Here's another kinda-personal-finance sort of thing -- but one that fits well within the "news you can use" focus of Getting Ahead.
With the number of options and technological changes in television sets, simply buying something to zone out in front of in the evenings has become ever more complicated. To that end, Technology360 offers a primer on how to buy a television.
TV buying is much more complicated than it used to be.In the past 50 years, there haven't been many features to pick from, and once optional things like UHF tuners, remote controls, color, stereo and cable channel tuning have all become standard. The main constant over the years was a choice of picture size.
Now, there are SIX different decisions to make and the choices within decisions keep changing. This confounds even the experts. So don't feel alone in your quest!
I find it somewhat ironic that the big box electronics retailers have all moved to non-commissioned -- which often means not as well trained -- sales staff at a time when the products they sell have gotten more complicated.
This squeezes into the personal finance category enough to fit into the Getting Ahead blog, I think.
FindYourSpot is a website that will help narrow down where you'd be happy living (Jacksonville, happily, scored high on my list.)
The quiz goes through size of cities, cost of living, type of climate and other intangibles that you might not think of while considering your options. If nothing else, it's not a bad way to kill a few minutes.
I recently purchased a new car, giving me the opportunity to deal first-hand with credit reports, credit scores and inaccurate information.
While reading the New York Times yesterday, it was interesting to see that having to tussle with the credit reporting industry is becoming a more widespread issue. (free registration required.)
Mr. Graham, 41, who lives in Oxford, Mich., and owns a business making foot and ankle braces, learned how hard it can be to clean up one's credit history, even when it is soiled in error.Sometimes the dispute is over a small sum. Other cases may involve identity theft or something as ludicrous as being listed as dead. (It happens.) But once bad information is on file, removing it can be difficult.