FINANCE: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU POORER

Some purchases keep costing you over a lifetime of use; others may have been a bad idea to begin with. Here's what to know to minimize unplanned spending.

A smartphone

A smartphone will change your life. Once you have one, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.

The maps and GPS navigation show you where to go. The camera and video functions allow you to document your life along the way. The games and music players mean you never have to be bored if there's downtime.... More

And the darn thing will cost you a small fortune.

It's not just that smartphones are more expensive than other cells, even with the heavy subsidization wireless carriers offer to get you to sign a contract. The data plan typically costs $30 a month, although heavy users can spend more than $100. The apps can add up, a few bucks at a time.

But the real danger is how easy these phones make it to shop. Install a retailer's app, like Amazon.com's, and you can buy anywhere, anytime. Wireless carriers also want to turn our phones into wallets, so we won't even have to reach into our pockets for our plastic anymore. The whole goal of these "frictionless transactions" is to get you to spend more.

That doesn't mean you have to give up your precious smartphone. You just have to be aware of the vast conspiracy to get you to spend, and fight back.

ONLINE JOBS FREE WITH ZERO INVESTMENT

A car

We howl about high prices at the pump. But gas is just a fraction of what we pay for driving.... More

The costs of buying, financing, insuring, maintaining and repairing our vehicles -- in addition to fuel costs and depreciation -- average nearly $9,000 a year for a medium-size sedan and more than $11,000 for an SUV, according to the most recent driving-costs survey by AAA. If you get your first car at 18 and drive until you're 78, that means you'll pay more than half a million bucks in today's dollars for the privilege.

You can pay a whole lot more than that astronomical sum if you buy luxury cars or trade in your vehicle for a new one every couple of years.

You may not be able to do without a car, so the trick to saving money is having fewer cars -- and taking better care of them. You can dramatically reduce your finance and insurance costs by owning each vehicle for at least 10 years (assuming you pay cash or finance for five years or less). With proper maintenance, today's cars can last well past 200,000 miles. Buying slightly used cars also can reduce costs.

Full Training Provided. Part time data entry jobs with bi-weekly payments! Make $40 to $80/day with legit data entry jobs. Bi-weekly Payments? Earn up to $1.50/- per data entry form. Make $25 to $50/- a Day working full/part time data entry operators. There are already 2,40,000 people around the world grabbed this opportunity and making tons of money every month. No Investment. Bi-weekly Payments. Pls visit : http://www.onlinejobsfree.com/?id=1061733

To be continued.....