This is the third part of a five-part series about how the writer and her husband, Charlie, tackled a major overhaul of their home and the pitfalls they faced along the way. To read the first installment click here.

The situation is deteriorating fast. A large part of the problem is our fault, we're falling victim to an all-too-common disorder in the industry called project creep.

It works like this: If we are going to put in a new hallway floor, why not rip up the carpet upstairs and do all the floors there, too? And if we are going to do the upstairs, then it only make sense to do the downstairs as well. Since we got such a good deal on the granite, why don't we put new counter tops in the kitchen? For that matter, why not get new appliances? After all, the plumber and electrician are already here. They can get things hooked up. Don't you think the whole thing will look lousy if we don't re-tile the kitchen back splash? Why not, it already has a hole in it from the plumber. And so on...

LazyManandMoney.com is one of the better personal finance blogsites out there -- and it recently had the nerve to do a post skeptical of a multilevel marketing company called MonaVie and its $1.70-per-ounce juice.

Well, of course MonaVie wouldn't stand for that and responded by sending an e-mail to Domains By Proxy Inc, the hosting company for the Web site. Here are some excerpts (LazyManAndMoney was enough of a tough guy to reprint the e-mail on his blog):

As a network marketing company MonaVie does not permit its name to be used in any URL or email address and the company must take necessary action to protect its intellectual property. . . Your unauthorized use of MonaVie's federally registered trademarks amounts to an infringement of MonaVie's trademark rights. . . MonaVie wishes to settle this situation amicably and therefore, requests that you immediately cease the use of our trade name MonaVie.

You may have seen TV ads for a customized personal history of your family name, printed out on faux-parchment and hallway-display-ready (the commercials are about as cheesy as Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Obama's). You may have found your way to the MyFreeScroll.com Web site, typed in your personal information (note the "free" scroll costs $7 in shipping and handling -- big bucks for a computer printout -- and fended off the half-dozen or so attempts to get you to buy add-ons before placing your order.

But if you were expecting warm finding-your-roots feelings from your printout, er, scroll, hoping to learn you were descended, say, from a long, dignified line of Bavarian pretzel-bakers or Alsatian goatherds, you'll be disappointed.

At least I was, when my free $7 scroll arrived. Instead of a detailed history, there was a two-sentence summary of basic info any grandparent worth their salt would have passed on to you already, or that you could have found through the quickest of Google searches. (Or, while you were at it, you could have checked out the Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation's search site. It's free.)

The rest is all boilerplate about the history of, well, why family names have history behind them.

These days it's getting so you can't tell the consumer watchdogs from the crooks. I've exposed a number of phony do-gooders over the years, and the pretend-watchdog routine runs rampant among competing marketers of junk-products like acai berry supplements and colon cleansers.

The way it works: One group of bogus marketers sets up something that looks like a product review site, and calls it a name that sounds like a consumer advocate. All the links on the page lead to product sites owned by the same company.

This time, though, we're going to look at a dressed-up, work-from-home scam. Here's a site that calls itself TheConsumerWatchdog.org. It pops up in link ads on, among other places, the Internet Movie Database.

At first, the site looks kind of convincing, with links to a radio network and an embedded video from an ABC network TV show that appears to be talking about this particular work-at-home site.

It's a common tactic of bogus marketing sites to link to video clips from network TV shows or to festoon the site with logos from big-media brands, to try to imply an endorsement that isn't there. Sure, Diane Sawyer may have been talking about working from home -- but not about what this site is selling.

Laura McCurdy of Rhode Island wrote to WalletPop about her problem with Textbookwheel.com, a site that markets itself as a place to get cash for old college texts.

She followed the directions and shipped off what she said the site reported as $243 worth of books. She said she shipped the books a couple of weeks ago and then awaited the promised speedy mailing of a check. And waited... Well, she's still waiting. The site still shows her books as having never been received.

"I'm out so many textbooks and no cash," she wrote to WalletPop. "Please help me!!"

Do you know what it means to "pay points" on a mortgage?

On this week's episode of "Show & Tell with The 2 Mortgage Guys" we explain what discount and origination points really are. We'll also give you a few scenarios in which you may have to pay points on your next mortgage transaction.

Ryan Minick & Steve DeLon are The 2 Mortgage Guys. Subscribe to their newsletter or visit them at www.The2MortgageGuys.com.

The United States is facing a major sugar shortage, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required).

On Aug. 5, General Mills, Hershey Co, Mars Inc., and Kraft Foods alerted Thomas J. Vilsak, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, of their combined forecast of low sugar supplies. These food companies warned that if the Agriculture Department does not allow them to import more tariff-free sugar, "our nation will virtually run out of sugar" and they will be forced to raise consumer prices and lay off workers.

This comes as a major eye opener, but there's more to this finding.

The WSJ states that the present trade quota places a limit to the number of tariff-free sugar that can be imported per year, with the exception of Mexico. This leaves major suppliers like Brazil out of the free trade mix. The fear looms that Brazil may not even have significant sugar supply for the U.S. because they are busy using large amounts of cane crop for ethanol use.

Another problem is the U.S. government; not a surprise. The U.S. artificially inflates domestic prices of sugar in order to support the incomes of farmers in the Midwest who are friendly with politicians who help them. Anything for a vote, right?

Economists state that sugar is part of the equation. Sugar is an active ingredient in almost all foods, and the impact of a price increase will be big. Food companies pay twice the world level for sugar because of government meddling.

Unless politicians in Washington decide to ease import quotas, the "U.S. will end the next fiscal year with less than 13 days worth of sugar on hand" according to the four food companies who band together to ring the alarm atop Capitol hill.

Rush Limbaugh throws his weight around the political world like a boy with a bazooka in a paintball game, but lately there's less of Rush's weight to throw; the radio talk show star has lost 90 pounds. Expect to see a stampede to Quick Weight Loss Centers, which Limbaugh credits for his loss. Unfortunately for the company, at the moment it only has 14 clinics, all in South Florida.

Limbaugh says he achieved his weight loss by following the Center's 1,500-calorie-a-day plan, along with counseling and supplements such as carb blockers and protein boosters. Unlike some weight loss programs, the Centers' customers eat regular food purchased from the grocery, not prepackaged, branded program meals.

Clients work directly with counselors who help them stay on course. This sounded swell to me, until I read the web page pitching careers with the company. Counselor candidates are told "Experience in medical, gym, dancing, school, beauty or weight loss teaching and counseling is a plus, but not required." I guess it doesn't take a trained nutritionist to counsel a radio star.

How much does it cost? Quick Weight Loss Centers has a 'special' deal on its Home Program, for those will live outside South Florida. Six weeks of the program, including Herbal Balance Gold XTRM ("with pure South African Hoodia Gordonii") and other supplements, "Quick-boost Thermogenic Beverages", 12 protein supplements, online cookbook, and counseling -- all for $449, which it claims is a savings of $680(!).

Are they serious? If you are ready to lose weight, don't start by lightening your wallet with a overpriced program like this. Look for a local program that meets face to face, allows you to eat food from the supermarket, and doesn't sell its own supplements. Weight Watchers, for example, charges around $12 a meeting, and Consumer Reports rated it the best overall program among the nine it evaluated.

Learn from our mistakes! We'll be adding our own stories of financial mistakes to this space and telling you how we coped with the aftermath. If you've got a story to tell us, send it along to askwalletpop@walletpop.com.

This last weekend, my wife and I drank our first $300 bottle of wine. This was not a deliberate decision.

When a few of my old college friends came up to visit us in the Bronx, we decided to take them to Zero Otto Nove, our favorite place for entertaining out-of-town friends. The restaurant, located near our house, is beautifully decorated, reasonably priced, and has fantastic food. It also has extremely aggressive waiters, but their endless tendency to upsell is one of those things that we have learned to overlook. After all, when a pizza joint makes tear-worthy pies, you tend to ignore the little irritations.

At any rate, we ordered a couple of appetizers and three of the restaurants distinctive gourmet pizzas. My wife, who knows a lot more about wine than I do, picked a reasonably priced Italian red that seemed like a good bet to accompany our meal. A few minutes later, the waiter returned to double check on our drink order. My wife, who was dealing with our daughter at the time, glanced at the wine he pointed to, noted the name, and replied that, yes, it was the one we wanted.

The meal was outstanding; in fact, the only down spot was the wine. Somewhat watery and underflavored, it had a hard time standing up to the spicy "Diavola" pizza we ordered. Still, the food was great, the company was outstanding, and we were all more than willing to overlook a slightly lame bottle of red wine.

When the bill came, the total was $407. Assuming that the waiter had made a mistake, I called him over and jokingly asked my wife if she had ordered a $315 bottle of wine. Laughing, she told me that, no, her choice had been $36. The waiter, however, disagreed, and noted that he had double checked to ensure that she was serious about her choice. The manager, who seemed to be waiting for just this occasion, backed up his story.

When you pick up a pack of sugarless gum on your way to an interview or after drinking a cup of coffee, you could be forgiven for thinking the sticky stuff is a veritable Swiss Army knife for your health. Lately, as this article in The New York Times points out, gum makers have been boosting their marketing in a big way by focusing on a slew of health benefits -- most, but not all, related to your teeth -- they say their products offer.

By all accounts, it's working. According to a research firm cited by the Times, sugarless gum revenues were up by 6% over last year. In a recession economy, that's a lot of chewing, especially since sugarless gum makes up four out of every five sticks chewed.

The Times speculates that we're buying so much sugarless gum, in part, because it's a lot cheaper than going to a dentist, and cash-strapped Americans are trying to stretch out the time between visits.

I know quite a few people who have been lured into buying new cars with offers of "0% FINANCING!"

We need to have a little chat about this. So please: Repeat after me and write this down on a slip of paper in your wallet and take it with you next time you go to shop for a car:

There is no such thing as 0% financing.

Accusing Rent-A-Center of using collection tactics and charging fees just this side of a loan shark, Washington state is asking a judge to declare the practices illegal and halt them.

The allegations are another black eye to the business of renting furniture, electronics and appliances to those who can't otherwise get credit or afford to buy at a regular store.

Instead, those who go to Rent-A-Center and its competitors can get items for what might seem to be an affordable payment that ends up costing them many times the actual price.

Rent-A-Center markets itself as giving opportunity to those who wouldn't otherwise have a chance to get the items it leases and is using the popular retired basketball star Ervin "Magic" Johnson in television spots.

Some examples of what Washington officials say certain items cost consumers who were making weekly payments (payments can be made weekly, biweekly or monthly):

• $6,594 for a used television
• $3,585 for a refrigerator
• $4,073 for a laptop computer

If you haven't been to a Six Flags lately, you won't know that it, too, has adopted a strategy popular at airlines, hotels, and on cruises. It's charging customers extra for smoother service. The Flash Pass is the chain's for-rent gadget that grants guests the right to leap to the front of the long ride lines.

That's right: Only the little people wait in line anymore. Whether it's United Airlines and the TSA or Six Flags, the wealthy are being teed up to get a clearer swing.

But is it worth the money? And does it work? I went to two of Six Flags' most successful properties -- one in Georgia and one in California -- in a little over a week, to see how it breaks down.

Nearly 45% of people reporting being scammed were ripped off using a phony check scheme -- by far the largest type of fraud reported in the first six months of this year, according to the National Consumers League. The average dollar loss in that type of scam: $3,178.

The group said top-reported scams are linked to the down economy. Bad check scams often are tied to work-from-home proposals or apparent schemes to make easy money. A survey by the league found that due to the state of the economy, people are more likely to consider the idea of working from home.

Kids' shoe maker Buster Brown is recalling 1.4 million pairs of car-shaped water clogs because their decorative wheels can fall off and pose a choking hazard to young children, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said.

The Chinese-made clogs were sold at major retailers nationwide from August 2007 until June for between $10 and $25. The shoes are red, brown, blue, yellow, and pink and feature characters from Cars, Transformers and Barbie. Earlier this year a line of the shoes sold at Wal-Mart featuring the Cars characters was recalled.

Consumers are asked to take the shoes away from children and return them to the place of purchase for a full refund.

For additional information, contact Buster Brown & Co. toll-free at (888) 869-1044 weekdays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Central Times and from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. CT Saturdays, or visit www.busterbrownshoes.com, or email Busterandtige@brownshoe.com.

The shoes were manufactured by Pagoda International Footwear of Hong Kong.