Mashable has found 5 ways Twitter can save you money:

1. Find Deals
2. Save on Gas
3. Budget Better
4. Collect Debts
5. Avoid Bad Investments.

Click through for the full article.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: 5 Ways Twitter Can Save You Money

Even to Save Cash, Don’t Try This Stuff at Home

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Sometimes Do It Yourself Is Not The Answer

Eating leftovers is a great way to save both money and time. However, a problem can arise when you spot a tasty dish in the fridge and can’t remember when it was cooked.

Not wishing to take a chance on it, you chuck the leftovers in the trash and fix something fresh, or worse, call for take out.

Well, the very useful website the kitchn has the answer to our problem: the Leftovers Log.

The Leftovers Log is a pdf document, which you can print out and note both when you stored a food item and the date you should eat it by.

What a great little hack. You can download the Leftovers Log over on the kitchn’s site.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Leftovers Log

The uptick rule prevents a short seller from initiating a sale until a stocks last move was upward.

The uptick rule had been in place since the 1930’s, but was repealed in 2007.

Many investment professionals believe that market volatility in the last year would have been reduced had the uptick rule still been in place.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Return of the Uptick Rule

— Dave Barry

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Dave Barry On Income Tax Season

Under previous programs by the Bush administration, lenders were urged to voluntarily modify mortgages. Even though a large number of mortgages were modified, there were 2.2 million foreclosures in the U.S. in 2008.

Most of the largest mortgage-servicing corporations in the country are expected to participate in the program. Pending legislation, which would allow judges to modify mortgages and protect services from lawsuits, could also influence their participation.

Also, any bank that receives additional funds from the TARP would be required to participate.

Here are some specifics:

• Borrowers with mortgages as high as $729,750 will be able to participate.
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be allowed to refinance loans at lower interest rates, even if they lack 20 percent equity in their homes.
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will receive up to $200 billion in additional capital to finance the program.
• For servicing companies, the government will pay $1,000 upfront for every loan they modify, and then pay an additional $1,000 per year for the first three years if the borrower stays current with their payments.
• The government will also directly reduce the borrower’s principal balance by $1,000 per year if they stay current with their payments.

The government believes that this program could prevent as many as 5 million foreclosures.

An additional program, designed to help with “piggy-back” mortgages is said to be under development.

Borrowers who wish to participate in the program should contact the company servicing their mortgage.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Details on the New Foreclosure Prevention Program

Spread over the 19 business days of February, the filing rate is 5,433 filings per day. The figure is a 22.0% jump over the January 2009 filing rate, although the better comparison is to the November 2008 filing rate because bankruptcy rates typically fall in December and January due to seasonal variations. As compared to November 2008, the increase is 9.8%, which is still a big jump for bankruptcy filing rates. The February 2009 filing rate represents a year-over-year increase of 29.9% as compared to February 2008.

Clearly, it will be a long time before we see any light at the end of the economic tunnel.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: 5,433 Bankruptcies Per Day in February 2009

The scam is this: you purchase the kit for the cost of shipping, then if you don’t return it within 14 days; you start getting billed for large monthly charges.

The scammers count on their victims to not read the disclosure in the fine print of these monthly charges.

While the government does give grants, information about legitimate programs can be found on official websites which end in .gov.

It is very unfortunate that advertisers are taking advantage of people that may have fallen on desperate times.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Watch Out For Economic Stimulus Scams

Here’s how that works: The value of the trade-in is $8000; balance on the loan for that trade-in is $10,000. That leaves a $2000 deficit that either a) the dealer eats (unlikely), or b) you have to cover with an extra cash down payment as well as the trade, or c) gets rolled into the new car loan. The last option means that you are essentially refinancing the remaining debt on the car you just sold back to the dealer, along with the price of the new car and whatever add-ons get added on back in the F&I office.

I know from several acquaintances in the automobile retailing industry that this type of thing happened a lot.

As cars get more expensive, and loan terms get longer (to keep those monthly payments affordable!) that increases the odds of negative equity caused by left-over debt from the trade-in. In theory, the lenders financing those loans would want to know if the car was going to be underwater due to negative equity before it even drove off the lot. But in practice – just as with the mortgage industry, the only thing worse for your monthly numbers than an undersecured loan was no loan at all.

This is classic example of misaligned priorities: it was better to do a bad deal than no deal at all.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Drive One, Pay for Two

Jonathan Schultz, an 18 year old senior at St. Mary High School in Dell Rapids, South Dakota, won a $3,000 prize for a series of essays he wrote for a financial literacy contest.

Contestants were required to write essays that involved creating financial independence by understanding investing principles.

Shultz’s teacher received a $300 prize of her own.

—

I think this kind of contest is a great idea. We never covered any aspects of personal finance when I was in school, and while I did pretty well through self-education, a number of my classmates soon found themselves in financial difficulty.  I hope other schools will begin using these types of contests to promote personal financial education.

Congratulations Jonathan.

Originally posted on pfhacks.com: Writing Personal Finance Essays Earns Student $3,000!