Yesterday, Miranda wrote a post that talked about how marketers are using zip codes to reach new customers. It made me think about the research we’ve done when looking at real estate investments (we dabble a little here and there). One interesting tool I wanted to share with you is ZipSkinny. You give it a zip code and it gives you a ton of demographic data including race, age, gender, but it also includes social and economic indicators. It’s all taken from the 2000 Census, so it’s a little dated but still works quite well I think.

This is probably a light version of what marketers use but probably not that different. 49.3% are in the same home for 5+ years. 28.9% never married, 55% are married, and 9.3% are divorced. You have household income breakdown, occupation (in some broad categories), and even unemployment and poverty. It’s amazing what is available on census alone.

I had two questions – have you ever researched data like this and does it bother you that marketers are using it?

(Credit: Eric Fischer)

Every few months, I receive coupons for baby formula in my mailbox — despite the fact that my only child is now 10 years old. I also receive the random copy of America Baby. And, until recently, I had no idea why Family Circle started showing up at my house monthly.

Now, though, after reading stories on CNN Money and NBC News, I suspect that these are attempts at marketing based on my ZIP code.

You probably already know that information in your credit report is used to market items to you. Credit card issuers, personal lenders, and insurance companies all use information garnered from your credit report to send you marketing mail. But your ZIP code can also provide information to marketers that use “big data” to get information about you and your habits.

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Statistics are tricky whenever people try to guess their underlying cause but it doesn’t make it less fun. A recent Gallup poll results showed stock market investment by U.S. adults is at its lowest percentage since Gallup has started asking (1998). It’s been on a steady decline since 2007 (65%) and this year it stands at 52%.

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One of the most frustrating things in life is being unemployed. This is especially true if you want to work, but you are unable to find a job. Even though the unemployment rate is falling, many people still find it difficult to land a job.

Many states administer unemployment benefits to help support those who can’t find work. If you don’t have a job, it might be worth it to see if you qualify for unemployment benefits.

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We haven’t covered it much on Bargaineering (you might have guessed given the increased interest in credit scores), but we’re buying a new home. We submitted an offer a little while ago and after a little back and forth, it was accepted. We’re buying a house about ten minutes south of where we live now and while we aren’t excited about packing up and moving, we are really excited about the home itself.

Bargaineering was around when we bought our first house and we chronicled the entire process. A lot of it is mundane, downright boring if you’ve already done this yourself, but at the time it was all new to us. Getting pre-approval, while much easier then, hasn’t changed much except for how much paperwork you need to submit. Back then you typed a few numbers on a form and you were in! That’s why I didn’t write much about the process this time around – it wasn’t that much different and it wasn’t a completely new experience for us.

That said, in the last eight years, some things have changed…

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One of the great things about technology is that you have the opportunity to make money in new and different ways. You can even find work at home jobs that pay reasonably well. At the very least, you can start a home business as a freelancer, or doing some other type of work.

Since the dream of working from home is so strong, you need to watch out for scams. Whenever something seems very attractive to a wide swath of the population, there are scammers out there trying to take advantage. If you’re not careful, you might find that the dream job advertised online at places like Craig’s List is actually scam. Here are 5 signs your dream job is probably a scam:

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I was watching CNN’s list of the big-name college commencement speakers and saw that there were a few names on that list I’d love to see. Bill Cosby is delivering the commencement speech at the University of Baltimore on May 21st. President Obama is speaking at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis on May 24th. And Cal Ripken Jr. is speaking to the graduates of the University of Maryland on May 19th. All within fifteen minute driving distance, these all hold great promise. While they may not not be as powerful as Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2008 or The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch from my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon, they all have the promise of being entertaining.

There’s just one problem… I’m not graduating from any of those schools. So how do I get in?

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There is a battle raging right now about the usefulness of a graduate degree, or even of any college degree at all. Joining the fray right now is the online degree space.

A number of colleges and universities offer online degree programs, and there are online schools completely in the Internet education space. My husband teaches online classes for Utah State University, and one of them is a graduate-level course mostly aimed at teachers working on their master’s degrees.

While my husband’s students find it useful to continue their educations online, since the master’s degree will come with a pay increase, not everyone is in the same boat.

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