We found some workers averaged bonuses as much as ten times higher than workers at other federal agencies…

…DataUniverse.com estimates the databank covers about 70% of federal workers, but Department of Defense, White House, Congress, CIA, FBI, and some other agencies are excluded.

Forbes.com lists 10 really neat financial innovations.

Even consumers who don’t consider themselves money-savvy may be seduced by the eye-catching simplicity, undeniable usefulness, or fun gamification elements of these innovations. Plus, you stand to save money, better your financial profile, and make your life easier without ever having to learn how to balance a checkbook (thank goodness).

Liverealnow.net posts about their discovery and development of their first real side hustle.

We’ve been doing this for 3 1/2 years, holding one class per month. In the first two and a half years, we taught about 80 people what they needed to know to legally carry a gun. Last year, it exploded. By March, we had made more money than we made in all of 2009. The rest of the year rocked just as hard. We turned ourselves into one of the top 10 training organizations by volume, among a field of 200 competing agencies.

CreditCardForum.com posts how to build up your credit without a credit card.

1. CD Loans
Do you have some money held in a CD at a bank? You might be able to “borrow” the money and help your credit in the process.

In short, you are borrowing money from yourself. The bank uses your CD as collateral and loans you the money. Typically the rates are low since you are essentially assuming all the risk – i.e. borrowing $2k from a $2k CD.

Not every bank and credit union offers these, so you may have to hunt around. When you find one that does, make sure they actually report your loan to the credit bureaus (otherwise it will be pointless for building credit).

Creditratings.com posts 12 steps to recover your credit in 2012.

1. Pay down your credit cards
Even though paying down loans like a student loan or a car loan can help improve your financial situation, paying down high credit card balances will have the greatest impact on your credit score. Give your credit score a boost by keeping your credit card charges at no more than 30 percent of your available credit limits. If you open a new line of credit, try to keep that usage down below 10 percent.

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Dershowitz has already spent almost $60,000 in fees – and the fight isn’t over yet. That’s why he’s enlisting kind souls and fellow pet lovers to help, asking for donations to further his cause…

…So far, Dershowitz has collected $410 of the $20,000 he’s asking for.

Lesson Learned:
Let me preface this commentary by stating that I am a HUGE dog lover, pittbulls inparticular. I completely sympathize with feeling like pets are your children, because my pittbull is definitely my fur-child. I’ve known people that have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars for the sake of their pets health. A cat, I would not spend that much on. My dog, however, I would probably spend a pretty penny on if he needed surgery or something.

But there has to be a line drawn on fiscal responsibility and love for your pet.

Part of me feels like this story is just a big news ploy, and most likely it is. But if the court costs are legit, then there are also some priority issues going on between these two people. The bigger problem lies in the fact that the guy has already been given legal custody of the dog, and the girlfriend is filing motions to prevent the case from going through, so in my mind more of the fault lies with her. But as far as the money is concerned, there comes a time (or dollar amount) when you have to pick and choose your battles. I would not think to ruin my future, retirement, or empty my savings for a pet.

Amount Flushed Down the Money Drain: $60,000

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FedEx wanted $87 to overnight a friggin purse to NY, so I went down the street to the post office and it cost me $25 to be delivered by 3 tomorrow via USPS.

- Posted by: Kathleen

Lesson Learned:
I don’t shop around for all things. I do look up coupon codes anytime I shop online, or use services like Googles Shopping compare services, but I don’t actively shop around for cheaper prices on most things. However, if I was spending an outrageous amount of money on shipping like this woman, I most certainly would see if I could get things delivered cheaper somewhere else. I think it’s important to acknowledge that we have other resources available and that sometimes those cheaper resources may be companies or businesses that are struggling right now anyway and could use our business.

So the next time you are out shopping or in need of using a service, try to support struggling businesses (if they are ethical), and use your liberty to shop around for the best price.

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Dana Sinkler and Alex Dzieduszycki were working for star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten at his four-star restaurant, Lafayette, in New York when they decided to strike out on their own and start a catering business. They were looking to create a signature dish to serve at the bar, since it’s the place people first visit at a party. But they wanted something different from the elaborate crudité platters that were popular at the time. So in 1990, they experimented with frying different vegetable roots in the kitchen of Sinkler’s tiny apartment and struck gold.

The vegetable chips were a hit, and soon the pair brought Terra Chips into stores. In 1995, a private equity group bought 51 percent of the company, and in 1998 Hain Celestial bought Terra Chips as part of an $80 million bundle deal that included three other companies. At the time, Dzieduszycki says, Terra Chips had $23 million in annual sales.

Resource Alert! Mechanical Turk is a new amazon.com initiative that lets people sell services or pick up odd jobs/services to make money on the side. The Simple Dollar gives a detailed timeline of an hours worth of Mechanical Turk work where he made $19.13/hour.

Resource Alert! Lifehacker posts a review on a new website that helps you find and keep track of the job you want.

[View All Resource Alerts]

Fox News did a video segment on what some college students view as the American Dream. Now before I mention this video, I do want to note that I am not a fan of Fox News at all, and do not consider it a valid news source. I do not know the validity of these answers, but thought it interesting to share anyway as it’s something to consider when teaching our children about money. It also appears to be a blast against the Occupy Movement, which is a movement I support, so take it for what you will.

Free Money Finance posts some real life stories of how people are making money on the side.

By day, Chris Hardy works at Guitar Center repairing musical band instruments. He first heard about Fiverr from the Clark Howard show which featured Fiverr as a great tool to earn extra cash and immediately began thinking what his talents were. As music has been an integral part of his life, he decided to use his musical talent and couple it with his voice over impressions to sell songs for 5 dollars. Chris uses the money he earns from Fiverr to supplement his wife’s college expenses like books.

“I just cleared the $4,000 mark and I started in September 2010. It seems like a constant stream of money is going into my PayPal account.

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But it wasn’t a continuous flow of funds. After two years, I was down to a few thousand bucks. And then a few hundred. And then it was gone. Now, four years on, it’s more than gone. I have a credit card with a $7,000 balance, and I had to borrow money from my dad to pay my taxes (I’ve never told him point blank that the money is gone, but when I call him up to borrow $100, he must know)….

I probably think about the money at least once a week, more when I’m stressed. Sometimes I regret not making a big change in my life; sometimes I regret not getting that nosejob (I still think about it); and sometimes I regret spending thousands of dollars on clothes before I’d come into my sense of style (now impeccable, I’d say, but which does not include gaspump leggings and ruffly collars).

Lesson Learned:
This is a sad story. I read stories like these and though I have had sad feelings about the fact that I do not have an inheritance of any kind from any grandparents or my parents, I am actually very grateful that I’ve been given the challenge of not having anything given to me, but instead working hard to get what I have.

I often think about what I would do if I ever was given a lump of money, whether in a contest or lottery or something like that. I imagine most people fancy the thought. But the idea of spending it on frivolities never once crosses my mind.

Personally, debt payment would be #1, followed by a nice emergency savings. Only after those two would I be willing to sink money into a purchase, and that purchase would be a newer used truck for my father since his 82 F-150 needs significant work done on it.

Debt repayment, savings, investment, those should be top priorities for lump sums received from inheritance or by some other means. Making purchases of wants is very unfulfilling and set a precedence that will be hard for you to break out of. It’s not only detrimental to your financial situation, but also your integrity as well as it sets a bad example to those around you.

Amount Flushed Down the Money Drain: $66,000

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So in lieu of this, I’ve decided to only accept guest posts from other financial bloggers. I will no longer be accepting guest posts that will be linking to companies/businesses. I want to support the personal finance blogger community, and in doing so I am hoping they will support me in return. Even if your business runs a blog, it is still a business and I will not be accepting guest posts from businesses trying to get free advertisement.

So while I appreciate the offers, I’ll be abiding by this new rule for future guests posts.

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I recently went to Harris Teeter and got a full sized sub. I am a member of their Points Program. You can earn points per Sub. After earning 15 points you can get a full sized sub for free.

Today I went and got a full sized sub (You can really only 1/2 a sub because they are HUGE) and two 1 liter bottles of Seltzer. Grand total $8.71…after discounts was $1.82…or $.91 a meal.

-Submitted by Squire Joe

Lesson Learned:
I know this is a smaller story compared to others I have posted, but I do love a good couponing story. I don’t go out to eat much, myself, but those that do can take advantage of programs like these to save a significant amount of money. Creating TWO meals for only $1.82 is an awesome achievement, especially for take-out type meals. If you attend a particular sandwich shop regularly, see if they have some sort of regular customer program that you could benefit from.

Amount Saved: $6.89 or 79%

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When rates hit 5%, the rush to refinance was sizable. When rates fell to 4.5%, the rush to refinance was more substantial. When rates fell to 4%, the rush to refinance was downright staggering. And here we are again, with the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage falling another rung on the ladder, to 3.87%.

Frugal Freebies and Deals posts about 10 ways you can save money and time this year by shopping online.

Ebates and Shop at Home are great, too. Basically they have almost every store that offers online shopping. And if you go through them you can get 2-30% back on your purchase. They have specials, too where they might double the cash back on a certain store and you can get some really great deals. You can even shop at Ebay through them and get 3% of your purchase back.

Yahoo! News posts about how to reduce your stress and rebuild your bank account.

FACE YOUR FEAR: One of the first, and worst issues, with financial distress is the difficulty of facing the reality. We don’t open the bill, look at the amount owed, answer the phone call, or open the IRS envelope. If you can relate to this avoidance tactic, face the music and face it now. Open the bill, call the person, hear the facts, know the reality and move forward. It will surprise you to learn how much taking action will empower you, and in turn, reduce your stress.

Moneyville argues that the first step to saving money is to budget.

They have one car, walk whenever they can, and always look for grocery specials. They try not to use their credit cards, because “paying interest on your after-tax dollar is not worth the sale,” says Kung. Every January, they examine what money they have left over, and, together, decide how much to tuck into their RRSPs, RESPs and savings, or what new investments to make. Being so frugal, they don’t have a mortgage.

Star Tribute posts more ideas on how to save money through your employer.

Discounted Microsoft® software. Through the Microsoft Home Use Program – you can get the suite of Office products for cheap. While your employer may not publicize this – you may want to go directly to your IT dept for the special code you’ll need to enter at Microsoft.

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I usually keep a credit card or two around in order to help build up my credit. I pay the balance off monthly, though I don’t actually look at my credit card statement each month. I figured if I am paying it off each month then that was enough.

However, one day I decided to take a look at my statement and noticed I was being charged $20/month for something I didn’t recognize. While doing my research I discovered the charge was for a membership I had signed up for when I ordered something off the TV back in 2006. I didn’t even realize I was a member of this service. I cancelled immediately but a significant amount of damage has been done already. $1440 down the drain.

- Submitted by: Ryan

Lesson Learned:
I’ve seen my dad fall into minor expense traps like this one. Signing up for a repeated delivery service of some sort just because you order one. It’s an unfortunate circumstance that a lot of people seem to fall for when ordering things off the tv, or without reading the terms of the purchase.

Really all you can do is just be diligent of reading through what the purchase actually includes, and if you can avoid giving them your credit card information all the better. Stay frugal and always check your statements for all accounts for any charges you don’t recognize.

Amount Flushed Down the Money Drain: $1440

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2.“Dental Insurance: $60.00 per year” – During my employer’s open enrollment period for insurance, I reviewed my dental insurance premiums paid and out-of-pocket amounts paid to my dentist. I also contacted my dentist and asked what my typical yearly dental services (two cleanings and x-rays) would cost without insurance. Based on my historical usage I ended up saving money by dropping my dental insurance.
3.“Urgent Care: $75.00 per visit” – Understanding the difference between an Emergency Room (ER) and an Urgent Care Center saved us time and money. My wife had cut her finger and we choose to visit the Urgent Care Center instead of the ER. This only took about an hour and saved us $75.00 by paying the Urgent Care copay instead of the ER copay.

Read Full Article

Lesson Learned:
The Dental Insurance thing can be iffy if you come across a serious dental problem that needs fixing. It makes sense to drop the insurance if it costs more than your actual care each year, but what happens if you need to have a tooth removed?

I try to look at this the same way I look at pet insurance. Pet insurance can be good with pets that developed a serious condition that needs regular treatment, but pet insurance is a reimbursement program, not a discount program. I used to work at an emergency vet, and people never seemed to understand that they still had to pay for their services up front and then get reimbursed through the pet insurance program. It’s still a good program for animals with regular health issues, but most don’t need it.

Instead, what I’ve recommended in the past is to put aside a certain amount of money per year to put towards pet healthcare, or event dental healthcare. Say you put away $25/month, each year you’ll have $300 set aside for these types of expenses. You may only spend $100 of that per year, so the balance will continue to grow. Then, when you have that big moment where you need $1,000 for an expense, you have that money saved up, without having to spend each month paying a monthly premium to an insurance company.

Obviously health insurance is not something I recommend this with, but things like dental and pet insurance…it might be a good alternative.

I’m also glad One Solution for Me posted about the Urgent Care versus Emergency Room, because I honestly have never been to an Urgent Care clinic and likely would not think to go to one.

One other addition I want to mention about saving money is how lowering your deductible can save you money. I have an HSA through my work, so that makes this a little easier for me, but even if I didn’t I would still apply this principle to my health insurance deductible.

If my health insurance deductible is $1200/year, I make sure I have that amount in my HSA (or a separate savings account). That way, I can move up to a higher deductible if I want, which will lower my monthly payments, because I’ll have that deductible saved up for emergencies. The same applies to car insurance, you can raise your deductible for lower monthly payments once you have that deductible amount set aside for that emergency. Gradually you’ll be saving money this way

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