Question: A friend gave me a subscription to a magazine I don't care for. When I canceled after one issue, the magazine sent the refund to Gretchen. I don't want to seem small, but especially since I'd given her a nice present, shouldn't Gretchen have given that money –- or another gift –- to me?
Answer: Call us unsentimental, but gift-giving is a transaction as well as a pleasure. And, usually, MORE
Jeanne Fleming, Ph.D., and Leonard Schwarz - Sep 29, 2009 5:26 PM ET
If you want to measure the impact of the recession, there's no better place to look than college financial aid offices. According to a just-released survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, some 90% of colleges and universities reported a spike in financial aid applications during the last admissions cycle. To meet the surge in demand, schools provided financial assistance to a larger number of students, as well MORE
Penelope Wang - Sep 26, 2009 7:00 AM ET
This is sure to make financial advisers cringe, or at least send me a few angry emails. German researchers have found that on the whole, investors who use a financial adviser tend to underperform do-it-yourselfers.
Professors from Goethe University Frankfurt gathered data from a large German brokerage firm that allowed its clients to either run their portfolios themselves or use an independent financial adviser. On the whole, the adviser-led clients did MORE
Joe Light - Sep 25, 2009 1:47 PM ET
Of course you already use Google to look up movie times, settle trivia disputes or stalk, er, "research" former flames on the Internet. But the world's most famous search engine can also help you save some dough. Here are five money-saving Google features you might not know about:
1. Google 411
I only learned about this one when my uncle -- who lives in Pakistan, no less -- emailed to tell MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Sep 24, 2009 1:37 PM ET
Mortgage rates are below 5% again. But they might not stay that way for long -- even though the Federal Reserve reaffirmed its ridiculously low, 0% to 0.25% target for the federal funds rate.
Yes, it's great for borrowers that the Fed kept its target rate so low. But the text you should really care about is this little tidbit from the Federal Open Market Committee's policy statement:
"To provide support MORE
Joe Light - Sep 23, 2009 5:02 PM ET
It's not shocking that the National Association of Realtors is working hard to have the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit extended past its current December 1st expiration. But what is surprising is how little public discussion there is of the downside of this extension.
It's a full-court press from the NAR: The powerful trade association has its lobbyists pushing the case on the Hill, and it's asking its members to MORE
Carla Fried - Sep 21, 2009 1:02 PM ET
Employment figures are poor all around, but if there's any class of workers that's held up relatively well, it's the college educated. Unemployment stands at only 4.7% for those with college degrees, versus 9.7% for those holding just a high school diploma, according to the latest figures from the Labor Department.
As much as a college diploma may assist today's youth with their future employment, paying for that education is giving MORE
Joe Light - Sep 17, 2009 2:41 AM ET
Will success spoil Mint.com? That's the $170 million question following Monday's news that tax software giant Intuit is spending that whopping sum to buy the startup, which operates a popular, free online service for tracking and managing people's financial lives. (MONEY gave Mint top honors last year when we reviewed four online money trackers, including Intuit's.)
Even though the Internet is all about change, users of both Mint.com and Intuit's free MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Sep 15, 2009 8:51 PM ET
When the Obama Administration announced the Making Home Affordable program in February, it estimated that the refinancing part of the program, known as HARP, could help as many as four million to five million homeowners with little or no equity (and even up to 5% underwater) refinance into less costly loans. So far it hasn't exactly played out to expectations. Through July just 60,000 or so homeowners have landed MORE
Carla Fried - Sep 14, 2009 11:30 AM ET
It's Friday -- time to catch up on some of the week's most interesting, and sometimes puzzling, news in the world of personal finance.
1. Thought you had health insurance? Hah! The Washington Post ran a great story Monday about how insurance companies have canceled the health insurance policies of thousands of people after those policyholders have filed for claims related to expensive medical problems. The cancellations, known in the trade MORE
George Mannes - Sep 11, 2009 4:15 PM ET
A personal finance course at Wellesley College in Massachusetts is one of America's 10 Hottest College Classes, proclaims The Daily Beast. An impressive feat, given that other courses on the list include a Yale lab that takes students on a trip to an Amazon rain forest and the University of Michigan's History of College Athletics, which brings in storied Big 10 football coaches to address the class.
One former student of MORE
Ismat Sarah Mangla - Sep 9, 2009 2:01 PM ET
Okay, so that headline packs all the shock value of "Sun Rises in the East." But given the widespread annoyance so many readers have with their credit card issuers (check out comments to blog posts here and here) I thought it might be, well, satisfying to know card wrath is a bit of a national epidemic.
J.D. Power reports that overall customer satisfaction with credit card issuers hit a three-year low, MORE
Carla Fried - Sep 9, 2009 9:54 AM ET
If you want evidence that our economy may be on the way to recovery, forget about car sales and new home starts and all that stuff -- and instead look at men's underpants. If they don't have holes in them, good times may be coming soon.
That's the premise of an interesting theory proffered -- at least half seriously -- in a recent article in the Washington Post by writer MORE
David Futrelle - Sep 8, 2009 8:00 AM ET
Money market funds have long been a refuge for investors seeking safety and liquidity. But ever since the market meltdown, money funds have been under siege. Last September Reserve Primary Fund, which had invested in suddenly worthless Lehman Brothers commercial paper, "broke the buck"—that is, allowed its net asset value to fall below a $1 per share. That led to panic, as frightened investors began pulling their savings out of MORE
Penelope Wang - Sep 4, 2009 12:04 PM ET
In the Science Fiction world of Isaac Asimov, robots are required to abide by three simple laws:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection MORE
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