The Psychology of How You Spend

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How much does it really matter how you spend? Is there really a big difference between using cash, debit cards, credit cards, or smartphone payment apps? You know that we recommend using a debit card for purchasing, since it gives you all the convenience and almost all of the same security as a credit card, […]

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Bernie Madoff, Bobby Bonilla and Money Now vs. Money Later

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Every once in a while, we do hear about an athlete who’s on the right side of a financial story. Of course, since there are multiple sides to every story, there’s definitely a loser as well; in this case, it’s the New York Mets. In 2000, the New York Mets owed outfielder Bobby Bonilla a […]

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Athletes Defrauded in Ponzi Scheme; How Did It Happen?

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Another day, another story about athletes losing their money. It happens all the time, but today, it’s news that NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez (most famous for the butt-fumble) and MLB pitchers Jake Peavy and Roy Oswalt were defrauded out of $30 million by their investment advisor. According to MarketWatch: Ash Narayan, an adviser with the California […]

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Want to Live in a Cashless Country? Welcome to Sweden

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I rarely carry cash. I’ve talked about it before, but it’s basically because I rarely get cash, would prefer to pay with a way that makes it easy to track my spending, and … because I have a really small wallet. So I love the fact that Sweden is becoming the first cashless country, according to […]

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Mobile Banking Notifications Are a Big Deal – And People Use Them

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It’s not a surprise to learn that mobile banking continues to become more and more popular. That’s the news coming out of Bank of America’s 2016 Trends in Consumer Mobility Report, which “explores evolving mobile behaviors and trends among adult consumers across the country.” As smartphones continue to become more useful, and tied into our everyday connectivity, […]

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John Oliver Takes on Active Management. And it is Glorious.

Please, please watch this now. You will absolutely not regret it. John Oliver is now officially my hero. (Although I would have preferred he talk about dart-throwing monkeys rather than cats.)

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There’s No Such Thing as New Rules of Money

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Every time I see a headline proclaiming “The New Rules of Personal Finance” or “The New Rules of Money,” I shudder. It may sell magazines and generate clicks online, but anyone proclaiming to have “new rules” to managing money is full of it.

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The Mortgage Payment Trick That’s Going to Save Me $40,000

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We bought our second house last year, selling our townhouse in the process. As much as I wanted to keep the townhouse and rent it out, we needed the money for the downpayment, and we weren’t likely to clear much profit even if we were able to rent it. The new house has a whole story to […]

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Salary Sharing Taboos and the Memory of Gordie Howe

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The title of the article reads “Salary-sharing taboo a big hurdle for pay equity.” No single bit of American pretension, vanity and egotism does more to harm the common cause of labor than pay secrecy. It harms more than pay equity; it lowers wages for all. The article cites a LinkedIn survey of a thousand […]

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Review: A Fighting Chance, by Elizabeth Warren

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Elizabeth Warren’s latest book, Fighting Chance, has the label Political Science on the back cover, but librarians catalog it in biography. It is a little of both, but more the politics of banking and finance and her two-decade role in it. The first chapter does chronicle her growing up in Oklahoma in typical fashion for […]

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Ted Cruz and the IRS

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Recently the Washington Post ran an editorial by Catherine Rampell discussing the Ted Cruz proposal to get rid of the IRS. [“Cruz’s Anti-IRS illogic,” Washington Post, 3/24/15] “Imagine abolishing the IRS” he tells his audience, where they “have more words in the IRS code than there are words in the bible.” Congress makes the tax law, […]

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Mobile Payment Trends and Why It Matters

According to Nielsen, mobile payment users are engaged in a diversity of mobile payment methods. In 2014, mobile users paid with a scanned QR/barcode (45%), NFC (37%), mobile credit card reader (24%), and mobile peer-to-peer (22%). The variety of ways that consumers pay with mobile seems to be a reflection of the times. Right now […]

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Finding the Bank That’s Right for You

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One of the reasons I’ve used so many different banks over the past 10 years is that each bank has its own pros and cons. For example, while I certainly just feel like another number with Bank of America, you can’t deny that their network of ATMs nationwide is incredibly convenient. They wouldn’t know me […]

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