Personal Finance News

Last week during the Data is Money panel at SXSW, Aaron Patzer, the CEO of popular personal finance management Web site Mint.com, ignited a firestorm of controversy by bragging about the high quality of real time data that Mint is able to see -- such as which movie rental services are used most, and the value it would have to hedge funds.

The notion of selling of user data isn't a new idea, but it disturbed financial writer Felix Salmon and has caused numerous individuals to cancel their Mint accounts.

Pay 555-555-1234 $13.70 for dinner. It seems simple; sending money to a friend or business with your phone, but after years of trying, the practice never really caught on in the U.S. Past attempts at sending money with a cell phone have been simple enough to use, but the fees involved often outweighed the convenience of texting a payment. This problem is one that Venmo, a new mobile payment service, hopes to avoid in order to grow as a cash replacement.

"We allow people to make cash transactions without the hassle of carrying cash", says Jameel Farruk of Venmo in a phone interview with WalletPop. It's the lack of fees that Venmo believes will allow it to become popular not only with individuals who need to pay a friend, but also with businesses who could set up a Venmo account to let customers pay for a coffee or other goods and services.

If you're traveling this weekend or at one of the 100,000 locations served by major WiFi networks then you'll be able to enjoy free Internet access thanks to Skype.

In celebration of the launch of Skype Access, a new Skype feature that lets you pay for WiFi access with your Skype Credit, they are offering free connections at over 100,000 locations including many popular airports.

Over the past few months RedBox has moved from an interesting display in my local grocery store to the perfect companion to our Netflix subscription. RedBox rentals are much cheaper than similar on-demand offers from our cable company and thanks to the RedBox Codes app for Android and the Inside RedBox Pro iPhone app, I can always find free RedBox promo codes.

The app I use on my Motorola Droid is the RedBox Codes app, which is free and does only one thing -- show me the latest RedBox coupon codes whenever I need one. The app includes success rates and notes about where the code can be used as well as any known expiration dates. For a more full featured RedBox app, without promo codes, you should look at the 99-cent RedBoxer app.

The Inside RedBox Pro app available on the iPhone isn't free, but for the cost of a RedBox Rental you get access to RedBox locations, including what movies are available, and Red Box Promo codes for free rentals. You can also view movie information and create a queue of movies you want to rent from RedBox.

Like all coupon codes distributed online there will always be some that don't work, but my experience with the RedBox Codes app has been filled, so far, with working codes.

My local grocery store sends me a coupon every few weeks and RedBox has been known to pass out code after code that Julia Scott's Bargain Babe shares with our readers, but it's great to be able to get a free rental anytime I am at a RedBox by simply launching an app. We don't always use the app to get a free movie, but as a cheap way to grab a movie while we are out and keep it for an extra day without wasting a dollar.

In a world where the only things that are certain are death and taxes, it's good to know that there a plenty of online coupons to help you save with the latter. Regardless of whether you do your own taxes or hire a professional, there are lots and lots of tax time savings that will help you keep more cash in your bank.

CouponShack.com shares several coupons that make doing your own taxes cheaper -- whether you're filing online or purchasing software to prepare taxes on your computer.

It sounds like a good deal; take a quick quiz and get some free virtual currency or trade your phone number, trade your phone number for your horoscope or even access to "thousands of TV Shows." These are what many users are finding after clicking the ads in mobile games on the iPhone and Android powered cell phones. But they don't just get their horoscope, they end up with a monthly subscription for between $9.99 and $25.

These types of ads first entered the spotlight last year when it came to light that many Facebook gamers where signing up for similar offers in exchange for game currency for popular games such as FarmVille and others from Zynga. Numerous parties involved vowed to clean up the process and prevent these types of ads from reaching consumers on Facebook, which has just diverted its attention to ad-supported mobile games.

Wouldn't it be great if you could get help with random tasks like creating a new business card, proofing and reviewing your resume or editing a photo? That's the idea behind a new service, Fiverr, which connects you with users who will do almost anything you want for $5.

You can connect with a native speaker in a foreign country for 30 minutes of honing your language skills, get your computer problem solved, a dream interpreted or even your best-man speech written, all for $5. There are also some disturbing tasks offered, like giving your girlfriend's photo a virtual breast augmentation or hiring someone to call your boss in the middle of the night to tell them they suck. Oddball tasks aside, the service offers you numerous opportunities to get small tasks done pretty cheap, and if you can't find what you're looking for you can submit it as a request.

On Sunday clocks around the country will "Spring Ahead" an hour to mark the beginning of Daylight Saving Time. For most of these clocks, on newer devices connected to the Internet, will update to the correct time automatically. But older items like microwaves, ovens, clock radios, coffeemakers, digital cameras and VCRs won't update on their own.

Even if you have a device that automatically changes the time to observe DST, thanks to the changes made in 2007 it might not make the change on the correct date. But thanks to Retrevo's Set Your Clock page, figuring out how to change the time for DST is as simple as changing the clock on an analog watch.

We all know we need to save money: for emergency funds, home down payments, vacations and more, but too often we get hung up on creating a savings plan to actually start saving money and reaching our goals.

A new tool from Rudder, a personal finance tool that looks to the future instead of pie charts of the past, has created the Savings Planner to create a personalized savings plan in less than five minutes.

Fake check schemes, or advanced fee check cashing fraud, are one of the most common scams that criminals use to trick victims into giving away their hard-earned money. It's so popular that it was named the number one scam of 2009 by the National Consumers League.