Last week I asked for opinions on the best 529 plans. In short, we’re looking for a plan, and we’re not enamored with our in-state option. As it turns out, I was mistaken when I said that we exceed the income limits for deducting contributions from our state taxes. Upon further investigation, it seems that [...]

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Guess what? Social networking sites increase your risk of identity theft, or so says Neil Munroe of Equifax. According to Munroe:
“The problem is that people don’t realize the significance of the kind of information they are putting out on the Web and who may be accessing it. More and more consumers are signing up [...]

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I’m a bit behind here, but June was another great month at FiveCentNickel, thanks in large part to contributions from readers such as yourself, as well as those of the guest bloggers that wrote articles in my stead. I just wanted to take a moment to thank those of you who stop by and comment. [...]

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Here are some of my favorite FiveCentNickel (subscribe) posts from a year ago this week:
» Earn Interest on Your PayPal Balance
» Reducing Our Electrical Usage, Update #2
» Emigrant Direct’s Online Incompetence
» $100 for a Last Will and Trust?
» Refrigerators, Usable Space, and the Art of Overstatement
And here’s what was going on two years ago:
» Yes, [...]

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This weekend we’re heading back to our old stomping grounds to visit the friends and former neighbors that we left behind when we moved last year. It’ll be strange to spend a weekend in our old neighborhood, and even more strange to see other people living in our old house. While we’re doing that, you [...]

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Just a quick note to let you know that we received our $5 promo code for pre-ordering Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Details on how to use the code can be found here.
Here’s the message:
Dear Amazon.com Customer
Because you pre-ordered an eligible edition of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” here is your $5 promotional [...]

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Check this out… J.K. Rowling owns 8 of the top 14 spots in this week’s best-seller list with her seven Harry Potter titles, including Deathly Hallows and the $65 Deathly Hallows “deluxe” edition in slots #1 and #3, respectivey. Here’s how it breaks down:
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood [...]

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General Motors recently announced that they expect a 40% mileage boost for city driving for the hybrid versions of their big SUVs. Sounds great, but guess what? This would bring their city mpg estimates of the Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon up to just 19 or 20 miles per gallon (these same vehicles will get [...]

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We’re in the market for the “best” 529 plan available. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m partial to Vanguard, and primarily looking at fees and investment options — I prefer making my own investment decisions on something like this as opposed to going with an age-based option. I’m also interested in identifying plans with [...]

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A week ago, I dug into our Quicken archives and charted the growth of our net worth over the past ten years. It was a pretty enlightening exercise, and it was made possible by that fact that I’ve meticulously tracked our finances in Quicken since the beginning of 1997. Doing this got me to wondering [...]

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