Money Tips Network

Whether you’re looking for auto, home, or life insurance, you certainly don’t want to overpay. Unfortunately, policy prices are based on highly personal factors; what might be the cheapest insurance company for your friend or neighbor could be the most expensive for you. And you might find an awesome deal with a certain provider now, only to find your rates zoom up in a couple of years when you move, get a fancy new car, or face other changing circumstances.

Of course, you can still find cheap insurance quotes by shopping around. The easiest way to do that is by using an online quote tool for auto, home, or life insurance:

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup!

No computer is invincible, so learn to protect yourself from identity theft and cyber fraud. Photo: Remko van Dokkum

Imagine if complete strangers could look inside your head and see your every thought and know everything about you. Imagine if they could use that information any way they wanted to. What sort of damage could they do to your life?

Strangers can’t get into your head to root around for information to exploit, but they can get pretty close by gaining access to your personal information. The same “strangers’ we’re taught to fear as children have been hacking their way into personal computers for as long as there have been computers.

Have you ever heard the term "conscious spending"? The idea revolves around being mindful with your dollars.

For the dual purpose of becoming a better investor and giving my readers ideas on how to invest, I have been participating in an investment competition entitled the Grow Your Dough Throwdown.

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Contact from the IRS
2. Buy it for life: pocketknife
3. Merging accounts long after marriage
4. Amazon gift cards
5. Splitting up land
6. “Experience” gifts
7. Home security
8. Perfect gift that’s too expensive
9. Wood fireplace

The ‘Coolest Cooler’ raised a record $13 million on crowdfunding site Kickstarter.

Ryan is trying to raise money for his startup.

His idea is to build a luxury cooler (yes, the kind you store lunch and drinks in) for the beach or a camping trip, equipped with all the bells and whistles. In short, he wants to build a party on wheels — the world’s coolest cooler.

This cooler would include Bluetooth speakers, which happen to be waterproof in case one of your freshly blended margaritas, made from the rechargeable blender (also included), overflows with too much awesomeness. This cooler would also have built-in storage for plates and utensils, a USB port to keep your cell phone powered all day, sturdy wheels, and every other feature you could ever want in a cooler.

This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle.

Because I couldn’t meet my self-imposed cash budget of $500 in the month of October, I had to use other sources to meet our overage. But despite having lived under tight financial circumstances throughout some periods my life, I have always had enough to get by and things haven’t been (well, usually they haven’t been) too stressful for me. But I wanted to talk to people who had difficulty finding ways to pay when they went over their budget, so I reached out to my friends to get their perspectives and see what I could learn from them.

Vanessa Richardson

Sky-high interest rates. Ridiculous fees. Piddling rewards and modest perks. That’s what makes these credit cards stand out to me. Let’s spend a few minutes looking at some of the most disappointing deals currently being foisted on unsuspecting consumers and consider what a more reasonable card might offer. Least Bang for Your Buck: Visa Black [...]

6 costly credit cards to avoid from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This blog was posted by Vanessa Richardson