http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1ebBsl5WhI
On this especially, non-special “holiday”, many people will be spending truckloads of money to make their lovers happy. As a perpetually single slore, that’s not my concern. I want to know about money spent on yourself. Making you look fabulous for that mate you may or may not have/find. Continue reading
Well, apparently, now whenever Mitt Romney speaks we can pretty much expect a carafe of gold bars and silver spoons to come flying out his blustery jaws. He’s like a robotic fountain made of money! Would that make him an ATM? Perhaps! But he’s not giving you anything, you pitiless peasants! Know why? He pays a lower tax rate than you do because he’s a rich, sultan of immense wealth who’s found a way to take advantage of every tax break that exists in federal policy. Basically, old Mittens, sees you standing there in your sensible shoes and dystopian misery and comes along with a platinum-coated battering ram and knocks all you ingrates into the sea. He is the Mormonator.
Kiss his ring you supplicants. Continue reading
Let’s say, just for funsies, that your favorite relative in the entire world, your old Auntie Eugenia, went to her favorite seven-come-eleven outlet and shelled out twenty smackeroos on a scratch-off ticket, then handed it to you in an envelope on Christmas Day. That’s your present.
“Thanks, Auntie,” you think to yourself, “I could have bought a Starbucks Grande Mocha Choka Latte Ya Ya drink with that cash and had money left over for a tip, or I could have shanked it on down to the bodega for a lil somethin’ from One Eyed Jimmy, if you know what I mean.” But, Auntie believes in state-sponsored gambling, and she’s not so good with the mobility these days, she’s not going to wander around the mall looking for something for you, now is she? She was there, the lottery man was so nice to her, and so this is what you’re handed. Continue reading
Do you have a spare $110M sitting around? Oh, you mean you’re not a Russian oil baron? Then you can at least take a look at what the new One57 building will have to offer. Continue reading
In baseball, there are the teams that can afford to pay any price for talent and then there are the teams not called “Yankees.” Michael Lewis spent part of the 2002 MLB season with the Oakland Athletics to see this practice in action. Lewis used the material from the time he spent with the team to write Moneyball. In 2011, a film based on the book was released.
Instead of looking for one player with a dream stat lines, Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane looks for players that in the aggregate would have the same stat line as a team that a superior team would. It’s a great way to save money, or just stay within budget. Despite having a payroll of $41 million, which was about one-third of the Yankees payroll, the A’s were playoff contenders Continue reading
Conrad Murray, M.D., was sentenced to four years in jail for the death of Michael Jackson.
Before an expressionless and haggard looking Murray, Judge Michael Pastor, at times reading from the criminal code and directly responding to the pleas for leniency made by Murray himself and those on his behalf, explained that it matters not that another doctor may have killed Jackson. He stated that he read both Dr. Murray’s book about this life, as well as a book about Michael Jackson’s life, and that the once competent physician Murray lost his way in a “medicine for money” scheme that resulted in Jackson’s death. Continue reading
Much has been said of the increasing gap between rich and poor. But the past quarter-century has also seen a greatly increased gap between people under 35 and people over 65. A newly released report from Pew Social Trends highlights this: between 1984 and 2009, the average net worth of an under 35 actually fell by 68% (despite the massive booms that are meant to have taken place during that time). The average net worth of an over 65 increased by 42%.
To put it another way, the average American over 65 in 1984 had 10 times the net worth of an American under 35. In 2009, he or she had 47 times the net worth of an American under 35. The figures were not much different in 2005, before the financial crisis began, although the effect of the crisis has been to increase the gap further in percentage terms. See the handy-dandy charts after the jump.
What are the primary reasons for this increased gap?
According to Moneyland, we Americans are going to collectively spend just a little less than seven billion dollars on Halloween this year. In 2005, planned spending for Halloween was just north of three billion dollars. These figures are courtesy of a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation. Even accounting for inflation, it seems obvious that we, as a country, are addicted to Halloween. Continue reading
If you’ve ever thought about switching from your Big Bad Bank to a Small Community Bank, now might be the time. Bank of America announced that it will charge their customers a $5 monthly fee to use their debit card for purchases. The way to get out of this fee is to not use your debit card for purchases. However you can still access ATMs to withdraw money without incurring the fee.
I’m a reluctant Chase (read: former WaMu) customer, and I can only assume that it’s a matter of time before they start charging to use their debit card as well. The only thing keeping me from switching is that there are thousands of ATMs in the cities that I frequently visit that I can use for free. But at what point is the convenience of having a bank where you can access ATMs fee free worth it?
Image via Flickr.
There is a list of items that you could probably live without — especially if you want to simplify your finances.
If you’re wondering how to get to the end of the month before you get to the end of the money, or if you are saving for a goal and wondering how to get there faster, here’s a few things to think about. Five of them, actually. Continue reading