Payday loans are a quick way to raise cash when you’re in a bind. But with an interest rate of 300-500%, there are more cost-effective options out there. Scott Gamm talks about how payday loans cost our economy $1 billion every year in this segment on Fox News Channel:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2360426784001/

Order MORE MONEY, PLEASE: The Financial Secrets You Never Learned in School from these retailers:

Breezy, concise and accessible, Scott Gamm’s new book MORE MONEY, PLEASE: The Financial Secrets You Never Learned in School (Plume/Penguin, April 30, 2013), walks readers through a range of crucial financial topics including:

• How to find a bank that doesn’t slam you with fees
• Why your FICO score is way more important than your GPA…and how to get the highest score
• Strategies to finance college without getting into tons of debt
• How to negotiate so you never pay full price for anything

 (Photo credit: Cubosh)

Unless you track every penny you spend, you’d be surprised how much of your daily spending goes to waste. Whether it’s walking past a store and insisting on buying a new pair of sneakers or stumbling across a sweet deal on a trip to Ireland on one of those daily deal sites – you know you’ve done it before – and here’s how to stop:

1. Know the layout of the store

We tend to overspend at the grocery store. Have you noticed that the staple items (milk, bread, eggs) are usually located towards the back of the store? This way, you have to walk through the entire store just to get to what you need – and while you’re at it, you pass tons of items along the way, which makes it more likely for you to throw some items you don’t need into your cart. This is the heart of impulse spending!

Also – items on the shelves that are eye-level tend to be a bit more expensive, since the stores know that it’s so much easier to grab an item mid-level on the shelf, rather than having to reach for items at the top and bottom of the shelf.

2. Don’t get distracted in the grocery store

The less time you spend in the grocery store, the less chance you’ll start buying items you don’t need. First, don’t shop with a shopping cart, because you might feel tempted to fill up the cart – use a basket instead.

Also – listen to your own music to the store. You may not realize this, but stores will play different types of songs with different beats, depending on the how busy the store is at a given time, just to keep you in the store longer.

[Pre-order Scott's upcoming book, MORE MONEY, PLEASE: The Financial Secrets You Never Learned in School]

3. Stay away from daily deal sites

Have you perused the deals on sites like Groupon, Gilt and LivingSocial? The offers can be pretty tempting. From clothing, restaurants to trips to Europe to spa treatments, you can find a deal for just about everything on these social couponing sites.

Unless in you’re in the market for something specific – maybe a new jacket or a deal for a restaurant in your area – stay off these sites. Think about it: if you stumble upon a sweet deal on a gym membership, you might feel tempted to take advantage of the deal. What if you never went to the site – would joining a gym even be on your mind?

4. Unsubscribe

Any time you subscribe to a store’s email list, they’re going to flood your inbox with sales and special events to try and lure you into the store. So if you get an email that the store is offering 25% off dress shoes, but you already have three pairs, that email might prompt you to stop by the store to try and purchase yet another pair of shoes that you don’t need.

Unsubscribe from emails that will tempt you to spend money – it’s that simple. If a store is having a sale, you don’t want to know!

5. Say NO to department store credit cards

Another tool that causes us to spend money is having a wallet filled with department store credit cards. With these cards, the retailer will give you a 10-15% discount when you buy something in the store using the card.

But now when you walk into the store, every item you want to buy will seem even more attractive and tempting thanks to this discount.

6. Stick to cash

You’ve heard this many times, but when you think about it, it makes total sense. Paying for items via credit card doesn’t allow us to psychologically realize exactly how much money we’re spending. There are no boundaries with credit cards (besides the actual credit limit, but many times we don’t remember what our credit limit is). The cashier swipes the card and gives it right back to you so you can keep spending. With cash, you’re actually removing something tangible from your wallet.

Shelling out five twenty dollar bills for a $100 pair of jeans just might make you reconsider that purchase.

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Tax Time (41/366) (Photo credit: 427)

Taxes are due next Monday, April 15th – but you knew that already, right? If you’re expecting a sizable tax refund over the next few weeks, that’s not necessarily a good thing (more on why in a moment). And many Americans are expecting such a refund, since the average check from Uncle Sam is expected to reach $2,800 this year, according to Capital One’s Taxes and Savings Survey.

Regardless of the amount of your refund, instead of throwing the money away on a useless vacation, it’s time to adjust your financial priorities and make smart decisions once that check hits your mailbox. Here’s how:

1. Emergency Savings

We know how important it is to have an emergency savings fund. But a survey from Bankrate showed that 25% of consumers have more credit card debt than emergency savings! Regardless of whether or not you have credit card debt, you need to have $1,000 in your emergency savings account, as soon as possible for unexpected financial hurdles. Once you get your refund, take $1,000 of it and throw it into a savings account. Done!

2. Tackle your debt

After you’ve built up at least $1,000 in an emergency savings fund, all eyes are on your credit cards. If you pay double the minimum payment on your cards, no matter how much debt you have, you’ll be debt-free in roughly two years. To get out of debt even faster, pay triple the minimum payment each month on the credit card that has the highest interest rate, rather than the highest balance, since this is the card that’s costing you the most money.

3. Up your retirement savings

If you haven’t opened up a Roth IRA, do it now! It takes less than 10 minutes via online discount brokerage firms like Vanguard and T. Rowe Price. The maximum contribution limits for the Roth IRA in 2013 is $5,500 if you’re under age 50 and $6,500 for those over age 50. The Roth IRA, unlike the 401(k), allows you to contribute money that you’ve already paid taxes on – and you can withdraw your original investments at any time without penalties or fees. If you can, throw your entire tax refund into a Roth IRA, assuming you have no credit card debt and you have an emergency savings fund.

[Pre-order Scott's upcoming book, MORE MONEY, PLEASE: The Financial Secrets You Never Learned in School]

4. Make your tax refund work for you

Look around your home to see where you can make some worthwhile investments that will pay for themselves over time. For example, installing and using a programmable thermostat will save you $100 per year on your energy bills. The device costs under $100 and even if you hired someone to install it, the savings in energy costs will make this a sound investment.

Or, you might want to replace an old furnace, which may cost a few thousands dollars, but after tax rebates and a credit from your utility company – and not to mention the savings from lower heating bills – the initial investment will be paid off in a few years.

5. Invest in yourself

Now that you’ve received your refund, it’s time to invest in you. Do you need new work clothes? Is the screen cracked on your smartphone – maybe it’s time for an upgrade? Investing in new clothes or technology are not frivolous expenses. They’re going to enable you to perform better at work – which will help make you more money. Don’t be afraid to also invest in courses or continuing education in your field to make you better at your job or that put you in a position to get a raise.

6. If your tax refund is too big….

If you’re receiving a tax refund (it doesn’t matter how much), that means you’re paying the government too much money throughout the year. You’re letting them hold your money and you’re allowing them to earn the interest. Instead, you want to keep more of that money in your wallet, that way you can earn the interest. This is especially important if you think you’ll feel tempted to spend your tax refund all at once on a vacation once you receive the refund. Having that tax refund divided up throughout the year might make you more inclined to save that money. To adjust your withholdings, file a new W-4 form with your employer – the IRS has a withholdings calculator on IRS.gov.

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Follow HelpSaveMyDollars.com on Facebook and Twitter.

Check out the video at this link: http://video.foxnews.com/v/2253299426001

Scott stopped by Fox News Channel to talk about why Wall Street doesn’t care about the sequester and how these budget cuts will (not) impact average Americans. Check out the video at this link:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2202939469001

(Photo credit: Thomas Hawk)

We haven’t seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average rally this much since October 2007, two months before the recession officially started. And who knew one year later all hell would break loose with some of the largest banks and insurance companies in the world having to resort to the U.S. government to bail them out. We remember the 2008 crisis – and we’re still struggling to recover – though some recent economic data, along with strong company earnings, are driving stocks higher – here’s what you need to know:

1. Companies are making do with fewer employees: Remember five years ago when there were a few coworkers that really didn’t contribute much and you sometimes wondered what they were doing all day? Well, those days are over because post-recession means post-layoffs. Don’t you also remember when we lost nearly 800,000 jobs in January 2009? The recession caused companies to lay-off workers left and right. Now, four years later, companies have learned how to maintain and even grow profits without hiring anyone new since the 2008-2009 lay-offs. Scary, isn’t it? Part of why these companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (which, is a basket of 30 major companies) are doing so well is because fewer employees means fewer costs, which means more profits.

2. We’re seeing some strong econ data: We had a terrible GDP report during the fourth quarter of 2012, which showed that our economy shrunk by 0.1%. It may not sound like a lot, but we haven’t seen a declining GDP since the days of the recession. And the official definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, which is why many economists started to worry a few months ago. But those numbers were revised higher last week, actually showing a growth of 0.1% during the fourth quarter of 2012. Now we’re seeing economists say, well that’s not even close to where we need to be. And that’s true! But can we at least sit back and feel a little relief that we can now say that we haven’t seen any negative GDP since the recession?

[Pre-order Scott's upcoming book, MORE MONEY, PLEASE: The Financial Secrets You Never Learned in School]

3. This is “good” for your retirement savings, depending on your age: If you’re retiring within the next five years, then it actually doesn’t matter what the stock market does, because you’ve got so much time on your hands. If you’re investing the right way, which is dollar cost averaging, where you contribute the same amount of money each month into a retirement account, then you have nothing to fear. While you’re investments will likely be up now, even if the market descends back to a more realistic level, the money you’re contributing every month to your retirement accounts will buy more “stuff” – more shares of stock – more funds – since everything will be cheaper. This will all come in handy for when the market increases, because you’ll own more of that increase.

4. Remember the upcoming anniversary: We’re talking about March 9, 2009, when the Dow bottomed at 6,547 – well, now it’s at 14,275. So you might be thinking now’s not the time to get into the market. Well, it can be if you’re looking at this from a long-term lens. If you don’t need the money you’re investing until 20-30 years from now, then start investing, if you haven’t already. Jump in! Open up that Roth IRA account and get the retirement savings ball moving. Come on, you’re missing out on the compounding interest – it is powerful, trust me!

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Scott Gamm appeared on Fox News Channel to discuss some ways to save money at restaurants and how to score the best deals when shopping online. Check out the video at the link below:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2155535321001/

Follow HelpSaveMyDollars.com on Facebook and Twitter.