Totally Money Blog Carnival

The President's Day edition of the Totally Money Blog Carnival is up at Fat Guy - Skinny Wallet.

This edition of the carnival is full of financial articles.

Carnival of Credit Score and Debt

The latest edition of the Carnival of Credit Score and Debt is up at Money Q & A.

This carnival has a lot of interesting articles.

Mortgage Insurers - Foreclosure "White Knights"?

Many homeowners who bought their house with less than 20% down carry private mortgage insurance (PMI). But, for the most part, they do not even know the name of their mortgage insurer. The insurance was just a necessary afterthought - something their lender required them to buy.

But these days, with many homeowners in default, and tales of indifferent lenders not returning phone calls for help, your mortgage insurer (you can find the name on your closing HUD-1 statement) can be your ally.

Mortgage insurers typically lose $50,000-$60,000 for each home that goes into foreclosure, so it's in their best interest to help you workout a solution (i.e. adjustment, short sale, etc).

Mortgage insurers have staffed up during the latest crisis and even have liaison people located in large lending companies. Many times, they can get through to your lender, and have the clout to push them to negotiate.

Unlike your lender, who may have bought your mortgage third-hand and is unfamiliar with your loan, your mortgage insurer is usually the same throughout your loan.

So, if you are behind in your loan payments, and your lender either won't talk to you, or refuses to negotiate, try calling your mortgage insurer for help.

Today There Are More Options For Saving Money on College Textbooks - Including Renting!

College Textbooks are a big source of revenue. They are overpriced and the authors frequently make minute "updates" to create new versions - to cut down on students using used copies.

When I was in college in the late '80's, there were only two book stores on campus: they would sell new books at full price, and used copies at 75% of the price. At the end of the semester, they would buy back your books (if the author didn't have a "revised" edition for next semester) for 30-50% of the price.

Today's students, because of the internet, have many more options for saving money on textbooks:

1. Comparison shopping is made possible because of a recent law that requires schools to list the ISBN numbers of textbooks online. Sites such as BigWords.com, campusBooks.com, and slugbooks.com let you compare prices from different venders.

2. You can now rent textbooks from online stores (such as CampusBookRentals.com and Chegg.com), or at many campus bookstores. Here you pay a flat fee and return the book after the semester. Renting especially saves money on popular textbooks that are in widespread use.

U.S. Government Phasing Out Tax Refund Checks

If you are one of the people who receive your tax refunds in the form of check, you may get a letter offering you the option of signing up for a prepaid Visa debit card.

The government recently launched a pilot program to test a card called the MyAccountCard from Bonneville Bank.

The government wants to phase out paper checks for several reasons:

1. It saves the government the cost of mailing the checks.

2. Taxpayers without checking accounts can get faster access to their refund, and without check-cashing fees.

3. It will eliminate the issue of lost or stolen checks.

The letters will randomly offer different people cards with different benefits and fee structures to see what additional features prove popular - such as ATM withdrawals, etc.

Advertising in the Internet Age

The qualities I admire (like simplicity and focus) are now actually crucial for advertising and marketing on the internet. I read about an Advertising Agency that practices this with their clients.

They market themselves as an agency that was created in the digital age - so they are not tied to traditional ways of doing advertising. Even their website is designed around focused simplicity, rather than using fancy graphics.

In the old days, there were only a few TV channels. TV, radio, and newspapers did not have to compete with internet surfing, podcasts, or interactive online games. People had longer attention spans. You could advertise in the mass media and reach a lot of people. You wanted general campaigns that used a lot of flash.

Now, audiences are fragmented because specialized cable channels and websites cannibalize each other. Instead of trying to reach a lot of people with a mainstream commercial, the best way to reach people is to create targeted commercials and run them in these different niche media outlets.

Also digital media is now interactive, and gives advertisers the tools to track the effectiveness of campaigns.

In this new environment, if you use a standard Advertising Agency that uses the old techniques, your advertising won't be as effective as it could be. For example, you would not want your agency to create bland, generic advertisements that are not targeted to anyone in particular, and then try to run them on different channels.

Instead, this ad agency would probably create an ad that appeals, for example, to fans of cooking shows and run that on the cooking channels. They could create another commercial for home and garden channels, etc.

This particular agency would also use online tools to track traffic and conversions for online advertising.

Accessing Money for Quick Turn-Around Needs

In life there is long money and there is short money. Long money is what you invest in a house, or a 401k, or your child’s education. The ticket price is big and sometimes the sacrifice goes deep. But those transactions also offer the opportunity for a big return, as well.

Short money is for purchases today. Or cash to pay bills. Some borrow short money to make short-term investments.

Where does short money come from? It can be something you sell, such as a second car you decide you don’t need. Or you borrow it – from a friend, relative, maybe even someone you don’t know well (and to whom you probably pay prohibitively high interest rates).

It’s possible to borrow money from yourself, such as through a cash advance against your next paycheck.

Most employers quit providing these years ago. But easy cash advance loans are now found online. You produce proof of employment and your pay rate, and the lender provides a portion of your next paycheck days and even weeks in advance of the paydate. You promise in return to pay the amount back, plus fees and interest, in that next paycheck or perhaps one or two after that.

This isn’t for everyone. But it does work for people who look for the following:

Cash for short-term purchases – Be it a security or plane ticket or something else (including bills that would otherwise carry a high interest charge).

Simple money access process – Most online payday advance applications are pretty streamlined. It should not take more than 20 minutes to complete the application, and the money should be direct deposited into your account overnight.

Think in terms of a 30-day payback – These cash infusions should be settled up in days or a few weeks. Allow the payback to extend much longer and your gains might be eclipsed by the loss. Manage it wisely.