Cell Phones and Credit: Another Reason Your Score Matters

You may know that a good credit score can help you get a new credit card, a car loan, or a mortgage at a low interest rate, but did you know that it’s also necessary for that essential modern-day accessory - the cell phone?

Good credit = cheaper wireless

Like mortgage lenders and credit card companies, cell phone providers check your credit before extending you those crucial minutes of monthly airtime. If you have poor credit, they may charge you additional monthly fees, an upfront security deposit, or just deny you service altogether. AT&T, for instance, charges iPhone users with bad credit up to $800 as a security deposit!

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Top 10 Most (& Least) Prestigious Jobs in America: How Much They Earn and How to Land Them

“When I grow up, I want to be a principal or a caterpillar.”

- Ralph Wiggum

Though most people probably don’t grow up wanting to be a farmer, a minister, or a caterpillar - farmers and ministers are considered by many to have some of the most prestigious occupations in America.  On the other hand, while occupations such as being an actor or an entertainer may seem glamorous, these are not occupations that are held in as high regard by the American public. Below, you will find a list of the ten most (and least) prestigious jobs in America, how much they earn, and how you can land them.

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15 Wallet Fattening Gas Tips for the Summer

As summer continues to chug along, your plans for road trips may be slightly hampered by the usual rise of gasoline prices during the summer.  Here’s a quick list of 15 ways you can keep fuel economy optimal during a season of weekend getaways and road trips.

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10 Lessons to Wealth from Warren Buffet

This is a guest post from J. Money, the blogger behind Budgets Are Sexy. If you like his post, please visit the blog above and check out his other work!

As we all have come to know, Warren Buffett is a rock star. He can out-invest you, out-donate you, and even out-school you any day of the week. But *why* is that?

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7 Popular Cities to Watch for Credit Card Skimming Scams

This is a guest post from Mark Brown, a personal finance blogger who writes The Credit Letter for CreditCardCompare.com.au.

It’s everyone’s worst nightmare. You come back from a wonderful holiday and get your first credit card bill. Lo and behold there are charges worth hundreds or thousands of pounds that you never made on your statement. What’s gone wrong? Chances are you’ve fallen victim to a particular type of fraud called credit card skimming.

What is credit card skimming? It’s a growing form of credit card fraud, and it goes like this. You use your credit card to make a purchase in a shop or pay for a restaurant meal, your card disappears out of sight for a moment, where it is passed through a small portable reader which copies the data off the magnetic strip on your card. One swipe is all it takes for your account number, name and other relevant details to be copied. Either this data is used to make online purchases or the thieves create a clone of your card which can then be used like any normal credit card.

The other common way that cards are skimmed is with a small dummy facing installed over an ATM machine slot (which is usually indistinguishable from the real thing) which reads your card details as you insert your card. Often this is used in conjunction with a tiny hidden camera to capture your PIN. Scary, huh?

Popular tourist destinations have attracted these fraudsters in droves, but the following 7 cities have proved to be hotbeds of credit card skimming activity.

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Five Ways to Master Your Credit Card Debt After College

No one can argue that current economic times are tough.  But recent survey result shows that times can be tougher for fresh college graduates. According to a recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, just about 20 percent of 2009 graduates who applied for a job actually have one; accompany this with the report from Sallie Mae that an average student is graduating with over $3,000 in credit card debt — and you’ll have the perfect recipe for financial disaster.

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The Pros and Cons of Unemployment in a Recession

The current recession has been called the worst since the Great Depression. As a nation, the U.S. had a national unemployment rate of 8.9% by April 2009. This figure constitutes 13.7 Million of workers (labor force of 154.7M), and is up from 8.5% just a month earlier. Of course, this is a sign that things have yet hit an all time low.

Because this issue has affected so many people, the implications of unemployment have  constituted a regular discussion, in media and on the individual level. And while it’s better to remain employed in most cases, there are often marked benefits from not working. Let’s take a look at some of the most important pros and cons of being unemployed in this economy:

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Four Techniques for Cutting Your Grocery Bill

This is a guest post from Carrie Kirby, a blogger from Wise Bread and Shoplifting With Permission. If you like her post, please visit the blogs above and check out her other work!

When I write about spending $80 a week to feed my family of four in the Chicago area, I get two stock reactions: Members of the general public can’t believe how low that is and ask “What do you EAT?” Members of the frugal blog community shrug and say, “That’s not so low.”

Now that we have been on the $80 weekly budget for about a year, I agree with the second group. The better I get at bargain shopping, and the more my stockpile grows, the easier it is to stay below that threshold each week without even sacrificing treats like the occasional case of beer for my husband or ice cream for the kids (ok, for all of us). Instead of lowering my weekly target, lately I’ve been adding more and more organic produce and hormone-free, antibiotic-free meats.

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