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Smart Spending blog - The best money-saving tips on the Web, featuring MSN Money's Karen Datko, Donna Freedman, Teresa Mears and the best of other sites.
Smart Spending combines the best money-saving tips from MSN Money and the rest of the Web. Our team of experts on stretching dollars:
  • Karen DatkoKaren Datko, lead blogger, is a veteran journalist in small-town Montana, where her mortgage is $310 a month.
  • Teresa MearsTeresa Mears is a veteran writer in Florida. She doesn't clip coupons, but she does shop at Goodwill.
  • Donna FreedmanDonna Freedman, our "Living With Less" columnist, is a student, freelance writer and handywoman in Washington.
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Californians aren't the only ones saddled with higher college costs.

Posted by Karen Datko on Friday, November 20, 2009 5:42 PM

A 32% increase in tuition approved by the University of California regents is being met with student protests -- and arrests -- throughout the system.

 

It’s the most stunning development we've yet seen as many states, struggling with sagging revenues, continue to cut funding for higher ed. Consider this: State support  per student in the UC system is half what it was in 1990, a university official said.

We can’t blame students for being upset, considering what college will cost in the UC system. The Los Angeles Times reports:

The gratuity was mandatory for large parties, but what if the service stinks?

Posted by Karen Datko on Friday, November 20, 2009 1:38 PM

Bizarre story of the week: Two restaurant patrons were arrested on a charge of theft when they refused to pay a $16 mandatory tip that was part of their bill.

 

College student Leslie Pope told a TV reporter that the service was so bad at the Bethlehem, Pa., establishment that she had to get the table’s silverware and napkins and walk to the bar to refill her soda. An hour after the group of eight ordered chicken fingers and other bar grub, the food arrived.

The menu says an 18% tip is included in the bill for parties of six or more. The tip on their bill amounted to $16.35 (inexplicably higher than 18%).

 

NBC Philadelphia reports:

After the $73 bill came, the group paid for food, drinks, and tax but refused to pay the tip. After explaining the bad service to the bartender in charge, Pope claimed he took their money and called police. The couple was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car. 

The Dough Roller explains why this approach to retirement savings works for him.

Posted by Karen Datko on Friday, November 20, 2009 11:35 AM

This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.

 

Last week my family had dinner with good friends of ours. After dinner our conversation turned to investing. Our friends told us about a money manager they were going to use to manage a small portion of their investment portfolio. The wife was fed up with the buy-and-hold investment strategy, she told us, and was looking to become more aggressive with their investments. I cringed.

 

The money manager charges 2% of invested assets and regularly takes short positions (bets against the market). He is also partial to ProShares, a mutual fund that uses leverage to boost returns (and losses!), as if investing weren’t risky enough.

Anyway, the wife’s basic beef with long-term investing strategies was that the market over the past 10 years had failed to produce positive returns. In her view, the market goes up and down, but in the end, finishes right where it started. One might say the market is "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Discount coffee and chocolate for shoppers, plus Quiznos coupons.

Posted by Teresa Mears on Friday, November 20, 2009 11:17 AM

We don’t have too many new Friday food deals and freebies this week. Perhaps the restaurant management thinks we’re all too busy at home cooking. If you want to go out, do check your local restaurants for Thanksgiving deals.

Some of last week’s freebies and deals are still valid. If you’re traveling, don’t forget you can get free Wi-Fi at airports during the holidays. And, Bass Pro Shops and other chain stores have ongoing free craft workshops for kids.

 

Here are a few new food deals:

When times are tight, small luxuries feel -- or taste -- particularly swell.

Posted by DonnaFreedman on Friday, November 20, 2009 11:03 AM

This week has been a series of minor irritants, including but not limited to constant rain, leaky apartment house windows, 52 pages of really dense course reading, a hot freelance deadline, and making the 50-minute trip to campus one day only to find that the class had been canceled. (It was pouring that day, too.)

Haunting just about every waking minute is the fact that the undergraduate thesis that's due in mid-December is nowhere close to being done.

Once my wet shoes squished across the threshold on Thursday evening I wanted to lie down and scream, as some of my relatives might say. Instead, I ordered takeout.

That is very unlike me. And you know what? It was sooo worth it.

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