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 The Dough Roller.

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.
 

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.