Money Blue Book

How long should you keep your tax records?

Somewhere deep in every home office, thrown in haphazardly or filed semi-neatly in a file drawer, are years' worth of tax returns and records that support them. Sooner or later the files get so big that the drawer or cabinet is busting open, creating a paper mess that could be explored on A&E [...]

Chase and Southwest announce points-for-miles redemption deal

Chase is helping your travel dollar get even more mileage with its latest rewards partnership. The company's Ultimate Rewards plan, considered by many to be among the best credit card reward programs available today, has added the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards frequent flier program as its ne [...]

Discover More Card offers no-fee balance transfer

If you're going to rob Peter to pay Paul, why would you want to pay a fee? The whole idea is to save some money, stave off debt … why incur more charges? Balance transfer fees are pretty standard across credit cards; move your balance to a new card and you're usually going to pay 3 percen [...]

How to do an annual financial checkup

The start of a new year is a chance to start with a clean slate and plan for a better year ahead. If your finances didn't fare so well in the previous year, it can be a time to rethink your approach and give yourself a financial checkup to ensure you're on the right path. An annual financial chec [...]

Micro-saving: a personal finance resolution you can keep

This holiday season, I had a chance to catch up with some members of my extended family. I learned that a musician cousin of mine (let's call him Mark) had recently pulled himself back from the brink of bankruptcy and gotten his debt under control, which (no offense, Mark!) came as a small surpr [...]

Hackers steal more than credit card data

Here's a newsflash: Hackers can wreak havoc for credit card owners. As tales of identity theft and stolen credit cards become a seemingly almost everyday occurrence, you may be unclear what to do to protect yourself from high-tech thieves. And thieves thrive on your confusion. I read about the Chr [...]

Balance Transfer Day fizzles

Balance Transfer Day -- when consumers were urged to send big banks a message by switching their credit cards with money on them to companies that offered lower interest rates -- came and went without much splash on Dec. 11. "Take that, big banks, we're moving our business to credit cards with ba [...]

4 secrets of travel credit cards

When I first heard about credit cards with miles promotions, I figured they were a passing fad. Airlines had long offered programs for frequent fliers, allowing them to amass hundreds or thousands of miles per trip taken, and the card companies didn't seem to need the extra incentive to get peop [...]

Smartphone or computer: Which is safer for credit card payments?

Ho Ho Holy cow, have I been shopping online lately. I shop locally every chance I can, but there are some Internet shopping sites that offer such great deals. Throw in free shipping, and my credit cards and keyboard have been getting a workout. As an avid Web consumer, I have been reading with gr [...]

How to teach your kids to save

As any parent who has used a variation of "Do what I say, not what I do" knows, it's hard to teach your kids a lesson if you're not following your own advice. If you're not a saver and your children don't see you putting money away each month in the best high yield savings account you can find, t [...]