Personal Finance News

It's getting to be the time of year when young goblins rule the streets, but some everyday items may include more trick than treat. While officials this fall are on the lookout for stores stocking candy laced with the harmful chemical melamine, yard-sale shoppers might be wise to be wary of plastic sippy cups, regardless of festive pumpkin decor. Here's why, along with a short outline of the plastics controversy in recent months.

Last Friday, attorneys general from New Jersey, Delaware and Connecticut wrote manufacturers requesting that they refrain from using a certain plastic, bisphenol A (BPA), in baby bottles and formula containers, reported the Associated Press. Aside from citing concern about BPA's risk to infants, the attorneys general referenced a preliminary study in a September Journal of the American Medical Association article linking high BPA levels in adults to heart disease and diabetes.

In contrast, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared in August and again in September that adults and babies face no threat from plastic products with BPA. About 93% of adults tested in a national CDC survey showed traces of BPA in their urine.

Don't fret if you didn't celebrate Museum Day, the round-the-country free-admission extravaganza arranged by the Smithsonian on September 27. Several corporations have been stepping up so you can steep yourself in culture, admission-free, on other dates.

If you carry a Bank of America card, you're eligible for free entry to more than 70 museums on the first weekend each month. The lineup includes museums in 18 states, but those living close to the coasts will have better luck finding a participating venue nearby. The only states in the country's interior represented are Arizona, Illinois, Michigan and Texas.

This promotion, begun in May, lasts through next April. It's a vast expansion of the bank's sponsorship in years before, which was limited to a month. Either a Bank of America credit or check card gets you in.

Computer meltdowns, data loss, spyware invasions - all the demons of the digital age I'd read about but never thought would visit my home PC. After all, I protected my home computer with a firewall, virus protection software and an anti-spyware program. Plus I had a subscription to Carbonite, an online backup service, that for $50 a year promised to save a copy of all my files, which could be safely sent me via the internet.

So when the hard drive of my home computer crashed a few weeks ago, I was unprepared for my feeling of utter disorientation. It was like the great Northeast blackout of 1965. Or the no-television punishment of my childhood. Or staring at my keys through the sewer grate.

No internet at home to look up a quick answer to a question or a phone number, no e-mail and no ability to work at home. As a freelance writer and editor, I frequently work at the editorial offices of various magazines. But my next assignment was to edit at home some stories that would arrive via e-mail. Plus, all my notations about my work schedule, my assignments and my business contacts were, for now, inaccessible.

The life-changing possibilities offered by the humble library card continue. The free classes at New York Public Libraries stretch beyond English literacy, basic computer skills and genealogy research.

Many computer classes are even offered in Spanish. In Queens libraries, instructors teach in Mandarin on subjects ranging from how to start an e-commerce business to avoiding the pitfalls of homeownership.

At some NYC branches, I could sign up for free career counseling or résumé preparation by myself or in a workshop setting. If I wanted to reinvent myself as an entrepreneur, I could attend a seminar at the NYPL's small business resource center on the basics of trademarks, business fundamentals, or creating an advertising plan.

Perhaps knowing I'm often pressed for time, the library also offers free online seminars to download at home (as video files or audio podcasts) on topics like accounting and bookkeeping, starting a fashion line, obtaining credit, selling techniques, conducting market research, exporting, running a restaurant or a store, and pricing one's product.

I could even use the business library as my office and book one of its meeting rooms for free. Or I could just stop by for a free business-solutions counseling session.

With one card, I gain entree to some of the best consumer values in New York City: a computer with high-speed internet and access to sophisticated search engines, dozens of classes and performances, music, video and research help. My card even lets me access much of this from home.

I'm talking about my New York Public Library card, of course. Its latest offering is an update to the ASK NYPL service, the free program whereby librarians will answer my research questions in Spanish or English. It's now available 24/7. I can query by phone, e-mail or online chat. More complicated questions will cost me. (The NYPL Express service charges about $60 an hour.)

Through a quiet but steady adoption of tech tools, public libraries across the U.S. have become lifelong learning labs for adults and children alike, teaching tech literacy to would-be netizens and bringing culture of all kinds to the masses.