Personal Finance

Microsoft's next video game console, the Xbox One, features a built-in camera and microphone that are raising privacy concerns. But technology companies may soon build them into devices with far wider use: cable boxes.Verizon is one of several toying with the idea, The Boston Globe says:Cable and technology companies such as Verizon are trying to develop monitoring systems that would be built into cable TV subscribers’ set-top boxes or digital video recorders and use cameras and microphones to keep tabs on the movements and comments of viewers — even to the point of detecting their moods.Read 4 remaining paragraphs on MoneyTalksNews.com.

Flickr | http://www.flickr.com/photos/18090920@N07/5983965900/ Single mom Natalie Gunshannon from Pennsylvania is suing McDonald’s for paying her wages through the JPMorgan Chase Payroll Card, which charges various fees for use, ultimately resulting in Gunshannon earning less than minimum wage. ABC News reports that Gunshannon is “hoping to have her case certified as a class action on behalf of the other employees who were paid with the Payroll card.” The Chase Payroll Card currently charges a $10 inactivity fee after 90 days, a $1.50 ATM fee, and also a $0.75 per online transaction. According to the lawsuit, McDonald’s “does not provide a choice for hourly employees to receive their justly earned wages through a bank check, cash or direct deposit.” Gunshannon had allegedly asked to get her wages in the form of direct deposit, but was denied, which forced her to use the Chase Payroll Card. In addition, “A growing number of employers use payroll cards to pay some of their employers, but it violates both state and federal law to pay by payroll card alone, according to Lauren Saunders, managing attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.” A payroll card essentially functions like a debit card, but they are only offered by employers who are paying workers for their services. You cannot apply to get a payroll card, and the sole purpose of the card is for employees to deposit a worker’s wages. Employees can withdraw their money through ATMs or a cash-back purchase. However, there are fees associated with the cards, which is why Gunshannon is suing McDonald’s in the first place, because the accumulation of usage fees would bring her $7.44 hourly wage down below the Pennsylvania minimum wage of $7.25. According to an attorney for Consumers Union who was interviewed, “some employers are motivated to pay wages with these payroll cards to cut the cost of distributing paper checks.” Do you think that Gunshannon is fair to sue McDonald’s? Have you ever been paid with a payroll card? Let us know in the comments below. The Top 5 Prepaid Cards: Spring 2013 Related Stories: Comparing Bank Overdraft Fees Justin Bieber’s Prepaid Card Won’t Teach Kids About Money 10 Common Jobs with Low Pay Worker Sues McDonald’s For Being Paid Via Fee-Packed Debit Card

Pharmaceutical companies pay generic drug makers millions of dollars a year to keep their cheaper products off of the market. It's a relatively cheap way to keep prices high and maintain profits, as we've written before. The practice has been called "pay to delay."Now, because of a new U.S. Supreme Court decision, the practice could cost drug makers in ways they hadn't expected. The justices ruled 5-3 that brand-name drug companies can be sued under antitrust laws if they make such agreements, the Los Angeles Times says.The ruling will likely lead to lower prices, the newspaper says; the Federal Trade Commission has said these back-room deals cost consumers and health plans $3.5 billion a year.Read 3 remaining paragraphs on MoneyTalksNews.com.

Q: I recently tried to make an online purchase with my TD Bank debit card but it was rejected, twice. It is not a new card and there is a balance in the account. Why is my card getting declined when shopping on the Internet?- Patrick W. A: There are several possible reasons that your debit card was denied. One reason is that you’ve already hit the daily spending limit on your debit card. Banks place daily spending limits on debit cards to minimize the financial harm that can be done to your finances if your debit card is lost or stolen. On signature transactions (the type that often takes place with online purchases), TD Bank places a $5,000 daily spending limit on a regular Visa debit card or $10,000 on a Visa Platinum debit card. TD Bank customers are allowed to increase their daily spending limits by submitting a request over the phone or by secure messaging through online banking. However, unless you’ve spent that much already during the day, this probably isn’t the reason that your debit card was declined. On the other hand, it is quite common to have any card purchase rejected when the card issuer suspects an unauthorized purchase. It is a simple security measure that kicks in automatically when a purchase is unusually large or takes place at a location that is far from your place of residence. A quick call to the card issuer will lift the security block temporarily. In the most extreme scenario, your checking account was frozen without notice. There are various reasons for why the bank would do that. If your account had noticeable fraud or highly suspicious activity, the bank is likely to take such a drastic action. Again, you’d have to contact your bank if this is the case. 4 Reasons Why Your Credit Card Company Thinks Your Card Is Stolen Related Stories: Simon Says: Your Bank Account Was Labeled ‘Abandoned’ Losing Free Checking? Online Banks Offer Alternatives When the ATM Ate My Debit Card In Hong Kong Simon Says: Debit Card Purchases Can Be Denied For Many Reasons

Some people might call it frugal. I like to call it cheap. But I'm not afraid to be cheap. I hate paying something when I know that I can get it cheaper somewhere else and the last thing that I want to pay more for is life insurance. Hey, this is Jeff Rose from WiseBread.com. I want to talk to you today about getting affordable life insurance. By now you've realized the importance of buying life insurance to make sure that your family is taken care of. Cause most people don't realize that they can save tons of money on life insurance as long as they go the right direction. Even myself thought I was paying the cheapest amount and by going online I did a quick test to realize I could save over four hundred dollars a year on life insurance. So how do you make sure that you're not paying too much? Here's a couple rules of thumb to follow. Number one, make sure you're utilizing a legitimate, independent life insurance agency. So what do I mean by legitimate? Well, I come across a lot of independent agents that call themselves independent but really they can only offer one or two difference carriers. Now when I talk about a legitimate, independent agent I want an agent that can work with over thirty, forty, fifty, sixty different carriers. That way if something comes up that we need to go through a different life insurance carrier, whether it's a health condition, it could be your driving record, it could be your previous family history, all these factors will determine how much your life insurance costs but many consumers don't realize that you can go to another carrier and potentially save money. But if your independent agent is not legitimate and they can only work with one or two different carriers then you won't get that savings that you deserve. So that's what I mean by working with a legitimate, independent agent. We happen to use the croat engine here on Weissberg.com, we have over sixty different carriers that you can get a fast quote within less than one minute and in addition to those companies we work with thirty non-medical carriers that will also give you affordable life insurance. The second way that you can save on your life insurance premiums is to take care of yourself. If you have any bad habits such as smoking, chewing tobacco, maybe you drive a little bit too fast and have more speeding tickets then you should. All these factors, believe it or not, will determine how much you pay for life insurance. If you're a tobacco user you can spend on paying two to three, sometimes four times, as much than a non- smoker would pay. I once had a young father who was looking to secure life insurance to take care of his wife and his young son but I didn't realize that he chewed tobacco. He made sure to let me know before we went through the life insurance process and sure enough because he chewed tobacco he had to spend three and a half times more than somebody that didn't chew tobacco half the time. So yes, if you want to save money on your life insurance kick the bad habits, take care of yourself and that way you get cheap life insurance. The third tip to getting affordable life insurance is to shop around. If you're using a legitimate, independent agent it's not quite necessary. Unless your independent agent isn't versed in high risk conditions. So for some reason you have diabetes, high cholesterol or sometimes a pre-existing condition that could cause you to be denied, you want a qualified, independent agent that knows what their doing, that knows the best carriers to approach. The independent agent that doesn't know what their doing is going to waste a lot of your time and even worse, cost you a lot of money. So if you're thinking to get affordable life insurance coverage follow these three tips. If you have any more questions this is Jeff Rose, your life insurance expert here at WiseBread.com. Take care. ShareThisWritten by Jeff Rose and published on Wise Bread. Read more articles from Wise Bread.Do I

Single mother Natalie Gunshannon took a job at a Pennsylvania McDonald's in April, hoping to support her daughter.She quit three weeks later, when her first paycheck came in the form of a prepaid debit card, Philly.com says.She asked about getting a check or direct deposit instead, but both her supervisor and the franchise holder told her the prepaid card was the only option, Philly.com says. She quit, got an attorney, and sued.Read 5 remaining paragraphs on MoneyTalksNews.com.

As we’ve discussed before, an average American family with two children – a seven year old and a ten year old – spends $1,252 a month on food according to the USDA’s liberal food plan. If that family adopted just a few frugal practices and were able to switch their food spending to the USDA’s low-cost plan, the family is now spending just $826.60 per month on food. That simple shift results in a savings of $425.40 on food each month. I certainly don’t have to tell most of you about the power of frugality, of course. Most of you know the mountains of savings a person can incur if they’re careful with their spending. The challenge is that many people believe that a focus on investing means that you don’t have to worry much about frugality. After all, in the eyes of quite a few people out there, you simply can’t earn huge returns with frugality. So, we’re going to stick just with this $425.40 per month that you can save just via food and not even deal with the money you can save on your energy bill, entertainment expenses, household supplies, automotive expenses, and other categories each month. This is just to show how important that $425.40 is per month. For calculation’s sake, let’s remind ourselves that $425.40 per month is worth $5,104.80 over the course of a year. Now, let’s say you actually have some money to invest. You took that money and did the obvious thing with it and stuck it into a very broad based index fund – the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index. Since 1992, this fund has returned 9.02% annually, which is a very nice return. That’s the easy route – anyone could do this. Now, let’s say hypothetically you could spend ten hours a week focusing on investing strategy and find a way to earn 10.02% annually. If you were actually able to consistently beat the total stock market index by 1% year in and year out, you would be a total financial genius and ought to be working on Wall Street, but I’m trying to give investments the benefit of the doubt. How much money would you have to have in investments to make those ten hours a week spent on investment management worth more than the ten hours a week spent on frugality? Your target additional earning here is $5,104.80 – except, it’s actually more than that. If you’re investing these sums of money, you’re almost assuredly in the 33% tax bracket, so the amount we’re actually looking at is $7,657. Remember, money saved via frugality isn’t money you have to pay income taxes on. So, how much money would you have to have invested in order to earn a $7,657 annual return by beating the Total Stock Market Index by 1% instead of just investing in it? The answer is $765,700. If you have three quarters of a million dollars in your investments and you have the ability to find a way to consistently beat the market by 1% a year, only then can you earn as much via investing as you can via simple frugality. Given that 72% of American households live paycheck to paycheck, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the vast majority of American households don’t have three quarters of a million dollars laying around to invest. I’m not saying that investment is a worthless thing to think about. What I’m saying is that for most American families in their current situation, a focus on frugality is going to earn them much greater returns than investments will, and that statement will hold true for many years. If a family is very responsible with the money they save from frugality and use it to pay off debts and invest instead of finding other methods to inflate their lifestyle, then they will reach a point where investments matter more. The truth is that it’s only a tiny minority of Americans have enough liquid wealth on hand to make their time spent managing investments worth more than their time spent being frugal once

American Express is offering a limited time bonus on its Serve prepaid card. Until September 30, 2013, you can earn a $50 bonus for signing up for the card (it’s free) and setting up direct deposit (also free). To receive the $50 credit from Serve, you must: successfully sign up for a new Serve Account, activate your Serve Card, successfully enroll in Direct Deposit that your employer participates in, and receive a minimum of two qualifying Direct Deposit transfers of $250 or more to your Serve Account, the second of which must post on or before August 31, 2013. For my money, Serve is one of the best prepaid debit cards available today. It’s completely free, offers excellent online tracking of your spending, and comes with many of the benefits you’d find on an American Express credit card. You can check out my detailed review of American Express® Serve or go directly to the American Express® Serve website for details and to sign up for the card. The post Limited Time Offer: $50 Bonus on American Express Serve Prepaid Card appeared first on The Dough Roller.

Even with rock-bottom interest rates and a glut of bargain-priced homes on the market, qualified buyers are still in short supply. This is primarily because it’s hard to get approved for a mortgage loan unless you have stellar credit and a hefty down payment. But even when buyers do qualify, they often feel skittish about [...]4 Ways You Can Get More Services From Your Real Estate Agent is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog.       

Lately, everyone seems to be talking about a million dollars. For example: “A million dollars isn’t what it used to be,” the New York Times reports. For now, let’s sidestep the debate about whether a million dollars is a lot of money or not and focus on a question we’ll all face at some point, if we’re lucky: how to live off a sum of money. To make the issues simpler to understand, forget retirement. Let’s say you inherit a million dollars from your rich uncle or sell your internet startup, and you want to live off the interest for the next 30 years, without putting the principal at risk. In other words, you don’t want to end up like the CNET founder who blew $200 million in five years and is now in bankruptcy. You already know how to avoid that fate: buy fewer houses and racehorses. But how far can the interest on a cool mill actually take you? Let’s look at what you might do with the money if preserving the principal is your main goal. (Note: This exercise was inspired by a blog post by my friend Glenn Fleishman, a man who thinks big; his post is about what to do with $5 million.) Buy a 30-year US treasury bond. Current rate: 3.33%. Great. You collect $33,300 a year. Yikes. That’s not even enough for one measly thoroughbred. Actually, it’s even worse than that. The $33,330 isn’t adjusted for inflation. Assuming 3% inflation, in 30 years that payout will be worth $13,590—and your $1 million principal will be worth about $412,000. So you want inflation protection. Okay, so buy a 30-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Security (TIPS). Now your interest rate is 1.06%. You get $10,600 per year, and both the interest payments and principal are adjusted for inflation. That’s fine, but who can live on $10,600? Buy a 5-year CD I hope interest rates are higher when it’s time to renew, because rates really stink right now. You can get a CD paying 2%. That’s $20,000/year, not adjusted for inflation. Yuck. Furthermore, this strategy leaves you completely at the mercy of interest rate fluctuations. As you know from living through the last ten years, interest rates are as volatile as a drunk uncle at a wedding. Short-term interest rates in 2007 were 100 times higher than they are now, and 5-year rates were over four times as high. If you’re living off income from your portfolio, what are you supposed to do, live like a rap star when interest rates are high and subsist on bread and water when they’re low? Okay, maybe you’d rather take some risk to squeeze more income from your portfolio by doing something like this… Buy dividend stocks. These have been very popular lately, so much so that you’re not going to find a lot of income in them. Vanguard’s Dividend Appreciation ETF(VIG) currently yields 2.11%. Not much better than a CD, and nothing about it is guaranteed: companies can suspend dividends, and the stocks can tumble like any other stocks. Buy high-yield bonds. SPDR’s junk bond ETF (JNK) yields 4.97%. That’s the best number we’ve heard all day. Naturally, higher return is accompanied by higher risk: junk bonds plummeted during the financial crisis. Something is wrong here, and it’s not just the fact that interest rates are appallingly low. It’s that trying to squeeze “income” from your portfolio is a mental mistake that leads to bad decisions. Total return Investors love income. We’re excited by high interest rates and big stock dividends, and we consider them different from the money we make when a stock or bond goes up in value. A $100 dividend or interest payment feels like money we can spend; a $100 increase in the value of our stock holdings doesn’t induce us to sell; it might encourage us to buy more. This mental distinction is usually a mistake, because what matters is how much money you have and how it’s invested, not whether the source of the money was dividends, capital appreciation, or a $25 check from Grandma. Investors who focus on wringing more income out of their portfolio often end up taking additional risk without realiz