But occasionally a question comes up that needs clarification – like how to track spending that is unbudgeted.

By unbudgeted, I mean spending that doesn’t fall into a category you’ve designated, like your car payment, grocery bill, or health care spending.

Unbudgeted money is a free agent, and it blurs your true financial picture.

Here is how to track your unbudgeted spending:

Step 1

If you are not already set up with Mint’s free budgeting tools, take five minutes to log in, click on the Budget tab, and create a budget.

Then meet me right…back…here!

Okay, so you’ve set up a budget in Mint and wow!

You’re showing a huge surplus, but you’re pretty sure that you don’t have all that money sitting around, just waiting to be spent on massages and fancy leather shoes.

Step 2

Scroll down to the bottom of the Spending categories you’ve added and look for a line item called “Everything Else.”

Whoa, Nelly!

That figure represents all the spending you haven’t put into a specific category.

You can create a line item in your budget for Everything Else and leave it amorphous, but it’s better to create additional Spending categories.

Step 3

Mint does most of the work for you.

Click on the words Everything Else. A bunch of expenditures, already organized by category, will drop down.

Click on the little gray plus button next to the dollar amount.

A screen will pop up that allows you to customize how this category will be added to your budget.

Adjust the variables as you wish, then click Save to add this category to your budget. Repeat this process to whittle down the spending categories that fall into “Everything Else.”

This way, you’ll get a clearer overview of your spending.

Alternative Route

Another way to see the big picture of your spending is to scroll to the top of the page and click on the Trends tab.

Then in the right column, click on Net Income, and then click on Over Time.

Green represents your income. Red is your spending. And the black line is your net income. Look for more data below the chart.

Now you have a clear picture of how much money you have, and where the money you spent went.

Was this helpful? Do you have more questions? Leave them in the comments!

Julia Scott curates freebies and spending tips at BargainBabe.com.

Annual costs can exceed $800, according to one survey by The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with a year’s worth of food and treats for a large dog setting owners back more than $300 on average.

But spoiling rewarding your dog with biscuits and bones doesn’t have to break the bank.

Here are some DIY dog treat ideas that will have your pup and your wallet begging for more:

Make your own dog biscuits.

Store-bought biscuits can add up fast, with many brands costing upwards of $5 a box.

You don’t need to stock up on a bunch of costly, special ingredients to make your own dog treats – many homemade biscuits can be whipped together with pantry staples you probably already own.

Take this simple treat recipe highlighted on the Thrifty Fun website:

Combine 2 ½ cups of whole wheat flour, ½ cup of powdered skim milk, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, one beaten egg and some broth or canned tuna water to make a dough.

Roll out the dough and cut into shapes. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Izzy’s Apple Cheddar Dog Biscuits also rely heavily on household staples, such as shredded cheese, applesauce and oats (buy the barley flour in the bulk foods section of your local grocer so you spend only on what you’ll need).

Some easy and cheap homemade biscuits, like this one featured on The Kitchn, also feature bacon fat as a key ingredient, so be sure to set aside some grease in a jar next time you fry up some slices for breakfast.

Look to your roots (vegetables).

Sweet potato and pureed pumpkin make tasty and nutritious treats for you and your dog.

Bake sweet potato slices to substitute for store-bought biscuits, stuff baked yams or plain canned pumpkin in a toy designed to hold treats, or freeze the pureed pumpkin in ice cubes for a summertime snack.

Don’t have time to bake (or freeze) those vegetables? Raw carrots make an excellent and edible chew toy, especially for teething puppies.

Kale chips = super food for a super pup.

Kale is another super food that isn’t just for humans.

Throw fido the fibrous stalk left over from your dinner or go ahead and bake a batch of kale chips for you and your dog to share by popping some leaves tossed with olive oil in a 350-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

As Modern Dog magazine points out, make sure to skip the salt on the chips you plan on feeding your dog.

Torey Van Oot is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and co-publisher of Wag Work Wine, a website by, about and for your professionals with pups.

This is the message a small, but very vocal, minority of rabid consumer advocates would have you believe.

Thankfully they’re all wrong, as credit cards are a very safe and efficient way of transacting commerce while offering aggressive consumer fraud protections.

Can credit cards be abused? Of course they can be abused, just like so many other consumer vices that have nothing to do with financial services.

But, if we were to treat adults like adults, we’d all conclude that credit cards are only as bad as the user.

Point being, consumers are going to continue to use credit cards regardless of how some would demonize them and their issuers, so we might as well optimize our usage as best we can.

Many Shapes and Sizes

There are well over 10,000 credit card issuers in the United States and shopping for the best credit card can be cumbersome and overwhelming, let alone practically impossible.

Thankfully, there are a small handful of websites that act as quasi credit card strip malls and allow consumers to consider the attributes of many credit cards and then compare them in a side by side environment for the purposes of allowing the consumer to choose the one that best fits our wants, needs, and restrictions.

Mint, CreditCardInsider, CreditSesame, and Bankrate (which owns CreditCards.com) all allow consumers to browse credit card offerings, compare offers, and then pick and choose the ones they like the best.

Normally, interest rates reign supreme when it comes to credit card attributes, but that’s not the end of things as it pertains to plastic.

Credit cards come in so many shapes and sizes, and interest rates are but one of the many key decision metrics we must consider when looking for the best fit for our wallets.

Interest rates are pretty predictable. They’re based almost solely on our credit scores, so if we’ve got great credit then we’re going to get a great interest rate.

Conversely, if we’ve got lousy credit we’re going to get a lousy interest rate, if we’re lucky. We might end up finding ourselves shut out of the credit card environment altogether if our credit is too bad.

Credit Card Shopping Protocol

Shopping for a credit card is not easy. You cannot shop for a credit card like you’d shop for an auto loan or a mortgage. The protocol is different.

Credit card issuers don’t act as brokers, offering you the best deal available at the time.

Auto dealers and mortgage lenders do, on the other hand, act as brokers and can shop credit reports and scores on behalf of the consumer to various lenders in search of the best deals currently available.

If you were to apply with one credit card issuer you’d be marrying them, and only them.

So, the deal you get isn’t necessarily the best deal available, but instead it’s the best deal they have to offer at the time. You’d be better off shopping for a credit card deal before you actually apply for the card.

Protecting Your Credit During the Process

This method might seem cumbersome, but it’s 100% worth your time and effort. Credit card inquiries are among the most damaging to your credit scores, so you want to avoid them at all costs.

That means applying for 10 credit cards to find the best one isn’t a good idea.

The aforementioned credit card sites allow you to compare offerings before you actually apply, thus saving you the impact of the inquiry and the potential credit score damage.

The Best Deals

The best thing about credit card shopping is that it’s 100% free. Credit card issuers are competing with each other like no other time in recent credit history.

The zero interest and rewards deals are the best they’ve been in the history of history, if that makes any sense.

If you’ve got good credit, you’ll be able to easily find zero interest offers extending 6 to 15 months with no balance transfer fee, if that’s your strategy.

Point being, don’t settle for any credit card offer because there is a line of credit card issuers waiting to pitch you their best deals.

John Ulzheimer is the President of Consumer Education at SmartCredit.com, the credit blogger for Mint.com, and a contributor for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.  He is an expert on credit reporting, credit scoring and identity theft. Formerly of FICO, Equifax and Credit.com, John is the only recognized credit expert who actually comes from the credit industry. The opinions expressed in his articles are his and not of Mint.com or Intuit. Follow John on Twitter.

She estimates that her plan will assist nine out of 10 students who borrowed under the various federal education loan programs.

The bill also affects roughly $300 billion in government-backed FFEL student loans, which may have been securitized by companies that had served as conduits for the discontinued program.

This move will have a significantly negative impact on investors who participated in these complicated deals — the same folks who have generally resisted providing more than token forbearances to borrowers who are having difficulty making their loan payments.

[Related Article: The Ultimate Guide to Student Loans]

The big problem

Although moving to 4% interest from the current rate of 6.8% sounds great on paper — a 41% reduction — it doesn’t translate as meaningfully in practice.

For example, say a student exits college with $50,000 in student loan debt. At 6.8% interest, the monthly payment is $575.40. At 4%, the monthly payment would be $506.23 — only 12% lower. (Blame the time value of money formula for the math.)

A better solution would be to restructure the underlying term to 240 months (20 years) from the current 120 (10 years). Doing so would lower the payment to $381.67 or 34% less, without adjusting the original interest rate.

Of course, a longer term means more interest paid in due course, which is why it makes sense to permit prepayments at any time, in any amount, without penalty.

[Related Article: How Do Student Loans Impact Your Credit?]

Are the payments still affordable?

And there’s another matter to take into account for any plan that’s intended to help these hopelessly indebted students: affordability.

Say the same $50,000 borrower is single and earns $44,000 per year (the average salary for 2012 bachelor’s degree graduates according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers).

Under Gillibrand’s proposal, the revised monthly payment (at 4%) would still consume 14% of his or her pretax monthly salary.

That doesn’t leave a lot of room for living expenses — let alone savings — after accounting for the 25% to cover taxes (including Social Security and Medicare), another 25% to 30% for rent, not to mention any other debt payments.

[Related Article: Can You Really Get Your Credit Score for Free?]

A better solution

A better solution would be to solve for a monthly payment amount that does not exceed 10% of gross salary (unlike the government’s PAYER program, which is based on discretionary income).

The same borrower would then be able to comfortably afford payments that run about $370 per month — $12 less than the payment amount of the aforementioned 20-year restructure and $136 less than Sen. Gillibrand’s 4% interest plan.

Equally as important would be to incorporate into any refinancing program the most egregious of these loans: the roughly $150 billion of private borrowing.

If Washington is finally willing to take on the complexities of securitized debt, it should also include the often-securitized loans that are dollar-for-dollar more burdensome than any other.

I believe Sen. Gillibrand is on the right track in her attempt to tackle all education loans that involve the federal government, especially if her bill does not discriminate against borrowers who are currently past due or in default — those who most need assistance.

My hope, however, is that politicians will set aside their battles over interest rates and ignore the lobbying efforts of those who’ve unfairly benefitted in the past, and instead focus on payment affordability because that’s what’s needed to craft a fair and enduring solution.

“The Federal Student Loan Refinancing Act: Will It Help Solve the Problem?” was provided by Credit.com and written by Mitchell Weiss, experienced financial services industry executive, entrepreneur and adjunct professor of finance at the University of Hartford. He is also the author of the recently published College Happens: A Practical Handbook for Parents and Students, Life Happens: A Practical Guide to Personal Finance from College to Career-2nd Edition, and Business Happens: A Practical Guide to Corporate Finance for Small Businesses and Professional Practices.

BrightNest is a free site that provides tools and tips to homeowners to help them save money, get organized and keep their homes in great shape. Sign up for a free BrightNest account today!

Would you buy sushi from a gas station?

Didn’t think so!

Some edible items – like seafood – are definitely worth spending a little bit more on to avoid tummy troubles down the road. That logic can be applied to many other areas of life, including your home.

True, you may not wind up physically ill from purchasing a less expensive light bulb, but there are other reasons to opt for a higher price tag.

Here are three home-items that are worth splurging on:

Light bulbs.

We know it’s tempting to reach for the cheapest light bulb option when you’re replacing a few bulbs, but resist! Instead, opt for compact fluorescent lights (CFLs).

Sure, they have a higher purchase price, but they only use one-fifth of the power and last six to ten times longer than their incandescent counterparts.

That means that each CFL bulb can save you about $30 over the course of its lifetime! If you multiply that by all of the bulbs you have in your home, the savings will really add up.

Paint.

A new coat of paint is a great way to freshen up a room, but there are more decisions to make than just color choice. One trip to the hardware store will prove that paint has a serious price range!

The cheaper paints are more diluted, so they won’t be as smooth or have as much coverage. That means it’s generally worth skipping the bargain bin paint ($5-$15) – you’ll avoid issues like applying multiple coats, fading and cracking.

Instead, opt for the middle-class paint cans ($20-$30). You’ll get a nice looking finish without having to apply a ton of extra coats. For a more detailed breakdown, read this guide to buying paint.

Major appliances.

If you’re large appliance shopping, there are a lot of benefits to opting for the higher priced Energy Star models. The big-boy appliances like your dishwasher, refrigerator, washing machine and dryer account for the majority of your energy bill.

By opting for an energy efficient appliance, you’ll save $200-$1,100 on energy costs over its lifetime!

Tip: If your appliance is over ten years old, your savings will be even greater.

I daresay that saving for retirement is not among those – unless you are one of the very fortunate few to be independently wealthy, setting aside money today to see that you have enough for the years down the road is mandatory.

Unfortunately, inertia can be a powerful force and going from “not saving” to “saving” can be daunting to most people.

Making matters worse, so much of the investment and financial advice out there is designed for people who’ve already crossed the Rubicon and started saving and investing for the future.

What we hope to do here, then, is outline some strategies for starting the process.

Saving Is Not Optional

Hopefully anyone who is reading this column is already on board with the idea that saving money is not an optional exercise.

Nobody knows what Social Security will look like in a decade or more, nor how those benefits will compare to the actual cost of living - simply consider the debate today over using chained CPI and what that could mean to the value of future benefits.

It’s also important to note that the government (and many businesses) offers incentives to save, and there’s no way to get these back if you don’t take advantage of them.

If you set aside money into an appropriate retirement account (like an IRA or 401(k)), you not only get a lower tax bill in that year, but the money you save can build up tax-free for decades.

Likewise, many companies will kick in extra money if you save for retirement – this is free money from your employer that you won’t get otherwise, so do what you can to maximize this.

After all, if you don’t take advantage of this you’re basically handing money back to your boss.

[Related Article: 5 Ways to Stretch Your Retirement Budget]

The Problems of Starting Out

In my experience, one of the biggest problems people encounter when they try to start saving is the belief that they don’t have enough money as it is, let alone any left over to save.

While I don’t mean to appear to be lecturing those who are legitimately struggling to get by, I do believe that too many people ignore the fact that paying yourself should be every bit as much of a priority as paying other people.

I’m not suggesting defaulting on loans or letting bills go past due, but if you don’t take care of yourself, who will?

It’s also important to just accept from the beginning that there will be challenges as you start. There will be months where you come up a little short and don’t have as much to save.

You will also find that your investment choices are pretty limited and that many people won’t want to deal with your money because there’s not much of it.

Don’t be discouraged – save as much as you can as often as you can.

[Related Article: Should You Borrow From Your Retirement Plan?]

Starting Small

It is absolutely true that the personal finance industry is set up to cater to those who have considerable wealth – virtually every bank and brokerage would rather deal with 10 millionaires than 10,000 people with $1,000 each.

But your savings and retirement plans should not be based upon what they want or what’s convenient for them, but rather what meets your needs.

To that end, even $250 or $500 in retirement savings is a worthwhile start. Any savings is savings, and saving even relatively small amounts of money establishes the habit and the process.

There are multiple brokers now that offer no-minimum, no-fee retirement accounts and you can get $25 or $50 deducted from your account every month and sent into that retirement account.

Sure, this isn’t going to buy you a villa in France for your retirement, but you are establishing good habits and you ARE saving.

At the risk of harping on this, it really is important to look at this as a non-stop, life-long habit. It can be tricky to scrape together the cash to make a contribution to an IRA in April, so don’t set yourself up for failure.

Save a little each month, ideally using an online savings account and only tapping into it in extreme emergencies.

Most of these online accounts will allow you to automatically deduct a set amount every month from your regular account, and if your employer offers a 401(k) program, you will be able to have deductions made automatically from every paycheck.

As I said before, more and more of the large, national, well-known (as in, “they advertise on TV”) brokerage and mutual fund firms are willing to open small accounts without fees or minimums. By and large, I do believe going with these larger firms is a good idea.

They often have the deepest selection of investment options (mutual funds, ETFs, etc.), the most transparent and reasonable fees, and the infrastructure to offer you additional services (including personal investment advisers) as your needs change over time.

Make sure to take the time to make a good selection. Most, if not all, firms charge fees for transferring accounts and you don’t want to whittle away your money by switching firms repeatedly.

Don’t worry about firms that boast of the tools they offer traders; you won’t be trading that much. What you should instead focus on is low fees/commissions and a wide selection of funds and ETFs.

Be Realistic About Risk

Those who are just starting off saving for retirement also need to think about investment risk.

While academics and investment professionals struggle to define and measure risk, most ordinary people have a pretty clear understanding of it – what is the chance that I’m going to lose a substantial portion of my money (with “substantial” varying from person to person)?

I suggest that new savers and investors be realistic about risk. While any amount of savings is a good start, small amounts of money are not going to produce livable amounts of income in the future. That means that it makes very little sense to invest in fixed income or other conservative investments right at the beginning.

Likewise, you don’t want to destroy that initial savings right off the bat, so avoid the riskiest areas of the market – no biotech, no gold, no leveraged funds, and so on.

A basic index fund (a fund that matches a popular index like the Dow Jones Industrials or S&P 500) is a good place to start; there’s certainly a risk that the price will fall, but odds of a total wipeout are nearly zero and the odds favor a reasonable amount of growth.

[Related Article: Retirement Savings Tips for 65-Year Olds and Over]

Your First Investments

As a new saver/investor, your first investments will most likely be in ETFs and/or mutual funds. ETFs and mutual funds are very useful as they allow investors to invest almost any amount of money (from very little to quite a lot) with little hassle and cost.

With a mutual fund or ETF, an investor can take $500 and essentially buy tiny stakes in dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of stocks all at once – giving the investor a better chance of seeing positive returns and fewer major losses.

Index ETFs have rightly become very popular in recent years. For very little cost (an initial commission and a small annual fee that is paid/deducted automatically from the shares themselves), an investor can effectively “buy” the entire S&P 500 or other popular indexes.

There’s also a growing number of ETFs that allow investors to invest in broad categories like “growth” or “value” – something that has been available to mutual fund investors for decades.

Mutual funds, however, still have their place. Mutual funds often give investors the benefits of active management – that is, a living, breathing fund manager who makes decisions on a day-to-day basis to try to earn higher returns for investors.

By comparison, most ETFs run basically on auto-pilot – holding a specified list of stocks (usually matching an index) and only changing when the index changes.

When looking for mutual funds, then, make sure to look at the fees and expenses (lower is better), but also look at the performance. Ideally, you want a fund that has not only performed well overall compared to its peers, but has lost less money in the bad times.

As far as those first investments go, consider two or three ETFs. Most mutual funds have minimum investment amounts of $1,000 or more, so they may not be an option yet. In any case, consider buying a couple of the following ETFs:

• Vanguard Total Stock Market (NYSE:VTI)
• SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY)
• Vanguard Dividend Appreciation (NYSE:VIG)
• Vanguard Value (NYSE:VTV)
• Vanguard Growth (NYSE:VUG)
• Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US (NYSE:VEU)
• PowerShares Dynamic Large Cap Value (NYSE:PWV)
• SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE:DIA)
• SPDR S&P Dividend (NYSE:SDY)
• Guggenheim S&P 500 Pure Growth (NYSE:RPG)

If you can afford to own two or three, try to get a good mix – say, one large market fund (VTI, SPY), an international fund (VEU), and either a growth (VUG, RPG) or value (VTV, PWV) fund based on your personal preferences.

Accumulating More

As time goes on, the habit of saving will hopefully take hold. What’s more, as time goes on you may find that your earnings increase and that you can save more.

As you save more and your initial investments grow in value, you will find that you have more and more investing options.

As you have more money to invest, mutual fund investment minimums may no longer matter as much, and you may be able to own more funds and ETFs.

You may also find that you can afford to take more risks (investing more in riskier growth investments) or target particular types of investments (investing in particular industries or geographical areas).

Be careful not to over-diversify, though. It is much better to have five great ideas than 15 mediocre ideas.

Some readers may be wondering by now when they can start buying individual stocks. There is no hard and fast rule here, but I would suggest that $5,000 in total savings is a good number to use as a minimum.

There’s nothing wrong with investing $1,000 in an individual stock or two and keeping the rest in funds, or increasing the allocation to individual stocks if you are comfortable.

Just remember that investing in individual stocks is quite a bit different than investing in funds or ETFs.

You have to take on considerably more responsibility for your investment decisions, it takes considerably more time, and takes quite a bit more research to select and invest in individual stocks.

The rewards are certainly there, but unless you are willing to devote a meaningful amount of time on an ongoing basis, you may find that sticking with funds and ETFs makes more sense for the long-term.

As you have more money to invest, you should also make sure you’re maxing out your opportunities.

We started off talking about saving even just $25 a month, but as your earnings increase and you have more money left at the end of the month, try to max out your annual contributions to your 401(k), IRA, SEP-IRA, or whatever savings options are available to you.

Remember, the government gives you a tax break on these contributions and many employers will match some or all of your contributions. This is “free money” that you won’t get otherwise, so do what you can to make the most of it.

It’s also very important to remember that retirement savings in organized accounts like an IRA is just one type of saving. There is no rule out there that says you can’t save more than this.

The government does have fairly specific rules and limits on how much you can save each year in tax-sheltered accounts, but there are no limits on the savings you can put into ordinary taxable brokerage accounts.

Yes, the dividends here can be subject to taxation and you will pay taxes on capital gains, but you’re still saving and building wealth – don’t ever fall into the trap of believing that saving in taxable accounts is somehow a waste of time or money just because you have to pay some taxes on the profits you make.

The Bottom Line

The most important part of any savings or retirement plan is to simply start doing it. There is no one right way to save money, nor one right way to invest.

You will make mistakes along the way and sooner or later you will see the value of some (if not all) of your holdings decline. This is normal; it doesn’t feel particularly good, but it is normal.

What is important, though, is that you keep saving, keep learning and keep looking to build wealth for the future.

If you establish the habit of saving money every month, taking the time to find good homes for that money, and patiently allowing your wealth to build, you will be taking some huge steps forward in making your financial future more secure.

“How to Start Saving for Retirement” was provided by Investopedia.com. 

And when you take a look at the numbers, distracted driving has taken thousands of lives and resulted in hundreds of thousands of injuries.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,331 people were killed in 2011 in automobile crashes involving a distracted driver, compared to 3,267 in 2010.

An additional 387,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver.

Looking beyond the smartphone

When you think of “distracted driving,” smartphones probably come to mind.

Many of us have been told that text messaging or talking on the phone while driving are dangerous distractions — but they’re not the only way you can be distracted while behind the wheel.

The NHTSA says eating and drinking, talking to passengers, grooming, reading, using your GPS, watching a video or adjusting the radio are all distractions you should avoid as well.

While the main focus is on the human cost of this “epidemic,” researchers are also considering the financial cost. Between the fatalities, injuries, damages and lawsuits, the costs associated with distracted driving are staggering.

According to the National Safety Council, a Harvard risk analysis study estimated the annual cost of crashes caused by cellphone use to be $43 billion, which amounts to $3.58 billion a month.

The National Safety Council suggests 25 percent of crashes are the result of cellphone use, and that text messaging creates a crash risk 23 times worse than driving not distracted.

At the same time, when you factor in the other distractions that can divert a person’s attention from the roadway — eating, talking to passengers and more — it stands to reason that the numbers will increase.

Indirect costs

In addition to the costs associated with distracted driving-related crashes, money is also spent on education, policies, new technology and state and national manpower dedicated to avoiding such accidents.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, $17.5 million has been allotted for fiscal year 2013 to provide grants to states to enact and enforce distracted driving laws. These grants will allow states to establish the best practices for enforcement programs.

For example, in 2012, Massachusetts and Connecticut were each awarded $275,000 to train police officers to better spot drivers who are texting, as well as to develop media techniques to better alert the public about the dangers of distracted driving.

Thirty-nine states ban text messaging by all drivers, and another six states restrict texting for some categories of drivers, leaving only five states with no text messaging restrictions.

In other words, state and national lawmakers are aggressively targeting distracted driving.

The bottom line

Hopefully, the money spent enacting new laws and educating the driving public about the dangers of distracted driving can help reduce the number of deaths and injuries that happen as a result of distracted driving-related accidents.

This guest post comes from the editors of The Allstate Blog, which helps people prepare for the unpredictability of life.

Whether you want to escape for just a few days or even an entire week, there are plenty of ways to plan a trip on a budget.

The following infographic lays out our favorite last-minute travel tips and names some of the top inexpensive destinations.

Where are you headed this summer?

Click on “Launch Infographic” for an expanded view. 

It’s newspapers, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Yep, newspapers.

Take a moment to let that sink in. The very medium that used to bring you me, is the most complained-about business in America. By several points.

Newspapers scored an aggregate 64 out of a possible 100 points, which, as a trained newspaper man myself, I’ve gotta admit is just awful. Not that it would take one to know it, but admitting your own business is a failure — well, that’s not easy.

Newspapers are a perennial bottom-feeders business, in terms of customer satisfaction, with the highest score ever peaking at a pathetic “69,” according to the ACSI.

Is it too late to get my money back for my journalism degree?

The worst of the worst

• Newspapers: 64
• Subscription Television Service: 66
• Airlines: 67
• Internet Social Media: 69
• Wireless Telephone Service: 70

Why?

If you’re a regular reader of my posts, then you probably know why these industries are here, at least most of them. Airlines are a favorite topic, and if you’ve traveled by plane in the last decade, you know why.

From surly service to outrageous fees, this business has it all. With only a few exceptions, the companies behave as if it’s a race to the bottom, and as if we, their customers, are cargo.

Social media’s problem?

It takes too much without returning. No matter which network you’re using, it sucks all of your personal information and then requires you to learn how to post, tweet or chat.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they made a social network that didn’t require us to hand over our vital statistics and was, you know, easy to use? Wouldn’t it be great if these networks didn’t track your every move, often without you knowing it?

Yeah, same here.

Want to know why people hate their wireless phone service and subscription TV?

I have a ton of cases on my consumer advocacy site that will answer that question. But I’ll bottom-line it for you: onerous contracts, slow customer service, and iffy product, at best. It’s a losing combination.

Worse, many of these businesses are de-facto monopolies, so you have no choice but to use the companies. And they know it.

Newspapers? Really?

Ah, newspapers.

I’m reminded of the last case I mediated, involving a certain newspaper of record and a seemingly intractable delivery problem, which I eventually helped untangle.

I want to believe that the newspaper industry’s real problem can be reduced to simple product delivery issues. But I know better, and so do you.

The idea of a press as a “Fourth Estate,” as Edmund Burke called it, that somehow the news business is a sacred profession — a religion, even, as many of my own colleagues would like to think — died when the first website was published.

The news is now online and democratized. It’s just taken a little while for us to write the physical newspaper’s obituary.

The belief that a newspaper somehow has more credibility than any other form of communication by virtue of someone’s ability to print it is antiquated in the 21st century.

What’s more, the limits of a newspaper — it doesn’t deliver information in real time and relies on editors to tell us what is, and isn’t, “important,” instead of letting you decide — makes many modern-day newspapers a relic.

Smart news organizations will survive. But dead-wood dailies? Probably not.

I hate to say it, but if you want good customer service, don’t look to your newspaper. And be wary of airlines, cell phone companies and subscription TV services. Because the service couldn’t be any worse.

Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate who blogs about getting better customer service at On Your Side. Connect with him on Twitter and Facebook or send him your questions by email.

It can happen when you budget for a specific purchase. In fact, consumers who start shopping with a price in mind spend up to 50 percent more than those who don’t, according to researchers from Brigham Young and Emory universities.

And if you’re buying expensive items this way, think of all the money involved.

What goes wrong

You decide you want to make a purchase – a household appliance, a new laptop or a new TV — and you select the maximum price you’ll pay. Because you have a budget in mind, your thinking goes, you won’t spend more than you planned on the item.

But, the researchers found, it doesn’t work out that way.

Brigham Young University explained how the study was done:

“Experiments tested consumers’ thinking about buying televisions, pens, laptops, earbuds, garage doors, mattresses, Blu-ray players and luggage. Various approaches got shoppers thinking about price – they could select a target price from a set of choices, identify their own target price, select a maximum price they were willing to pay, or determine a budget for a specific purchase.”

“The results were always the same – a preference for higher-quality, higher-priced items,” said study co-author Jeffrey S. Larson. “The most surprising aspect of this study was that people’s decision-making process can change so easily. Doing something as simple as asking, ‘Hey, how much would you budget for this product?’ completely changes their thinking.”

Once the shoppers had a set amount in mind, they stopped thinking about price and focused on quality. As a result, they overlooked less expensive items that met their needs in favor of ones with more bells and whistles.

From the university press release:

“For example, in one of the experiments, the researchers asked a group of consumers how much they would be willing to spend on a new TV. Those consumers were then given the option of choosing a TV $18 above their target price and a lower-quality one $18 below. About 55 percent of them chose the higher-priced option that was above their target price range. But among a set of consumers who were given the same options WITHOUT being asked how much they would be willing to spend, only 31 percent chose the higher-priced option. Those who set a maximum price first also rated the difference in quality between the choices as much greater than those who didn’t.”

You might be doing the same thing and spending more than you want or can afford. But there are ways to counteract it.

Set your budget anyway

It may sound counterintuitive, but you still need to know how much you can afford to spend. Another tip: For smaller purchases, plan on paying with cash.

Choose your features

Before you shop, decide what features are important to you. Read product reviews. If you know exactly what you want before you walk in the store, you may be less likely to be distracted by an upgrade.

Return your focus to price

Once you think you’ve made a decision, focus on price again. Is this really the model you want, or is there one that satisfies your needs and has a lower price? The university explained:

“The researchers found that the effect disappeared after consumers had their attention drawn back [to] price after they had evaluated quality. “Just knowing that the effect is there is going to be enough for most consumers to be able to overcome it,” Larson said.”

Comparison shop

Don’t forget the basics of saving money on everything. Before you buy, comparison shop; prices can vary widely from store to store. And once you find a deal, don’t be afraid to ask for a lower price.

To save some time, try a comparison shopping website like:

• PriceGrabber
• Shopzilla
• Bizrate

Can you recall a time when you spent more than you had planned? 

“Does Budgeting for Expensive Items Actually Make You Spend More?” was provided by MoneyTalksNews.com.