Are You a Credit Card Junkie? Learn How to Kick the Habit
Are you a credit junkie? Millions of Americans are, including our favorite relative, Uncle Sam. We usually think of junkies as drug addicts or drug peddlers, but a junkie is any person who derives inordinate pleasure from or who is dependent on something. For many people, that’s buying things with credit. In other words, spending money on things they can’t afford. Getting addicted to credit is just as easy as becoming addicted to anything else. At first you give it a try and maybe you buy something on a new credit card. Like magic, you just purchased something yet your bank account didn’t go down. What a wonderful feeling! So you buy something else on credit, and then even more stuff

Debt turning shoppers into Scrooges
WASHINGTON (AP)—A lot more Americans are feeling stressed out by debt this holiday season, raising the glum likelihood they’ll behave like Scrooge rather than Santa.In fact, fully 93 percent say they’ll spend less or about the same as last year, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. Half of all those polled say they’re suffering at least some debt-related stress, and 22 percent say they’re feeling it greatly or quite a bit. That second figure is up from 17 percent just last spring, despite all the talk about economic recovery.Most people - 80 percent - say they’ll use mostly cash to pay for their holiday shopping, and that generally means buying less

FINRA and FINRA Foundation Protect Seniors from Investment Fraud, Help Military Save for Future
The FINRA Investor Education Foundation devoted significant resources in 2008 to helping two vulnerable and often under-served groups weather the current financial and economic crisis the nation's seniors and U.S. military service personnel (see also Financial Industry Regulatory Authority FINRA).The FINRA Foundation launched a campaign last April in Florida and Washington State to help seniors identify and resist persuasion tactics common to many types of fraud. The centerpiece of the Foundation s campaign to protect seniors is a 90-minute intensive workshop Outsmarting Investment Fraud. Follow-up surveys indicated that, for those who attended the workshop, responsiveness to fr

The Money Diaries: The 25-year-old single mom who writes bad checks
Source: I will teach you to be richToday is another post in the Money Diaries series, which is based off New York Magazine’s Sex Diaries. We’ve collected stories from real people about their spending habits over seven days, anonymized them, and posted them here.Today’s entry is by a 25-year-old single mother. This woman’s spending is definitely troubling — she spends 8% of her take-home pay on self-described “bad habits,” including cigarettes and writing bad checks. But be careful: It’s easy to say, “Why don’t people just SPE

To act like the rich, be frugal
By Sheyna Steiner • Bankrate.com Spotlight interview: Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D.If you want to be rich, you need to stop acting like you have money in the bank and start living beneath your means. That's the message in the most recent book from Thomas J. Stanley, author of "The Millionaire Mind" and the "The Millionaire Next Door."At a glanceName: Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D.Hometown: Atlanta.Education: Ph.D. in business administration, University of Georgia.Career highlights:Best-selling author of "The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind" plus his most recent book, "Stop Acting Rich ... and Start Living Like a Rea