Money, Honey.

I figured it would be a great idea to exchange tips, tricks of the trade and ideas to help getting through this crap economy a little easier.


Times are really hard right now for many Americans. The housing crisis, rampant unemployment and the price of gasoline is causing a lot of people to resort to doing a lot of strange things for some change.

For example:



With the rising price of gasoline spiraling out of control, what amount would be your breaking point?


Good News! The government is continuing to tease you about your cash advance!

[click to enlarge]




Just A Reminder...Payday Cash Advances Are the Devil



When I was in high school, it was required for tenth graders to take a free enterprise course centering around money, finance...just all-around capitalism. The course covered business propaganda techniques, comparison shopping, the evilness of variable/adjustable rate anything and at all costs, to stay away from the cesspool that is payday loans.


Desperate for cash, many in U.S. taking high-interest 'payday' loans

As hundreds of thousands of American homeowners fall behind on their mortgage payments, more people are turning to short-term loans with extreme interest rates, just to get by.

A payday loan is typically for a few hundred dollars, with a term of two weeks, and an interest rate as high as 800 percent. The average borrower ends up paying back $793 for a $325 loan, according to the center.

It takes the average borrower two years to get out of a payday loan [...].

Janet Hudson, 40, ran into payday loans when she and her fiancé broke up, leaving her and her young son with a monthly mortgage payment of $1,000. Short of cash, she took out three small payday loans online totaling $900 but fell behind with her payments. Soon her monthly interest and fees totaled $800.

"It almost equaled my mortgage and I wasn't even touching the principal of the loans," said Hudson, who worked as an administrative assistant.

After falling behind on her mortgage, Hudson asked the nonprofit Empire Justice Center in Rochester, New York, for help. Rebecca Case-Grammatico, a lawyer at Empire, advised her to stop paying off the payday loans because the loans were unsecured debt.

"For months after that, the payday lenders left me voice mails threatening to have me thrown in jail, take everything I owned and destroy my credit rating," Hudson said. After several months, the payday lenders offered to reach a settlement.

But Hudson was already so far behind on her mortgage that she had to sell her home April 2007 to avoid foreclosure.

"For months after that, the payday lenders left me voice mails threatening to have me thrown in jail, take everything I owned and destroy my credit rating," Hudson said. After several months, the payday lenders offered to reach a settlement.

[Reuters]


Related: How much do check cashing fees really cost?

Tip: If it is difficult to obtain a bank account by traditional (brick and mortar building) means, try an online bank. Banks that strictly do business in an online environment are more inclined to establish bank accounts for people with past negative banking issues because many do not use bad check reporting agencies. [Yahoo! Finance]

And you don't have to necessarily be online in order to bank with those institutions, so by all means, leave the corner store and the Currency Exchanges alone!

Listing of non-check reporting bureau inquiring banks here...

Also, these banks are another great option.

State Farm Bank
Allstate Bank


What money tips (either keeping it or carefully giving it away) can you share?