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HSBC Advance Online Savings Account Review

Jason Steele

In this day and age, online savings accounts have taken the reins in the industry. Online accounts provide the flexibility of anytime banking with a high annual percentage yield (APY).

The main attraction of online banks is that they can provide higher interest rates because they don’t have the added costs of running many traditional brick-and-mortar banks. They also tend to boast no maintenance fees or minimum balance requirements. Online savings accounts have the capability to link to external bank accounts, which makes transferring money easy.

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ING Direct Review – High Interest Online Checking & Savings Accounts

Ryan Knight

ING logoAfter the failures of numerous financial institutions and the ensuing aftermath and loss of confidence in traditional companies, many individuals and families have sought out – and found – new, reliable banks. Direct online banks are growing in popularity because they provide traditional banking services at lower prices.

ING Direct, the largest FDIC-insured direct bank in the United States, offers a vast array of financial products. Your options with ING Direct include: checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit, home loans, investments, retirement services, and business services.

All of these services are available online, by phone, and through the mail. Direct banks have lower operating costs than traditional brick-and-mortar institutions, and they’re often able to pass these savings along to their customers.

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TurboTax Review 2011 – Online Tax Preparation Software

Kira Botkin

Owned and operated by software giant Intuit, TurboTax is backed by a solid company history of almost three decades. You’ll have no trouble trusting this product. It has a superb reputation and reliable software platform.

TurboTax is the most popular of the online tax filing and preparation software products. Last year more tax filers filed with TurboTax than all the other tax filing software products combined.

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Key Features and Benefits

  • Guarantees they will get you “the biggest refund you’re entitled to.” If you use another tax preparation method and get a bigger refund, TurboTax will refund your money.

TaxACT Review 2011 – Free Online Tax Software

Kira Botkin

TaxACT, which provides affordable tax products to the masses, is owned and operated by 2nd Story Software, a privately-owned company since 1998.

According to Hitwise reports, TaxACT is the #2 destination for e-filers on the Web.

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Key Features and Benefits

  • Provides a risk-free federal refund guarantee: if you get a higher refund or less tax owed with another tax preparation method, using the same data used with TaxACT, you will get your money back.
  • You can access unlimited Web and email support as well as video tutorials.
  • If you’ve got simple taxes, you can use the free version, which includes most forms but much less guidance.

H&R Block At Home Review 2011 – Online Tax Software

Kira Botkin

In business since 1955, H&R Block is the world’s largest tax preparation company. In addition to tax services available at their offices, H&R Block At Home offers consumers a do-it-yourself online tax solution. However, you’re not completely on your own since tax professionals are available for additional help.

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Key Features and Benefits

  • H&R Block guarantees an accurate calculation to get you the biggest return. If you’re assessed penalties for a miscalculation, they’ll pay the interest and penalties.
  • Gives step-by-step questions and answers to help you through your return. Can be helpful or annoying depending upon how tax savvy you are.

Catalog Choice Review – How to Stop Junk Mail from Coming to Your House

Heather Levin

Are you sick of getting a stack of catalogs in the mail? Are you tired of having a gigantic Yellow Pages book dumped on your front porch every few months?

Join the crowd. Junk mail is a serious problem in the US. Over 100 million trees are cut down to create our junk mail. According to Do Not Mail, that’s the equivalent of cutting down the entire Rocky Mountain National Park – every year.

Plus, we get over 10 billion pieces of unwanted junk mail a year – and that’s just in the United States. We’ll spend, on average, 8 months of our lives dealing with all this junk mail.

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Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect Review – Worth the Price?

Derek Clark

Xbox Kinect ReviewBlack Friday is just around the corner and that means it’s time to think about that Christmas budget again. Who do you have to buy for and how much are you going to spend on each person? With the economy in the shape it is currently in, many budgets are smaller this year than in the past.

One hot item this season is the Xbox Kinect. The big question is whether the Xbox Kinect is worth your hard-earned money for that “gamer” on your gift list. Well, let’s get right to answering that question!

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Book Giveaway! Be Thrifty: How To Live Better With Less Book Review

Kira Botkin

Cover of the book "Be Thrifty"Tightwads everywhere try to show each other up on how much their organic garden has grown, hipsters dress exclusively in charity-shop finds, and it’s practically “New York cool” to make your own pickles. But for most people, these frugal activities are just a small corner of their lives, with the rest of their lives displaying a significantly less disciplined financial lifestyle. So how does one begin to learn how to live a truly thrifty life?

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ThreeJars Review: Family Allowance Management

David Bakke

Limited Time Offer: Sign up for ThreeJars using coupon code MONEYCRASHERS to get $5 off the $30 annual fee!

online allowance for kidsI recently came across the website ThreeJars, where you can set up an allowance account for your children.  I found the site to be both intriguing and innovative, so I thought I would crystallize and share what I found out about it with you.

The Basic Concept

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Macbook Air Review – Is It The Future Of Laptops?

Erik Folgate

macbook airLast spring when the iPad came out, I said to myself, “Okay, I guess that means they’re getting rid of the Macbook Air.” Why? Because when the Macbook Air first came out, it didn’t have anywhere near the response that the iPhone or iPad had in terms of amount of sales in record-breaking time. A lot of people did the “Oooo and Ahhh” about the razor thinness of it, but questioned if it was a solid laptop solution for people who had heavy computing needs. Well, I was obviously mistaken about Apple getting rid of it in their product line. Instead, Steve Jobs came out yesterday and said, “The Macbook Air is the next generation of Macbooks.”  This didn’t sit well with some of the Mac-heads that rock a 17″ Quad-Core Macbook Pro tricked out with a 2 terabyte hard drive and 8 GB’s of RAM.

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eBay or Amazon Review: The Best Place to Sell Your Unwanted items

David Bakke

In this day and age of trying to deal with the recent economic downturn, more and more people are looking to sell unwanted or unused items that they have in their homes. People that have never before even thought of selling these items on the internet are now exploring the possibility.

There are many options out there, but the two biggest players in the game are eBay and Amazon. For both places, you basically list the item at the price you want to sell it for, and then wait for someone to decide that they want to buy it at your price. However, both sites have their advantages and disadvantages and I want to go over the highlights of each.

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FreshBooks Review: Truly Painless Billing

David Bakke

Recently, I had the pleasure of reviewing the website FreshBooks. It is basically an online billing service that allows you to bill your clients and track your staff’s time as well. Although admittedly I don’t have a use for such a service for either of the two side businesses that I run, I can tell you that if I had the opportunity to introduce FreshBooks to my “day” job, that it would be quite the breath of fresh air.

Advantages

FreshBooks offers what they like to call “painless billing.” With the service, you can bill your clients with just a few clicks.

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Google Apps For Small Business Review

Erik Folgate

One of the most important aspects of running a small business is to keep an organized office. With a small operation, there typically isn’t a lot of money in the budget to put into an expensive IT infrastructure, and most small businesses don’t worry about it too much because their small amount of employees allows them to communicate and collaborate easily. However, email is still a huge part of the business world, shared calendars are invaluable, and collaborating on documents that are constantly changing is a big part of service-based small businesses. Google Apps offers all of those features and A LOT more. If you own a small business and you don’t want to pay $300 per MS Office license, then keep reading.

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Mvelopes Review – Envelope Money Management System Software

David Bakke

I recently had an opportunity to review the website Mvelopes, which features an online home budgeting system. A few things that I immediately liked were two of the phrases I read on their home page. The first one is “Take back your time” and the second one I included in the title: “Managing your money shouldn’t be a full time job.” I like these phrases because I think one thing preventing a lot of people from even attempting to corral their finances is that they think it will take hours out of their day. It won’t. And secondly, any tool that I can introduce into my life that will save me time is something I am always interested in.

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Outright Review – The Best Free Small Business Accounting Software Online

David Bakke

The number of online accounting websites out there seems to be increasing by the day. They are popping up all over the place. One that I recently had the chance to take a look at is Outright. Their claim is that with their website you can “free yourself from accounting.” Outright is designed for sole proprietorships and single member LLCs. In layman’s terms, they are designed for the self-employed and small business owners. And, as an owner of two small businesses myself, I can tell you from personal experience the absolute need for something like Outright. And Outright seems to handle it all.

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