On Friday, 10/21/2011, Bay Area-based P2P company Prosper will be running a one-day promotion offering to make borrowers’ 2nd payment, up to $250.* If you apply for a new loan before midnight on Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, Prosper will make your second payment for you. To be eligible for the offer, you cannot have posted [...]
No, I’m not talkin’ about a revolution here. Or occupying Wall Street. This is personal. This October, around the country, Kiplinger is hosting Financial Planning Days where certified planners are giving FREE, no-strings-attached guidance–with no pushy sales tactics. Watch the Financial Planning Days video: Each local Financial Planning Day features experts from the Financial Planning [...]
I awoke Saturday morning with a cold. Lying in bed, I thumbed/clicked my way through Facebook on my iPhone looking for thrills–and found my morning’s entertainment: Five Financial Lessons You’ll Learn from the Zombie-Apocalypse. Maybe the thrills and chills weren’t unlimited, but it worked for me. Some of the gems from DebtKid’s (via Jessica Ward) [...]
Wait – Parents Aren’t ATMs? But they ARE the Bank. Here’s one easy, fun way to avoid the dreaded “allowance” and “responsibility” talks you should be having with your kids. ThreeJars.com automatically “pays” and tracks allowance in your child’s three jars: one for spending, one for saving, and one for sharing. Kids set their own [...]
More of us are online entering personal and sensitive data than ever before, increasing the risk for malicious malware and infections. It used to be all you had to do was check to make sure a site was secure (“https” not “http”), but no more. Scammers know that we are often too quick on the [...]
These innovative, do-good and just plain cool online companies led the way in 2010 — and will keep moving forward into 2011 and beyond. Some are new and others are “seasoned” players, but all made news in 2010. 1 – Groupon Turning down a 6 bil buyout takes guts, and clearly Groupon has that, and [...]
Imagine free-flowing drinks and suits-to-jeans types, all talking money and tech, with dark walls hung with contemporary art, complete with a bouncer. An after-work bar? Sort of. Actually, it was SF Beta Financial Innovation, at 111 Minna, a gallery on a sidestreet off 2nd St in upper SOMA, offering glimpses into some new, not-yet-seen and [...]
Under the new tax law taking effect January 1, financial institutions must report to the Internal Revenue Service not only gross proceeds, but also the adjusted cost basis for covered securities sold and whether the related gain or loss is long-term or short-term on your Form 1099-B. The new law could impact your taxes, so [...]
According to the Tower Group, $5 billion of gift cards went unused in 2009. I spoke with Wildcard Network founder, Raj Basavaraju, about this and other problems with gift cards (see Gift Cards: Buyer (and Receiver) Beware). I know firsthand the mess that gift cards often create: our teenagers routinely lose their gift cards within [...]
