For a lot of families, renting a vacation home makes more sense than booking multiple rooms at a hotel. But unlike booking a hotel room, where the brands are known and reviews abound, renting a vacation home can leave a consumer exposed.

You can get taken in a variety of ways, and they all involve making you believe you're getting something you're not. And with summer vacations fast approaching, scammers are just waiting for you to pounce on their "deals."

In the recent case of a group from Texas that paid $6,200 to rent a home in Hawaii, the house was there, but it was unusable. When they showed up, they found the pool was filled with green sludge. The toilets were smashed. Not what you'd expect for more than $6,000.

Others, often responding to online classifieds, pay money only to find there's no rental waiting for them when they arrive.

But the experience of renting a vacation home need not be a nightmare.
 

An estimated 1.66 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in 2013, according to the National Cancer Institute. Just 2.6% will be between the ages of 20 and 34.

That group will take a huge financial hit, however. A study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle indicates that millennials are more than twice as likely to declare bankruptcy after a cancer diagnosis.

The actual figure is 2.65 times as likely, and the reasons are pretty obvious.

Millennials often have considerable debt (student loans, mortgages), fewer assets, more young children and less supplemental income from other members of their households (e.g., a partner or spouse who's home with those young children). This age group hasn't been working as long, and could have been underemployed or unemployed for months or years. Millennials may not have good health insurance, or any insurance at all.

The study found that about 0.52% of patients filed for bankruptcy within one year of diagnosis, versus 0.16% in the comparison group. Within five years, the rate rose to 1.7% versus 0.7%.

In all, about six of every 1,000 patients went bankrupt -- which may be "just the tip of the iceberg," according to CBS News.

 

This post comes from Craig Donofrio at partner site Money Talks News. 

Working is tough. And then there's the chore of having to manage the money you made as you toiled in the workplace. Leaves too little time to sit around in your underwear and catch pretzel bites in your mouth, right?

Not necessarily. There are smart ways lazy people can manage their money without breaking a sweat.

 

This post is by Abby Hayes of partner site Doughroller

With identity theft on the rise, more people are looking at ways to protect their identities. Options like identity theft protection and simple credit monitoring can certainly help. But what if you want to take more drastic measures?

One drastic measure you can take is to freeze your credit. Basically, a credit freeze places a hold on your credit file with any of the three major credit reporting bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Once your credit file is frozen, inquiries into your file will be denied. Because potential lenders need to pull your credit file to see if you qualify for a loan, they won’t issue a loan to someone with your Social Security number when they can’t pull your credit file.

(Note: You’ll have to freeze credit files separately with each bureau.)

The main difference between credit monitoring and a credit freeze is that a credit freeze can keep thieves from taking out credit in your name. Credit monitoring catches them after the fact and can sometimes remedy the situation quickly.

Is freezing your credit right for you? If so, how do you go about freezing your credit? Here’s what you need to know.

Pros and cons of a credit freeze
Like every financial decision you’ll make, freezing your credit has pros and cons.

Pro

• Nearly always stops identity thieves from taking out credit in your name
• Remains in effect until you decide to “thaw” your credit
• Provides more protection and usually costs less than a credit monitoring service
• Doesn’t affect your credit score
• Usually free if you’ve been a victim of identity theft.
  

con

• Can be expensive to place a freeze and to lift it again
• Blocks you from taking out new credit in your name until you remove or temporarily lift the freeze
• May need to pay to freeze and/or unfreeze credit or temporarily lift the freeze
• Can take up to three business days to lift the freeze, which can delay your credit application
• Does not protect existing bank or credit accounts from fraud.
  

Whether a credit freeze is right for you depends on many factors. If you’ve been a victim of identity theft, getting your credit frozen may be easier and will almost certainly be cheaper. Plus, if you think your stolen ID may be floating around out there, a credit freeze can protect you from the hassle of dealing with more fraudulent accounts.

If you haven’t been the victim of ID theft, a credit freeze can give you peace of mind. If you don’t apply for credit often and have no plans to apply for new credit any time soon, a credit freeze may be cheaper for you than a monthly credit monitoring service.

Carefully look at the pros and cons of freezing your credit to ensure you make the right choice for your financial and personal situation.

Steps to freezing your credit
If you decide to freeze your credit, one great thing is that the process has gotten easier in recent years. As identity theft and credit fraud has become more common, credit reporting bureaus have made the process of freezing and lifting freezes on your credit files easier.
Here are the steps to take if you decide to freeze your credit:

1. Find out your state’s fees. Each state sets its own laws for fees that credit bureaus can charge for placing and lifting a credit freeze. You can find Equifax’s helpful state-by-state list here.
2. Gather your personal information. To fill out online credit freeze forms, you’ll need personal information like your Social Security number, birth date and, possibly, driver’s license number.
3. Fill out credit freeze forms for each of the three major credit reporting bureaus. Click the linked bureau names to be taken directly to their credit freeze applications: Equifax, Experian, TransUnion.
4. Pay attention to instructions in the application for how to lift a credit freeze. Be sure to keep a secure file with your application PIN and other credit freeze information, so you can lift the freeze when necessary.
5. Relax. Your credit is now safe until you should decide to lift the freeze.

More from Doughroller:

• How credit inquiries affect your FICO scores
• The best interest free credit cards
• 25 tips and tools for new grads on Linkedin
  

 

This post comes from Philip Moeller at partner site U.S. News & World Report.

Psychologists have been busy testing the premise that money can't buy happiness. Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman has garnered lots of attention with research that says this largely is true. Beyond about $75,000 in annual income -- enough to fund a moderately comfortable lifestyle -- more money does not make people much happier, he said.

Not so fast, say two young academics. Elizabeth Dunn, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and Michael Norton, an associate professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, have written a new book called "Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending." In the book, they make a persuasive case that money does have the ability to buy happiness, and it's not how much money you have that matters, but how you spend it.

Much of the "money can't buy happiness" school of behavioral thought rests on a concept called hedonic adaptation: The human brain rapidly adjusts to what it senses. What's new today becomes ho-hum tomorrow. And so it is with material acquisitions. That shiny new car gives us immense happiness when we drive it off the lot. But we soon get used to it, and it ceases to provide much happiness. Ditto for other possessions.

 

 

Sure, you're willing to risk life and limb on extreme sports. But risk thousands of dollars in camera equipment? Maybe not.

 

Still, extreme sports call for extreme cameras, and now there are HD camcorders designed to take action shots in the most challenging conditions (or on family vacations). But how tough are they, really? And how clear are the resulting images?

Consumer Reports compared the GoPro Hero3, which retails for about $400, and the Sony Action Cam, with a list price of $270, dropping them in water and spinning them in a tumbler to test their mettle. Take a look at the results.

 

This post comes from Jason Steele of partner site Credit.com.

American college students tend to have a rough time with credit cards. Without much real-world personal finance experience, many spend beyond their means and graduate with credit card debt. And even for those who are lucky enough to complete school without debt, the threat continues to loom after graduation.

So how can recent graduates enjoy the convenience and security of credit cards without getting into trouble with debt? Here are a few tips:

1. Keep it simple. It is easy to get caught up in the hype promoting credit card perks and rewards, but these benefits are not worth it if they lead to debt. Instead, recent graduates should focus on finding cards with the fewest fees and the simplest terms. 

2. Always pay your balance in full. This is the single most important piece of advice that can be offered. Those who pay their entire statement balance each month avoid costly interest charges, and there isn’t a better time to get in this habit than after graduation. And the lesson of living within your means, instead of on hoped-for future earning, applies well beyond credit cards.