With the enormous growth of student loan debt, borrowers are becoming the target of a growing industry preying on their need to get out from under the debt.

The National Consumer Law Center investigated the growth of these student loan-focused debt relief companies and came away with some serious concerns about how they do business.

"There were a shocking number of inaccuracies and lack of transparency among the companies in our investigation," said National Consumer Law Center attorney Deanne Loonin, who wrote a report about the issue that was released today.

Among the concerns raised in the report about these companies are that they: 

This post comes from Len Penzo at partner site Len Penzo dot Com.

A while back I bought four new tires for my 1997 Honda Civic. The tires came with a pro-rated 65,000-mile guarantee and were $74 each, or just under $300 for the entire set.
As the salesman was tallying up the bill he asked me if I would like to purchase the extended warranty for my brand new tires.

“And how much is that?” I sheepishly asked.

“It’s only $9.95,” came the salesman’s immediate reply.

“Is that per tire?”

“Well, yes.”

“So it’s not really $9.95, right? What you should have said is that it’s going to cost me an extra $40.”

I think I caught the salesman off-guard because he immediately tried to assure me that he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one. I nodded my head, but my raised eyebrows belied my true feelings. 

This post comes from Angela Brandt at partner site Money Talks News. 

For the past few years, a list of the most common regrets of the dying compiled by a palliative care nurse has been making the rounds online.

Are you going to have remorse for the same reasons? We'd argue that avoiding these regrets is not only affordable but good for your personal finances.

Let's take a look at them.

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Be like Frank Sinatra and do it your way. So you're not a rich, famous and handsome man with your pick of the ladies. That doesn't mean you can't pursue and hopefully fulfill your dreams.

Ask that crush on a date, then think of something romantic, creative and frugal to woo them -- a milkshake and a sunset worked on me.

 

This post is by Jeffery Strain of partner site SavingAdvice.com.

There seems to be an impression that the only reason that people aren’t able to become millionaires is because they don’t work hard enough. The truth is that hard work has very little to do with becoming a millionaire. That’s not to say that you don’t have to work hard. You do. But you also need to avoid the many pitfalls and bad financial decisions that end up being the real reason most people aren’t able to build wealth. The truth is that you don’t have to have a huge salary to gain assets in excess of a million dollars, but you do have to make good financial decisions (and avoid making bad ones).

It’s important to note that a single issue is likely not what’s keeping you from millionaire status, but a combination of several of the actions and decisions you’ve made. And, yes, there are exceptions to the rules, but then there are also people who win the lottery — and would you really bet your retirement on winning the lottery? Here are 10 reason that could very well be a contributing cause of why you’re not currently a millionaire:

1. You spend more than you make
There are no secrets, and there certainly is nothing magical, when it comes to the basics of personal finance. In order to keep your finances in order, you need to spend less than you earn. If you fail to do this one simple thing, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, you’ll always find that you don’t have enough money to make ends meet. It also goes a step further than this. Spending less than you earn is not enough it itself to build wealth. You have to also actively save and invest a portion of all the money that you make. Most people recommend this amount to be 20% of your income. If you aren’t putting aside 20% of every paycheck you receive and placing it into long-term savings and investments, chances are you aren’t going to become a millionaire. 

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is a lame duck with a green vision. Now that he's ordained bike lanes and banned smoking in parks, Hizzoner is telling residents to separate food waste from ordinary trash.

Officials say that setting aside leftover takeout and past-its-prime produce for composting could save the city $100 million a year. The plan is to compost 100,000 tons of residential food waste -- just 10% of New York's annual total -- and to build a plant that will turn other garbage into "biogas" to generate electricity.

That is, if it actually happens. Bloomberg's term is in its last year, and there's no reason to believe his successors will march to the same drum.

 

 

 

This post is by Susan Johnston of partner site U.S. News & World Report.

Whether you rent a beach house on the coast or cruise down Route 66 on a road trip, spreading travel costs among a group can not only save money, but make a getaway more fun. However, when people have different ideas about how to split the bills or even how much to spend, a relaxing weekend away can quickly turn into a tense standoff.

Just ask Philadelphia resident Katharine Paljug, who takes a beach trip to South Carolina each spring with a group of friends. The group devised a system that involves totaling receipts from food, alcohol and activities and calculating how many people were there each day, since they tend to come and go. Then each person contributes based on the number of days they were there and the amount they spent on expenses.

That system worked well until this spring, when one person decided she should be exempt. "When my husband emailed everyone asking for receipt totals, she sent back an itemized list of the food she had eaten over the course of the two days she was there as an explanation of why she shouldn't owe anything," Paljug says. "I had to explain that assigning value to individual meals and drinks was a crazy way of managing things, would be nearly impossible to figure out and would make everyone hate each other."

The traveler still refused to contribute to shared expenses, and Paljug doesn't expect to see her at the beach next year.