Personal Finance | Cheap Travel | 2011 Taxes | Frugal

Should I Pre-Pay My Mortgage?

A reader question, "My husband and I are thinking about paying off our mortgage early. We have a little more than $150,000 left and we have no debt. Other thoughts are to save the money for college for our two children that will be entering high school soon. My husband will be getting a good pension and I have a reasonable amount of money in my IRA. Does paying off the mortgage early make sense or should we invest it?" - Jennifer H.

Everyday Rip-Offs - The Dirty Dozen

There must be a thousand rackets out there to fleece consumers out of their hard-earned dollars. Everybody gets ripped off. It’s nothing to boast about but I’ll admit to being a victim to half of these scams. We’ve tried to whittle it down to the dirty dozen - the ones that should be considered high crimes and misdemeanors - highway robbery by any other name. OK, a few of these might not rise to that level, but they'll still put a dent in your wallet.

8 Life Landmines That Will Blow Up Your Financial Plans

You’re the picture perfect example of a financially responsible person. You live below your means, max out your retirement accounts, have a nice emergency fund and even some investments. You’ve got life by the reigns and every month your net worth goes up and your debt goes down. Your living the American dream. Before you get too content with your progress, know that these 8 big "landmines” can ruin the best laid financial plans. This article will help you understand, plan for and hopefully avoid each of them.

12 Things We Used to Do Ourselves That We Pay for Today

In the last 30 years, there has been a tremendous “Wealthening” of America. Perhaps the greatest evidence of that is the huge growth in the service sector. Today, we pay other people to do many things that we used to just do ourselves just 3 decades ago.

If you want to start living cheap, it is time to reverse the trend and start doing these things for yourself!

5 Car Buying Tips the Dealer Doesn't Want You to Know

Auto dealers are masters at figuring out how to squeeze more profit out of unsuspecting consumers. The whole dealership model is built around one basic principal - maximizing the profit on each customer by taking advantage of their ignorance. There are many things that the dealer knows that he would prefer that you didn't. If you want to buy a car, read read these 5 auto buying tips.

15 Ways to Plan for Financial Worst Case Scenarios

With the more accurate gauge of unemployment hovering at about 17% and with some estimates indicating that 30% of households have experienced some form of job loss, there are more reasons now to be cautious with your financial planning. While the majority of Americans have managed to endure the Great Recession and emerge financially intact, millions of families have been less fortunate. For whatever reason, many people didn’t plan for the worst case scenario. It’s all water under the bridge now, but there are things people can do to mitigate the unbearable burden of prolonged unemployment. For one thing - we should plan for it. It might never happen but if it does, make sure you retain the ability to hunker down, weather the storm and take care of your family. Here are 15 key points in 3 areas to help you plan for the worst.

Do Credit Scores Really Matter?

"Is it true that credit scores really don't matter much? I have heard that obsessing over your credit score is a pointless exercise and the importance of scores is overblown. Does 20 points difference matter much today?"

- Question from reader T.R.

The 5 Best Coupon Sites on the Internet

Rule #1 of Living Cheap is Never Pay Retail. If you are shopping on the Internet, there are almost always discounts to be had if you know where to look. These 5 websites are the best places to get coupons for Internet purchases. Before you buy anything online, you should visit them, grab a coupon code and cut down the price by ten or twenty percent.

You're Not As Rich as You Think You Are

My wife and I sat down at the finely crafted twelve foot long table. I figured it must take a significant amount of elbow grease to get that kind of polish.

Our hosts were extremely cordial and very happy to see us but I resisted the urge to ask them what kind of polish they use and whether you could buy it wholesale. I mean these guys were our new investment managers, not the cleaning crew. As I took stock of the finely appointed office, I couldn't help but feel a little out of place. The question that ran through my mind was "why would these guys want folks like us for clients, we're not rich".

We Make a Quarter Million and We're Broke!

"I don't get how one can ever save the money you recommend on LiveCheap. My husband and I are professionals and do very well income-wise. We make a little over $250,000 a year, have no kids, but we have very little savings. We want a home but it would take us years to get a 20% down payment for a house in suburban D.C. We both save about 10% of our income in 401ks but we barely have $10,000 in a savings account. Yes, we have newer cars and the payments are high, take good vacations, and we pay over $2,700 a month in rent, but shouldn't we be able to afford all that and still bank a lot of money? What are we doing wrong? Help" - Vanessa

You'll Sleep Better in a Smaller Home

Size matters – especially when it comes to homes. The original purpose of housing was to provide a little privacy, give you shelter from the elements and a place to horde your food. I think we’ve all inherited a few territorial genes, but excess space can be a very expensive proposition. From a financial point of view, there’s no difference between having a room you never use, installing a second "decorative" dishwasher in your kitchen or keeping a few spare cars in your driveway "for emergencies."

Buy Cheap Groceries: 7 Ways

There’s nothing wrong with picking up a tip here or there on how to buy cheap groceries. It’s all good and every little bit helps. But it's summer time and we'd like to extend you an invitation to attend our buy cheap grocery training camp. If you make it through this rigorous training session, you should end up with an extra hundred or two in your pocket a month - every month. Many of you have already completed a good part of this course and you’re buffed up and good to go. But even some of our veteran cheapsters might learn a thing or two to hone up on their grocery saving skills. Here's 7 lessons to get cheap groceries:

Buying a New Car Cheaply - 10 Tips

Buying a car isn't exactly a fun experience for most people. Cars are an unusual product. Two customers can go to the same dealer on the same day and buy the same car. But one customer ends up paying a lot less than the other. The price of a car often depends on the customer and his ability to negotiate. There's no polite way of saying this - car dealers fully expect to make the majority of their profits by inflating the cost of everything and bullying their way with pushover customers. Even if you're well informed on prices, the dealer has a host of tricks to maximize its profits. Here are 10 Tips to buy a new car cheaply.

Save on Car Insurance - 14 Ways

Want save some money on your car insurance premiums? There's a lot more to it than just picking GEICO, Progressive, State Farm or Allstate. Here's a list of monetary and non-monetary strategies to keep down your car insurance bill and cut your costs by hundreds of dollars every year.

How to Buy Online

We love to buy online and the thing we like most about it is that you usually end up getting excellent value. But if you've ever wondered how to buy online like a pro, this is the article for you. We pooled the combined knowledge of our staff at LiveCheap.com, we managed to develop a method to give consumers the best chance of landing an excellent deal when they shop online.

Personal Finance Advice: 5 Tips

If you want to move ahead financially and stay ahead for life, there are a few major financial decisions that you need to nail down. The sooner you get them right, the more likely they will make a huge difference in your life style. Here are 5 personal finance tips that you can follow that will give you a leg up for the rest of your life:

How do I Get Rich in Less Than 15 Years

The general drift of our mission at LiveCheap.com is to help you live cheap by saving a buck here or a thousand bucks there. It's not the most glamorous stuff, but it works. But let's say you're the impatient type who wants to get wealthy fast and can't be bothered spending the next thirty or forty years saving and investing in stocks and real estate. We're talking about getting on the fast track towards seven figure wealth in 10 to 15 years, or even faster. If you're a basketball player or a stunningly beautiful actress, it shouldn't be too difficult and the only real advice you need is to not piss it all away. But, for the rest of us - the physically ungifted - it takes a bit more of an effort to get to the magic millions and get there fast. So if you want to know "How do I get rich," read on.

Making the Best out of Unemployment

For some time now, I've been harping on the bogus government unemployment statistics. At the very minimum, 17%, if not 20% of the workforce is either out of work or seriously underemployed. These figures don't begin to tell half the story because the cast of characters who make up the pool of unemployed workers is constantly changing. What I mean by that, is that Joe Smith might be unemployed today but when he gets a job next week, chances are that another American, maybe his wife or his neighbor, will replace him on the unemployment line. This recession could very well inflict periodic unemployment on as many as one out of every three workers. So, given those odds, it's worthwhile to muse on how best to deal with a pink slip. Not to minimize the trauma of dealing with a major loss of income or having to put your career on hold, but there is a silver lining or those who have mastered the art of cheap living. If you've saved your pennies and have a low cost lifestyle, a few months off with unemployment insurance can end up being like a welcome sabatical.

Here's 7 ways to kick back and make the best of it.

8 Car Maintenance Tips

Looking to avoid that big car repair bill in the future? Hoping to save $100 on gas without going out and buying a hybrid? Here are some car maintenance tips that I use with my vehicles that will help you extend the life of your car, cut your maintenance costs, and and save you some serious money.

15 Year Mortgage or 30 Year Mortgage?

15 year mortgage rates are 3.25% but does it makes sense to refinance from a 30 year mortgage? Everyone has their opinion on how to purchase or refinance a home but the choice is dependent on your situation and personality. So should you pass up an on that ultra low fixed rate mortgage? We weigh the benefits of lower interest rates versus the risk of making higher payments:

How to Make a Million Dollars

So you want to make a million dollars? Well for most of us, the real goal will be to SAVE a million dollars. Of course, it isn't what it used to be. Not so long ago, it used to be considered wealth but these days it only qualifies as being well off. These days, if you have to live off of it and you want it to last, you're not going to have a house in the south of France and an ocean-front condo in Bal Harbor. If you have that kind of cash in the bank, you'd be lucky to earn $35,000 a year in interest. Even if that kind of money doesn't let you live in the lap of luxury, with a million dollars saved in the bank, you'll definitely have enormous options in life. If you want to flip your slave-driving boss the bird, having a liquid million is a goal worth attaining. So it's worth reviewing the math behind saving $1 million because it's a goal that is achievable on a middle-class income. Making a million dollars, that's not hard, its keeping it that's the real struggle.

10 Reasons to Cancel ALL of Your Credit Cards

After paying it off, I just canceled my last bank credit card. My credit card debt has been slowly chipped away at and I’ve cancelled each of my cards as I’ve paid it off. When I called today to cancel the card, it was met with choruses of “don’t you need the credit card for emergencies?” by the customer service representative. Even if you have the best credit card, you don’t need it and here’s 10 reasons why:

The Terrible Economics of Dual Income

Many families understand all too well the burden of having two working parents. Any debate over whether one parent should stay home needs to include an analysis of tax implications. Of course, some households don't have the luxury of engaging in this debate - two paychecks are needed to support the family and they simply can't get by without the extra income. But federal and state tax laws penalize dual income households at such a high rate that when the additional costs of commuting, childcare, and work-related expenses are factored in, many families might discover that the second income is just not worth the hassle.

Credit Card Debt: Which to Pay First

Which credit card do you pay first? That's the question from a LiveCheap Reader in Denver. "I have two credit cards. First card has a $12,000 balance and a 17.99% interest rate and card #2 has a $7,500 balance with an 9.99% rate. I incurred the larger balance in my small business which had slowed down. I've heard some experts say you should pay the smaller balance first, but isn't that more costly? I'm finally in a spot where I can pay an extra $1,000 a month, what do you recommend? I also get these 0% balance transfer offers for a year. Do you think that would help me repay my debt faster? Help!"

Is Costco Cheap? 5 Reasons Not to Shop

It seems everywhere I go, I hear the same refrain, "Oh, you can get it cheaper at Costco!" It's enough to drive somebody like me to sign up for a lifetime super-platinum membership. But I won't. I don't shop there, and despite the throngs of Kirkland's Best cheerleaders that seem to surround me at nearly every gathering, I still don't want to shop at Costco. Even with my wife pushing me to bow to the enormous peer-pressure of every mini-van mommy friend of hers, I am not doing it. Here's 5 reasons why I don't shop at Costco and they have nothing to do with prices:

Vitacost.com - Another Scam Brewing?

Is there a Vitacost scam? Back in 1987, a major stock scam unraveled when a consumer raised hell about excessive credit card charges on her carpet cleaning bill. Once her story got picked up by the Los Angeles Times, the company went into a free-fall after massive fraud was uncovered. For those of you old enough to remember, the company was ZZZZ Best which was established by celebrated boy wonder Barry Minkow. The company went public when he was nineteen and he got sentenced to 25 years for securities fraud when he was 21.

The scheme to defraud investors and consumers was simple enough. ZZZZ inflated its income and assets by over-charging customers on their credit card bills and claiming it had non-existent contracts with insurance companies to do some major clean up and refurbishing jobs.

Fast forward to 2010. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine, Charlie, noticed a few charges on his credit card statement and for vitamins he never ordered. Not one to overlook that kind of thing, he complained to his credit card company which advised him to contact the Vitacost (symbol: VITC) to reverse the charges. But the folks at Vitacost wouldn’t back down and the next thing he knew, they billed him again on the next month’s statement. My buddy contested the bill but still couldn’t get Vitacost outfit to remove the charges. He finally got ticked off and cancelled the card.

Buy a House?

"We want to buy a house but we only have enough for a 5% down payment. What do you think about FHA loans? I want to start building equity. Should we be buy a home now?" - Andrew

Andrew, thanks for sending us your question. In general, you shouldn't buy a home until you can come up with at least a 10%, and ideally a 20% down payment. It's true that you can buy a home with as little as 3% down today and if your payments are similar to rent, it might not be a bad idea assuming everything in your life stays the same or gets better. But the problem with low down payment loans are numerous. Here are a few of them:

Investing in Stocks vs. Real Estate - Which is Better? Part 1

Go to any online investment discussion board and you'll probably encounter the million dollar question - which is better, the stock market or real estate. Of course, the choice isn't exclusive of one another: ideally you have both. But if forced to put your eggs in one basket or another, which should you choose? we have a little bit of a feud going on here at LiveCheap.com on the right answer to that question. In the Real Estate corner is Ahmed Amr, whose real estate investments in Seattle made him a pretty penny. Backing equity investing in good ole' companies via the stock market is Omie Ismail, who has gotten his share of multi-bagger equity returns. Point by point in 12 different aspects, our Cheapsters have at it.

Leave My Latte Alone!

Financial experts agree that one of the easiest ways to cut spending is to give up your daily lattes. What if this one piece of advice held back many people who would like to begin a budget, but remain reluctant to give up life’s little luxuries?

The word “budget” often produces a shudder. There are many reasons why a budget won’t work. Here are 9 reasons along with ways to overcome them.

Barter Your Way to Savings

As a child, you traded your PB&J sandwich and an apple for your friend’s tuna fish sandwich and banana when you weren’t happy with the school lunch that mom packed. You felt clever, discovering the concept of trading goods. According to historians, as far back as 9000 B.C., people were trading cattle for other goods. This practice became known as bartering. It wasn’t until about 1000 B.C. that metal coins came into existence, followed by paper currency in the 800s A.D; using money in exchange for goods and services is just another form of bartering.

In today’s tough economy, people are looking for opportunities to become more creative in stretching their dollar. Consequently, bartering is making a comeback. Bartering groups are springing up in neighborhoods around the country and numerous online bartering networks are just a click away.

Is Now a Good Time To Buy a House?

There is always a bottom to every market and recent statistics existing home sales make us wonder how much lower can home sales actually go. In July, existing home sales plunged 27% from June to a 15 year low. Some of that was to be expected with the government home buyer programs ending. But the magnitude of the drop makes you wonder, when will this real estate market hit bottom? Is now a great time to buy, or is that still years away?

Amazon Subscribe and Save: 30% Off Already Low Prices

Normally, I am skeptical of any subscription shopping program. Our shelves are filled with dozens of unopened vitamins because we once signed up for a program that sent us continual "back-up orders" of things that we really didn't need. But Amazon's Subscribe and Save Program is a real winner for certain products. Read more to find out how to save up to 30% off Amazon's normally low prices.

A Simple Technique to Cut Spending and Eliminate Credit Card Debt

I've got a wife that hates the notion of a budget and I know better than to argue with the woman. But one thing we've always agreed on was controlling spending and dodging credit card bills. And, if we say so ourselves, we've done a hell of a job.

You don't need a budget - you just need to be consistent. And all we did was developed a simple technique that saves us the trouble of having to follow the inflexible regiment of a budget. Our technique is to follow a few simple rules - all the time.

It's Labor Day - Happy Frugal New Year

Happy New Year! It’s that time of the year when many of us are heading for new beginnings. For those working, the year really begins after you've refreshed yourself with an August vacation, not on January 1st. If you've gotten a little behind, September usually offers a launch pad to kick in your efforts before the end of the calendar year. If your a teacher or returning student, this really is the beginning of a new year and you have a fresh start with new faces.

So maybe this is the best time to make resolutions about how we’re going to try to improve our lives. I’ve got five generic resolutions that you’re welcome to make.

Big Things, Little Things: Can You Live Cheap By Just Focusing on One?

Let's start with the little things - saving on groceries, seeking out clearance clothing, getting discounts at restaurants and making sure that you don’t pay late fees on your credit cards and bank accounts. These are examples of the little things that often take up time, but collectively they add up to quite a bit of savings. Can you ignore these little things and just focus on the big stuff and still build up a huge nest egg? If you believe the “Big Things” camp, obsessing over the little things is a waste of valuable time. Not so, says the “Little Things” camp, if you watch the little things you buy and use on a daily basis, you will build up plenty of wealth even you don’t nail the 3 or 4 big things in life. Who’s right? Read on and find out.

6 Steps to Maximizing Your Frequent Flyer Miles

I normally don’t recommend using credit cards, but if you have the discipline to use them only to buy the essentials and pay them off each month, then they are a great way to get free airline tickets. But maximizing airline mileage is critically important. These 6 points give you the basics on how to maximize your earnings.

5 Employment Tips for a Double-Dip Recession

The last thing we want to do is become agents of gloom and doom. Like most people, we’d rather walk on the sunny side of the street and believe that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. But all signs point to a deteriorating economy and a government running out of options to keep stimulating it. The stubborn official unemployment number which is now hovering around 9.5% should have us all worried. And that’s without taking account of the 5 to 6 million discouraged and underemployed workers that are not counted in the official tally. Of the 600,000 new jobs created in 2009, 80% were in the service sector. Worst of all, the pace of job growth has been slowing and state and local governments which are cutting to balance budgets are turning the overall numbers negative. If you're still gainfully employed, here's 5 employment related things you can do to defend yourself against the dreaded double dip recession.

Cheap Laptop Battery - How to Get a Good One

Today's enhanced lithium ion batteries can often power a notebook for as long as 6 to 8 hours on a single charge. But after a few years, all batteries suffer the same fate. They die. When that time comes, you're in for a rude awakening because the replacement cost will run as much as 15 to 20% of the laptop's purchase price. This has spawned an entire industry of aftermarket batteries that are designed to be compatible with your original OEM battery. The savings can be dramatic with good replacement batteries costing 50-70% less. But before you head over to Amazon.com to snag a cheap laptop battery, there's a few things you need to watch out for.

Want to Remain Middle Class? Change Your Consumption Habits

I got dunked into a little hot water with some of our readers after I wrote a light hearted article about the disappearing middle class. Many of us grew up with middle class incomes and identities and many of us consider our membership in the middle class a birthright. Frankly, I was surprised with how touchy people get over the subject. I mean is it my fault that the middle class is shrinking? I shouldn’t have asked that question because, in all honesty, I must confess that I’m as guilty as the next guy of betraying my own class and making it shrink. It’s time for the middle class to admit that we all contributed to decimating the ranks of our tribe.

Your Destination is Your Financial Destiny

Your geographic location has so much to do with your financial destiny. From the day you are born, it starts having an impact on your economic well-being. If you happen to be American-born or your mother is Swedish or Japanese – you have a leg up from the day you take your first breath. As an added bonus, you’ll probably earn a decade or two of additional longevity just because you entered the planet as a resident of a developed country.

4 States Where the Jobs Are

Recent unemployment data suggests that the nation is beginning to see an even weaker job market.

After some months of improvement, albeit much of it driven by government spending, the economy is slowing down with downward revisions to GDP. But not every state is doing poorly and some of them have been steadily increasing employment especially in the last 12 months. Here are 4 states that have bucked the Recession and are likely to continue adding jobs in the future.

12 Ways to Determine if You're Still Middle Class

We get the occasional complaint from readers who think that our content is not pertinent for the ‘average’ American. In our defense, we don’t have a clue what average American means and if you know his or her name and address - please send it our way because we’d like to invite him over for an interview. It’s fair to assume however, that the average American is middle class. That’s a very vague social and economic designation but it’s a label most Americans are comfortable with. We have millionaires that consider themselves Middle Class being waited on by minimum wage workers who also identify themselves as Middle Class. It’s all very confusing and the term has lost whatever meaning it was supposed to have. In the U.K. the vast majority of people that we consider Middle Class would be considered "Working Class". We're fantastic marketers in the U.S. hell bent on making everyone feel good.

Being middle class has always been a state of mind more than anything else. People are now middle class by a process of elimination. If you’re not poor or destitute and if you’re not rich, you’re supposedly middle class. So, we’ve come up with a way to determine if you’re still eligible for the middle class label. If you’re not something else, you’re Middle Class. Read these 12 points of elimination to see if you still qualify as "Middle Class".

Today's Best of the Web

Here's Today's best articles on the web:

Save Money on Back to School Supplies
Things to Know about Paying Taxes
The Web's New Goldmine: Your Secrets
When Rich People Call You Cheap

Buck the Recession by Moving to Greener Pastures

The Great Recession has taken a toll on many American families that have been financially devastated by the loss of income. At the start of the economic downturn, few people predicted the duration of what is turning out to be the greatest economic calamity since the Depression. Not only are people losing good paying jobs but its taking quite a bit longer to find equivalent employment and folks lucky enough to land a job often have to settle for lower salaries and benefits. That’s reality for a lot of people and dealing with that reality sooner rather than later can save you a lot of grief.

How Much Money Do We Make?

Our readers sometimes have difficulty understanding what life is like on the other side of the income spectrum. Our article about Vanessa, who lives in a quarter million dollar household in D.C. prompted disbelief from some of our readers while others had little difficulty understanding her problem. At the same time, people are often shocked that someone working full time could make anything close to minimum wage. The general notion being that minimum wage jobs only exist for teenagers or those people very early in their careers. So a real question came to mind after reading all of these comments: How Much Money Do We Really Make?

Travel Cheap - Travel Young

Any financial advisor worth his salt will recommend that you start saving and investing early in life. The same goes for travelling; start saving your memories early on. Over the course of a lifetime, the surest way to control your travel overhead is to take as many trips as you can while you’re young, single and unencumbered with a mortgage payment, rent or kids. Sell your car, pack your stuff and leave it with the folks or put it in storage. Whatever you manage to save on unnecessary expenses on the home front leaves you with additional funds to finance your journey abroad.

Internet Sales Tax Coming?

The specter of an online sales tax doesn’t seem to be willing to go away. One of the advantages of Internet shopping is the absence of any sales tax which can amount to a decent cost saving on the average purchase, but this bargain for consumers represents lost income for States across the US that are battling to close the gap on ever-increasing budget deficits.

It is not surprising then that Democratic Congressman Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts once again raised the online sales tax bogey. He first brought the bill for consideration in 2007, but now many in Washington think that he may have better luck getting it passed in 2010. For shoppers that have gotten used to saving 5 to 10 percent by shopping at websites like Amazon, they might be getting a rude awakening.

July: LiveCheap's 7 Best Articles

July was another great month at LiveCheap. We sincerely want to thank you for your continued readership and appreciate your feedback. Here's our 7 best articles of the month.

Just Get Rid Of It!

You’re not alone. To a certain degree, we’re all hoarders and pack rats. You tell yourself that you’ll never know when you need it even though you know the answer is ‘never.’ Accumulating clutter can be a very expensive habit and one that is very difficult to break.

First off, let’s look at the expense and hassle of keeping useless things around the house. Stuff takes up space. Even small objects can crowd desk drawers and kitchen cabinets. And when you’re looking for something that you actually need, you might not find it because it’s lost in the clutter. So the bad stuff ends up burying the good stuff.

5 Things You Can Really Do Without

It looks like we've discovered the secret to getting lots of reader feedback: write an article that everyone disagrees with. To be honest, I knew people would wince after reading Nomad's article yesterday. Sure enough, his list of a dozen things he manages to do without generated more negative votes and comments than any article we've ever published. We've written on topics that have drawn thirty times the traffic and only a handful of comments - usually positive ones. Nomad's humor is often hard to get a handle on and like most people who travel a lot, he's developed some quirky consumption habits to keep his luggage light. That said, I warned him about putting the deodorant on his list so he had it coming.

To make up for Nomad's debacle, I thought I'd put together a list for those of us sensible folks that love our spice racks and can't live without hair conditioners. Allow me to share a few insights about some unnecessary things that people pay for that can add up to serious money. While most of the items on this list are targeted at those who are amassing savings and have mid to higher incomes, if you live below your means at any income, they will likely apply to you to. Here's my list of 5 things you REALLY don't need. Doing without them can save you a small fortune over your lifetime.