Archive for the ‘Video’ Category

Mint.com is far and away the leading personal finance sync site, offering the ability to get a consoidated view of all your banking, credit and investment accounts in one password-protected view.

Not convinced that you should join Mint?  Check out this review by Slate.com’s resident tech guru Farhad Majoo.

Engaging in “retail therapy”, i.e. shopping to fill some void in life is a common characteristic of people who find themselves burdened by crippling debt.  Compulsive, life-wrecking shopping can be as tough to get over as any addiction.  Author Avis Cardella’s personal vice was also shopping and she wrote a book about it, called Spent: Memoirs of a Shopping Addict.

The clinical term is oniomania, otherwise known as shopping addiction.

In the following video from WalletPop, Cardella describes her problems with compulsive shopping and how she used shopping as an escape from grief after her mother passed away.  It’s a fascinating segment, especially as she goes into the neural science of oniomania and touches on how credit cards are like crack for compulsive shoppers.

Take a listen, and let us know what you think in the comments.

There are lots of good reasons to cut up your credit cards, whether it’s to force yourself not to charge anymore or to celebrate getting to that elusive zero balance.

However, it’s important to dispose of cards properly, so you don’t wind up in worse shape than you started after a crook steals the number or digital information on the magnetic stripe.

The following video shows you exactly how to dispose of a credit card so as not to become the victim of identity theft. A shredder may be easier, and all of the steps in the video may be overkill, but I still like seeing credit cards sliced and diced.