Verizon has announced that they will begin charging customers a $2 fee for paying their bills online via credit card, in order to "continue to support these single bill payment options in these channels and is designed to address costs incurred by us for only those customers who choose to make single bill payments in alternate payment channels (online, mobile, telephone)," the company says.

While the fee applies to one-time online payments, there will be no charges for using the company's AutoPay option, which will pay your bill automatically each month via either credit/debit card or directly from your bank account.

Not totally surprisingly, there was a lot of uproar online about the new fees, with GigaOm calling it an "excessive" charge.

But $2 not only seems excessive; it runs counter to the policy that Verizon and all service providers – whether wireless, wireline, cable or utility – have implemented in recent years: cutting the enormous cost of issuing and sending paper bills and processing hand-written checks.

One of Verizon's obvious goals is to get people to enroll in AutoPay, in order to ensure that they get paid each month and have fewer customers to chase for payments.

Since the AutoPay option still accepts credit cards (meaning Verizon still has to pay credit card processing fees), they can't just argue the change is just about processing fees, says GigaOm. However, according to the NY Times:

Those one-time payments cost Verizon money since it must pay merchant fees to card companies and others. The amount it costs Verizon to accept cards in stores could be less because of quirks in how the card companies set fees. It may also be willing to swallow the costs of accepting cards in its stores in exchange for the opportunity to sell upgrades to people who come in to pay their bills.

Surely, many of the folks who enroll in AutoPay use their bank accounts to make the automatic payments and not their credit cards. That also reduces the costs for Verizon, and I think points to a bigger trend coming down the pipe in the industry.

New services like Dwolla (which I need to cover more in the future) facilitate bank-to-bank payments, going around the credit card companies and the associated fees. Any consumer or merchant wants as few hands as possible on every transaction, because it means fewer costs to do the transaction. That's likely something Verizon is looking at, as well.

Honestly, I don't really mind the new Verizon fee. You can say it's silly, because they don't charge a fee to come into a store and pay your bill (where there are a ton of overheads costs — people, the store, etc.). But the folks who come into the store to pay their bills most of the time wouldn't be paying online, anyway, and forcing them to make that switch by adding in-store fees would result in a bigger backlash than this effort.

What do you think? Is Verizon in the wrong, or is this a legitimate business decision?

What do you spend your money on? Your mortgage/rent, food, utilities, entertainment, clothes, cell phone … what else?

Do you know how much you spend on each every month? How about your irregular expenses — what are they and how much do they cost?

Today is all about understanding your spending.

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Have you ever asked yourself: where's my money going?

It's an all-too-important question that many people unfortunately don't know the answer to. Now that you've set up your account aggregator and categorized your spending for the past few months, you can see exactly where your money has been going.

Today, you'll determine precisely what you've been spending money on, and break it down into three categories:

• fixed costs
• flux spending
• once-in-a-while expenses

First, let's see where your money is going.

Chart Your Average Monthly Spending

You've already taken a quick peek at where your money has been going when you categorized your transactions, but it's time to dig a little deeper.

Log back in to Yodlee and click on the "Spending Reports" tab. Choose the time period you categorized your transactions and click "Show."

You'll see your Expenses Analysis pie chart appear on the left, with the colors each category represents in the middle of the page.

What are you spending the most money on? Where might you be overspending?

Tomorrow, you'll set goals for your expenses. Today, it's time to determine which of your expenses can be automated.

List Your Fixed Costs

Using the spending report and categories, list out the expenses you pay a fixed amount for on a regular basis.

These could include:

• Mortgage/rent
• Loan payments (list each loan separately)
• Telephone/cable/Internet services
• Insurance
• Memberships (gym, club)
• Utilities
• School/education
• Childcare

So if you know that your mortgage is going to be $1500 every month, it's a fixed cost. Same with your student loan; if it's $150 every month, it's a fixed cost.

How Much Are Your Fixed Costs?

Now that you have a list of your fixed costs, it's time to tally how much they cost.

Using either your monthly bills or the spending analysis, add together each fixed cost on a monthly basis. This is your total fixed expenses, and the easiest amount to automate and anticipate.

Save this number — your total fixed expenses — you'll use it again shortly.

Your Once-in-a-While Expenses

You likely have a few once-in-a-while expenses; you know — the commitments that pop up once every 6 months or yearly that may take a bite out of your wallet.

These could include:

• Insurance (auto, homeowner's, renter's)
• Membership fees (yearly dues)
• Charity donations
• Taxes

Once-in-a-while expenses have a tendency to creep up on you before you have the money ready to pay them. It's time to stop that.

List your once-in-a-while expenses, over a full calendar year.  Don’t miss those that you pay more than once a year. For example, if you pay your auto insurance twice a year, make sure to count it twice.

When you've totaled up your once-in-a-while expenses, divide it by 12. This is the amount you need to be setting aside each month to pay these bills. We'll call this the once-in-a-while fund.

Determine Your Flux Spending Amount

Your flux spending amount is the amount of money you do not already have earmarked (or can reliably anticipate) for each month.

This includes expenses like:

• Groceries
• Entertainment
• Credit cards
• Clothes
• Dining Out

And, most importantly, savings!

In order to find your flux spending amount, use this equation:

Expected Monthly Income minus Total Fixed Costs minus Once-in-a-While fund = Flux Spending Amount

For example, if you have an Expected Monthly Income of $4500, Total Fixed Costs of $2000 and need to set aside $300 for your Once-in-a-While fund, you'd have $2200 for your Flux Spending Amount.

4500 – 2000 – 300 = 2200

Your number will be different from anyone else's, but there's one universal truth: if this number is lower than you'd like or even negative, you are spending more money than you can.

The number one rule of personal finance is to spend less than you earn. If you aren't obeying this rule, now is the time to start.

No matter how big your Flux Spending Amount is, tomorrow we'll make it bigger. Then you’ll have goals for each flux category, and more money to save each month!

TIP: Knowing your Flux Spending Amount each month puts you intimately close with your spending habits. When you think of every purchase you make as eating away at your total flux amount – and possible savings – you'll make better decisions about buying things you want versus buying things you need.

If you don't know where you are, how will you know where you're going and how to get there?

Today's entry is all about better understanding where your money goes. How much are you spending? What are you spending it on? Is it in line with your expectations?

Thanks to the financial tools we have access to, it's easier than ever to answer these questions. When you're first categorizing your spending, it may take you a bit of time, so be prepared. But from here on out, you'll be in a great position to see how you're progressing on a regular basis.

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Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year, and by the time you read this, you'll know whether or not you bought anything.

There's a certain thrill most of us get when we buy things. But, if you're anything like me, there's also a high chance of buyer's remorse (and I don't buy too much stuff I don't need. Anymore.).

When it comes to this time of year, it's easy to get caught up in the hype of Black Friday; how much money you'll save, what great stuff you're going to get, and how much fun you'll have with it. It's really easy to go along with the crowd and buy things for the sake of buying them.

You're not immune from it (and neither am I).

The best thing you can do when you're really trying to save money or get out of debt or cut down on the amount of stuff you have is to avoid Black Friday as much as possible. But is it really possible?

Let's consider three things:

1. Black Friday is all over TV. There are reporters stationed at Best Buy and Wal-Mart early in the morning to show the long lines and people shopping.
2. It's even worse online. Daily emails from Amazon, deals across Twitter and roundups of price breaks seem to be everywhere.
3. Don't even consider going to the mall. Black Friday is not the day to go mall walking or be anywhere near a store. You won't make it out without buying something.

So what does the leave us to do? Basically, unplug from all media and spend time away from stores. It's not impossible to do at all (I do it once a week, every week), but Black Friday is definitely difficult to avoid.

For three ways to avoid the hype, check out my story from last year.

How do you avoid Black Friday? Let me know in a comment.

For many people, car ownership is the second biggest ticket purchase that they're likely to make (after real estate). No matter how you slice it, a car is a substantial purchase.

My late grandfather was fond of pointing out that every vehicle he purchased in his lifetime cost as much as all the previous ones put together. As a child of the Great Depression Era, he was incredibly debt-averse, and paid cash for all of them.

However, because a car represents such a sizable purchase, most people choose to finance them rather than pay cash.

For personal vehicles (as opposed to ones for work), buying has a number of advantages over leasing. Here are some of the disadvantages inherent in leasing a vehicle for personal use.

You'll Never Stop Making Payments

Unlike paying off a car loan, where one day you'll make your last payment and the car will be your property, leasing is just like paying rent.

When you finally return a leased car, your relationship with it is over. All you've received for your money is its time and use.

Some leases are open-ended with a buyback option, but I'm not keen on them. By the time your lease ends, you've already paid a substantial amount without earning any equity. The buyback balloon cost at the end is often uneconomical.

I haven't even mentioned that vehicles depreciate over time. But once it's paid for, it's a possession that still has some value attached to it.

Extra Charges For Mileage And Wear

With most closed-ended leases, you face extra costs for higher mileage and greater-than-normal wear and tear.

For grocery-getters and pleasure-driving vehicles, that may not be an issue, but for a daily driver, in the long run you may well be better off with a loan instead of a lease.

With No Equity, You're Out Of Luck if it's Totaled

My primary beef with car leases stems from personal experience. If you're in an accident that totals your vehicle, the insurance company pays off the bank, not you.

We once chose to lease a vehicle that was t-boned and totaled in an accident (thankfully there were no serious injuries). But we needed a new car, and the insurance claim left us with no vehicle to trade in or lump sum of cash to make a down payment.

At that time, we lacked the resources to pony up a large down payment on our own. So, without a trade-in and no down payment, the monthly payment on our replacement vehicle was substantially higher than we would have preferred.

Hardly a life-or-death situation, but it was a drag nonetheless.

Too often, people make financial plans based on best-case scenarios. Well, in order to plan and budget effectively, you need to face the worst-case scenarios also. Ask yourself, "If I lease a vehicle, and it has to be written off, will it be a material hardship to acquire a new one?"

If the answer is yes, consider a traditional car loan instead.

As they say, your mileage may vary. Make informed financial decisions after weighing your options and looking at both the pros and the cons. And if you're buying, be sure to take advantage of a trade-in allowance (like cash for clunkers), make a substantial down-payment, or both.

Lee Distad consults with CE integration firms on design, installation and project management processes and Best Practices, and offers provides professional copy writing services for websites, brochures, and marketing initiatives. His freelance work covers topics from CE to global business to finance in both print and online.

Automobiles have a unique place in American consumption and personal finance. Nothing else costs so much and depreciates so fast and we continue to buy them.

As everyone knows, cars are more than transportation. For businesspeople, it is often important to have a newer car to project an image of prestige and prosperity. Others are interested in style and performance and buy one car over another for a range of personal reasons.

For those who buy cars to minimize their personal expense, they buy a used car.

Automobile companies, dealers and car traders have to publish price and sales information to do their business, which makes it possible to follow depreciation from the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) through years of resale.

Age Drops Resale Value, Even As Quality Increases

Used car buyers know the first rule of used cars: age lowers used car prices faster than mileage. They also know mileage lowers the value of a car more than age.

Take, for example, the Toyota Camry. In 1999, a new Camry had an MSRP of $21,888. This spring, 10 years later, various sales guides show a used car price around $6,400, which is depreciation of almost $15,500 — roughly 71 percent of its original price.

A buyer getting a 10-year-old Camry for $6,400 pays 29 percent of the original MSRP, but can they get more than 29 percent of the car's total mileage? A 10-year-old Camry in decent shape that passes state inspections and with less than 100,000 miles almost certainly has more than half its usable miles.

Shaving 70% Off the MSRP

Cars last longer and break down less than they used to do, both foreign and domestic. In spite of higher quality, resale prices still drop much faster by age than by miles.

Used car buyers can capture more of the benefits of higher quality by driving the last miles of a car rather than the first.

Remember that a used car also means additional savings, as the lower price lets you earn interest on the money you saved, or avoid interest on the money you did not need to borrow.

I have checked other makes and models and when I compare reported used car prices of 10-year-old cars as a ratio to the MSRP, I find the ratio stays in the low 70 percent range.

• Honda Accord: 70 percent
• Acura and Nissan Maxima: 76 percent
• Ford Mustang: 69 percent
• Crown Victoria: 76 percent

I often hear people say they buy a foreign car over a domestic car because it retains its value longer. This is a small sample, but if many other makes and models also lose 70 to 76 percent of their value in 10 years, then cars lose value at about the same rate, suggesting quality is more the same than many of us believe.

To save yourself a bundle on your next car, find yourself a 10-year-old model under 100,000 miles and you'll pay as much as 70 percent less than the original MSRP.

Fred Siegmund covers America's jobs as part of work doing labor market analysis and projections for a client base of recruiters, trainers and counselors. Visit him at www.americanjobmarket.blogspot.com

The need for health care reform and new health care policies keeps making the news almost every day.

Better access to health care includes better access to the knowledge and services of physicians. That would imply the number of new health care graduates should grow as the population grows, but medical school degree data published by the National Center for Education Statistics shows no growth at all.

For the academic year 1985-86, 15,938 Medical School Degrees were reported. The number has not been that high since, although MD degrees reached 15,730 for the year ending June 2007.

In that same period, the resident population reported by the Bureau of Census increased 66.2 million. It was 237.9 million in 1985 but reached 304.1 million in 2008. Despite continuous growth in America's population, more physicians are not being trained.

The High Costs of Becoming a Doctor

Becoming a physician is a long and expensive process that takes four years of college prior to 4 years of medical school. Medical school tuition reported by the American Association of Medical Colleges in 2008 averaged $23,593 for the 75 public university medical schools and $41,235 for the 50 private university medical schools.

In some states, a medical school graduate can get a license to practice medicine after completing a one-year internship, but most states require two years in a medical residency program. During residency programs, hospitals typically define pay as a stipend, apparently to save money paying low wages, so the residency period continues to be a period of financial drain on medical students.

Those admitted to America's service academies at Annapolis, Maryland and West Point, New York pay no tuition. America trains its military officers at public expense. For medical professionals, though, America puts the burden to pay for at least 10 years of training on the individual.

Much of this medical expense comes during a time in life when people usually begin to support themselves and pay their own living expenses. For many in medical training, living expenses are a burden that generates even more debt to pay off later.

As Costs Increase, Ranks Shrink

Some of the strain in the current system shows up in physician employment as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Family and General Practitioner jobs are in decline. There were 135,000 reported as recently as 2001, but 106,000 reported for 2008.

It also has the lowest entry pay of reported physician specialties, $73,000. An entry wage of $73,000 will not be sufficient to support a family and pay the debt from 10 years of medical education.

It is time to recognize that a major component in health care reform needs to be more physicians. They need to grow at least as fast as the population. In the current system, it isn't happening and I doubt it ever will.

It's time to train our physicians like we train our generals: at public expense.

Fred Siegmund covers America's jobs as part of work doing labor market analysis and projections for a client base of recruiters, trainers and counselors. Visit him at www.americanjobmarket.blogspot.com

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I wrote a check for anything. All of my spending is using debit cards with the occasional cash purchase and once-in-a-while credit card charge.

All of those checks that I ordered way back when are just sitting around, yet to be used.

Probably the only time I'd be tempted to write a check is if I'm giving someone I know money; say I owe a friend for something and don't have the cash on hand or I'm going in on a gift with some relatives.

But that's it. And I have a feeling I'm not the only one.

So, I want to know: do you still write checks?

Answer the poll and then let me know why in a comment.

How do you spend money?

I've argued that, when it comes to your spending, you should exclusively use a debit card since it's essentially the same as cash, it's convenient, and it's easily trackable using online banking and other online tools.

But there's a decent argument for responsibly using a credit card to get rewards and cashback, if you can pay off the balance every month. Louis explains:

But if you can be responsible and pay your credit card in FULL every month, you can usually get pretty good rewards with a credit card and not accrue interest fees.

My biggest worry with using a credit card to make all of my purchases is that I'll forget to pay the bill or procrastinate and end up carrying a balance.

Then, there's the argument to only use cash for purchases. When you're paying with the cash in your wallet, you're less likely to overspend (like with a credit card) and can effectively use the envelope system.

So, I want to know: do you spend using debit, credit or cash?

Answer the poll below and then let me know why in a comment.

If you're not taking control of your money, chances are you have no clue where it's all going.

Stop me if you've ever said one of these:

• How did my account balance get so low?
• It doesn't feel like I bought so much stuff this month.
• Why does my credit card bill keep getting higher?

The first step to properly managing your money is to know exactly where it's all going.

Thankfully, when you bank online and use an account aggregator like Yodlee's MoneyCenter, it's beyond easy to see where your money is being spent.

How to Categorize Your Spending in Yodlee

After you've logged in to Yodlee, click on the "Transactions" link under "Yodlee PersonalFinance." This will bring up a list of your transactions, starting with the most recent, from all of your linked accounts.

Everything should look familiar here ? your trip to the supermarket, your phone bill, etc.

To get started cleaning up your transactions, click on the drop-down menu next to the text "Select Category." Choose "Uncategorized" and click the "Show" button.

This will bring up all of the transactions that Yodlee doesn't recognize. If you write a bunch of checks, these will show up here, as well as a few other expenses.

To categorize a transaction, click on the "Uncategorized" link next to the description and choose the correct location for it. Expenses will be listed with a red font and a minus sign; income will be normal black text.

Do this for all of your uncategorized expenses. If you have a few transactions where you can't remember what it was, don't worry. Take your best guess or mark it as "other expenses."

After you've finished with your uncategorized expenses, choose "All Categories" from the "Select Category" menu and click show. You should be presented with all your transactions.

Where's My Money Going?

Click on the "Spending Reports" tab and check out your expense analysis chart. You'll want to make sure it's set to show you at least 3 (or 6, or 12) months of expenses.

So, what do you think? Are you surprised at where your money is going? Or does this look about right?