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Free Family Entertainment: Watch the Sky Tonight

We're hitting the roof tonight for an evening of free family fun. There's going to be a meteor shower, and it won't cost a thing to share the skylights with the kids. But how can you get the most fun and education from the evening? For answers and insights, I turned to David Dickinson from Astroguyz: http://www.astroguyz.com/

"Stargazing," says Astroguyz, "is a completely free hobby. When I was a kid, we would all lay out on the lawn and watch the Perseid."

The Perseid Meteor Shower: a Q & A with Astroguyz.

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Cheated By a Ferret: One Child's Lesson

My daughter feels cheated by a six-inch stuffed ferret, which recently took a $4 bite from her allowance. But I believe the furry ferret provided a long-term investment in my daughter's financial education.

The back story: While shopping at a national chain store, my 11-year-old daughter stopped to watch an in-store infomercial, which featured an endless loop of a toy ferret executing tricks. On the screen, the toy looked so cute. "It had this invisible string," my daughter explained.
"The commercial showed it doing all these cool tricks and stuff," she said, adding that the ferret was tied to the transparent string that seemed invisible from a distance.

The reality: "The string broke the first time I tried using it," she said. "The ferret worked much better in the commercial."

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State-by-State Guide to Tax Holidays - A Guest Post From Kiplinger's

"Sixteen states and the District of Columbia will let you skip sales taxes on school supplies, computers, clothes and other merchandise on specific dates in August. Perhaps you’ll have to cross state lines to save an extra 5% to 10% -- but the journey is worth it.

Kiplinger.com and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine have put together a list of sales tax holidays, which begin in August. Here is the state-by-state guide, which includes tax holidays during other parts of the year.

Alabama
* When: August 7-9
* How much: 4%
* On what: Clothing less than $100, computers less than $750, school supplies less than $50 and books less than $30

Connecticut
* When: August 16-22
* How much: 6%

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