Tell a few personal finance bloggers that you keep cash in your house and you will invariably be asked why. Why keep cash in your account when you can put it into a high yield savings account and earn a percent of interest? What if there is a fire? What if you get robbed? Why not put it in the warm embrace of FDIC insurance at th ebank?

I don’t keep much, usually only one or two hundred dollars, and the reason I do so is so I can get cash easily if I need it, whatever the reason. I don’t keep a lot, I don’t see the point given credit cards, but I do want to keep a little for those times when cash is king and credit can’t be accessed. I’m talking about those rare cases, like a black out or a big snowstorm (like the major snowstorm a few years ago in the Baltimore Washington metropolitan area), where you need some cash but just can’t get to a bank.

To be perfectly honest, the number one reason I do this is because I’m lazy. I don’t really think that there will be a calamity where I won’t be able to get to an ATM or use a credit card, but sometimes I’m going out somewhere and I need cash but don’t want to make a trip to the ATM. It’s nice to have a few bills at home so that I can tap that reserve instead of make that trip. That’s why I keep some money stored away at home, instead of earning a few pennies at the bank.

One final bit of warning, cash is usually not completely insured by your homeowners or renter’s insurance. So if you are robbed and they take cash, or there is a fire and the money burns, you may be limited in how much cash is covered – that amount will be listed in your policy. I don’t recommend keeping thousands of dollars at home, but a few hundred will probably be covered by your policy.

Do you keep cash at home? If so, why?

(Photo: amagill)

Even reality TV doesn’t give justice to the real world and the funny, eye popping, or jaw dropping events that happen every day that very few people hear about. If your job involves working with the general public in any capacity you probably have stories that all of us would love to hear but since it’s tax season, I scoured the internet to find what I thought were some of the most “unique” (how’s that for politically correct) tax stories worth telling.

And before you start laughing, remember that given what our tax rates our, it’s no surprise people are trying to reduce their liability – but claiming one of these ridiculous tax writeoffs is the wrong way to go about that!

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It seems like, regularly, we hear stories about how some database was hacked and personal information was stolen. In such a world, it becomes increasingly important to protect your online accounts.

Whether you are trying to protect an individual account from being compromised, or whether you are trying to limit the damage due to a breach at some other company, there are some things you can do to protect your online accounts as much as you are able.

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Form 8888 is titled the Allocation of Refund (Including Savings Bond Purchases) and is the from you use to indicate how you want your refund paid out to you. The form itself is very straightforward, there is a section for direct deposit, one for US Series I Savings Bonds, and one for the paper check. The purpose of the form is for you to tell the IRS how you’d like your tax overpayment.

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Technology is getting the upper hand on car thieves. Thanks to GPS and sophisticated anti theft systems, car thefts have been on the decline for most of the 21^st century but they still happen and if you’re one of the 1.1 million people who become a victim of auto theft, you’ll need to know what to do next.

Your role in the recovery effort will be to deal primarily with your auto insurance company. How you handle each step of the process determines how much of a financial impact you’ll take from the theft. Here’s what you need to do to gain the best result.

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This is a guest post by Jon Xu, who is co-founder at FutureAdvisor, a web service that provides unbiased analysis & recommendations to save money on your investment portfolio. Jon is a friend of mine from high school and as someone who has taken a look at FutureAdvisor, I’m excited to see what they have in store for the future. I don’t spend a lot of time on investing but anything that’ll help me reduce fees and optimize my investing is always something I’m interested in reading more about.

We’ve all seen the intuitive value of having a well-diversified portfolio. This is proven to lower risk and allow you to customize exposure to asset classes that match your investment time horizon. Much less glorified is the value of periodically rebalancing assets in a portfolio. This is equally crucial to maintaining a portfolio that matches your risk profile over time. Moreover, it ensures a much smoother ride that matches the risk level of your initial investment.

The concept is simple: as asset values fluctuate, your portfolio diversification changes and you need to divest/invest periodically to keep your diversification on target. Since the mechanics of rebalancing typically call for sell/buys within your portfolio it leads to buying assets that are on the way down and selling those on the way up.

In short: you are buying low and selling high.
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A few years ago, it became really popular to start writing about adjusting your withholding so you didn’t get an enormous refund after you filed your tax return. It’s good advice and the main argument against over-withholding was that you were giving the IRS, technically the Treasury Department, an interest free loan. One thing I didn’t know was that in the event that the IRS underpays you, as a result of their error, they will actually pay interest you interest based on the same rates as what they charge taxpayers for underpayment. This is all governed by Section 6621 of the Internal Revenue Code.

The cases of underpayment by the IRS are rare. The IRS has forty-five days to process a tax return and will pay interest on your refund if it takes longer than forty-five days to process your return. If you are due a refund and you don’t file a return, the IRS won’t pay interest whenever you do. If you file a return, make a mistake that results in a greater refund, you might be paid interest. In those cases, it usually has to be an error that the IRS could’ve caught, like reporting of an expense that you failed to claim.

Finally, if you get examined or audited and the results show that you were owed a refund, they will pay interest on that as well.

Who doesn’t like wings? Even without any sauce what soever, they’re the perfect combination of crispy skin and delicious dark meat chicken that make it the perfect snack food – especially on Super Bowl Sunday.

When it comes to wings, I prefer them to be unbreaded. This is partly because I don’t have a deep fryer and partly because I don’t like the greasiness of deep fried wings. When making wings at home, I find that the best way to make them is to season them and then throw them on the grill. Charcoal grill if you have them, for that awesome smokey flavor, and a propane grill if you want to be fast. If you have any wood chips, you can always put them on the grill to infuse a little bit of that smoky flavor. After grilling them, I brush or toss with sauce and then broil in the over to get that extra crispy texture when the sugars in the sauce caramelize.

Is your mouth watering yet? If not, here we go!
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Yes, it’s true but before this ends up sounding like a bad informercial, let’s be clear. You’re not going to make a living taking surveys but if you’re looking for extra spending money, an income source for your emergency fund, or a way to pay for a piece of your family vacation, this may be worth a look.

If you didn’t know that marketers would pay for your opinion, here’s how it works. Marketing has never been a very efficient business. For every 100 pieces of direct mail sent, an average of 3 will get a response and how many advertisements do you see on TV that don’t fit your lifestyle? Companies pay a lot of money in wasted advertising just to find the few that will turn in to revenue but as marketing evolves, the old way of doing things is changing.

Manufacturers would rather pay you a small fee for your opinions before making a full investment in to a product. By picking out a group of people from their database that would be likely to use the product, they can get targeted feedback with minimal expense. They would rather pay you a small amount of money than invest millions in to product development and advertising campaigns.

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For many parents, the idea of teaching their children about credit cards seems absurd. The thinking is that mentioning credit cards encourages irresponsible financial behavior. As a result, some parents avoid the subject of credit cards altogether.

It is important to realize, though, that just ignoring credit cards won’t guarantee that your child won’t use them — and use them irresponsibly — in the future. Your best option is to teach your children about credit cards, and how they can be used appropriately.

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