When your tax preparer drops the ball with your return, they’re supposed to fix it and pay the extra amount, right? At least that’s what H&R Block promises.

Well, I found out the hard way that even when the tax prep giant lives up to its “Peace of Mind” guarantee, you can still get stuck writing a big check to Uncle Sam.

Here’s what happened: A few years back, I decided to have H&R Block do my taxes. I had always been kind of old-school about filing my taxes before then — no TurboTax for me, just pencil and paper — simply because my taxes just hadn’t been all that complicated. Maybe I’d change jobs during the year and have multiple W-2s. Perhaps I’d make a donation to some disaster relief fund.

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Savings Accounts and Money Market Rates provided by 8 December 2011 While the number of options available to 401k participants has risen over the past decade, these same retirement plan users may see their options start to shrink.

Data provided by consulting firm Aon Hewitt indicates that the median number of investment options available in these retirement plans has risen from 10 in 2001 to 18 currently available, MarketWatch reports.

Some companies are bucking this trend and starting to offer fewer options to their employees, according to the media outlet. The number of choices is dwindling because these firms are worried that all the options might make the retirement plan participants more likely to err. Read full post…

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Have you always struggled to find the right home based business or the right coach? Though there are plenty of home based business opportunities floating around amidst a lot of hype, it is difficult to locate one that really fulfils all of the tall promises it makes. My hunch is you might have also passed by some MLM gimmicks OR some others might have made the going tough.

The very reason you are reading this page is, you have had enough of the BS! Here is a legitimate home based business opportunity that actually lets you build your fortune with less startup cost and very less effort. Unbelievable as it may sound, at the Prosperity Automated System (PAS) is a real massive money maker from actual sales.

PAS proves that Internet Marketing in direct sales has come of age generating real good cash.

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Last year one of my largest expenses was one I never saw. I didnt get a bill for it. And I didnt have to pay it, at least not directly. But it still cost me a small fortune. Im talking about investment costs in the form of mutual fund expenses.

Mutual fund expenses present two big problems. First, because you dont actually get billed for them, its easy to forget about them. The cost comes out of your investments, so you never have to write a check for the expense. If you invest in mutual funds through a 401k, IRA or taxable account, you have the same problem.

The second problem, and the one we are going to look at today, is that even small expenses can add up over time. Because we save and invest for retirement over several decades, even half a percent can have a huge impact on our retirement.

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It’s a buyer’s market in the world of real estate right now, and many of my late-20s peers are itching to snatch up a house with prices and interest rates so low. But most of us either don’t have enough savings or enough credit history to qualify. According to data from the National Association of Realtors, that means that first-time homebuyers are becoming rarer in the market, and those who do buy are turning to their parents for help.

“First-time home buyers fell to a 37 percent market share in the past year from a record high 50 percent in the 2010 study,” said NAR President Ron Phipps in a release accompanying the November 2011 study. “Although last year’s findings were boosted by the home buyer tax credit, long-term survey averages show that four out of 10 buyers are typically first-time buyers. T

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Savings Accounts and Money Market Rates provided by 12 December 2011 Europe took a major step toward resolving some of its debt woes late Thursday and into early Friday. According to The New York Times, the European Union has agreed to change its treaty to require a greater degree of fiscal responsibility from member nations.

The new treaty requires countries in the European Union to limit their deficits to no more than 0.5 percent of their gross domestic product, though that rule can be bent under certain circumstances. It will also impose penalties for those who break that rule and require a greater degree of information sharing.

The treaty did not garner full support of all member nations, with the U.K. Read full post…

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