According to one estimate, 60% of all Valentine’s spending occurs in the five days leading up to and including the holiday. That means we’re in the prime Valentine’s spending period right now. Here are some more factoids related to February 14—a big day for Cupid, and for quite a few businesses.
Little-known HUD program allows couples, graduates and expectant parents to amass cash gifts from friends and family into a down payment on an FHA mortgage.
Joining in the royal wedding frenzy, and arguably slightly more tasteful than souvenirs like Crown Jewels condoms, here’s this week’s roundup of consumer and personal finance tips—including some money-saving advice to take away from William and Kate’s nuptials.
This week’s roundup also features tips from a couple who manage to throw a wedding for mere $2,500.
Also: the best-ever personal finance books, and tips for saving on everything from weddings to the latest gadgets.
“We have these tapes in our heads about how the wedding itself should be conducted, and what you should ask for. It’s very common for people to think, when I’m married I will be like my mother or grandmother or like the fantasies I had when I was 10.”
Also, this week’s roundup includes tips to save on baby products, weddings, e-books, groceries, and everyday household expenses, along with Jedi mind tricks played by retailers (store clerk to you: “These are the shoes you’re looking for”), and signs indicating that frugality has turned to the dark side, transforming honorable thrift into hoarding as disturbing [...]
When it comes to major life events—specifically having a baby and getting married (not necessarily in that order)—marketers know how to weasel, prod, and guilt consumers into spending money in all sorts of nonsensical, wholly unnecessary ways. The message sent not only by marketers, but also by colleagues, cranky mother-in-laws, and friends who apparently don’t [...]
Corporate sponsorship for weddings, fake (but effective) medications, savvy business advice from prostitutes, and more.
Some trendy new ways to save look a lot like the old way folks used to do things.
