pharmacy, especially for prescription meds. Jeff McCluskey, a Houston-based pharmacist for CVS, answered some questions about how to save money—or at least how to save some time—at the pharmacy.
Fascinating story in the Times Science section about how consumers buy things, and the relative happiness those things bring consumers. One part of the story discusses Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior, a new book by Dr. Geoffrey Miller. Dr. Miller says that in some instances, people express regret over spending lots of money …
The recession has affected the lives of millions, who have been forced to adjust how they live and how they spend. Within this group is a unique subset: the Madoff victim. It’s one thing to see your retirement nest egg lose 30 or 40 percent of its value. But to suddenly have that nest egg disappear entirely? That’s beyond brutal, and …
“A penny saved is a penny to squander.”
