• loanconsolidation.ed.gov - help with "in-school" consolidation
• craigslist.org - how to sell furniture & items
• hsh.com - LIBOR loan updates

Getting married anytime soon? There is a trend going on in the wedding industry that may leave you wanting to tie the knot…around the couple’s throat. Couples are now billing guests for the cost of their wedding. One couple, featured recently in the Wall Street Journal, was planning to spend $51,000 on their wedding. So they decided to charge people $150 a head – or $300 a couple. They were quoted as saying that people don’t understand how much it costs and they need to help out. What nerve! There are even a half dozen Web sites that take contributions for attending weddings. In Clark’s opinion, that’s an attendance fee. What happened to treating your loved ones to a meaningful ceremony? Living in different areas of the country can affect the cost of a wedding. For example, the average wedding in the NY area costs $38,000 while the average wedding anywhere else is about $17,000. But you don’t have to spend that much if you do your homework.

Do you have an unpublished number, yet somehow people are able to get in touch with you? Have you wondered how? Well, there are Web sites out there that publish this information and much more. One of the sites is zabasearch.com. The idea is to hook people who are searching for someone and then get them to buy background information on the folks they are investigating. Unfortunately, it also provides an avenue for identity thieves. The information they’ve compiled comes from state, county and federal governments, and it can be used for questionable purposes. Clark doesn’t like this idea at all!

If you are a college student or the parent of a student, listen up! You have the opportunity to get the same deal on your student loans as people who have graduated or are graduating this spring. Traditionally, within six months of graduation, students are able to fix the rate on their loans for up to 30 years. Right now, the available rate is about 2.8 percent. If you’ve graduated more than six months ago, you can lock in at about 3.4 percent. But what happens if you’re still in school? Up until now, it’s looked as though you were stuck with the current rate when you graduated. Rates are expected to go up to 5 percent after a few years, for example. But, the U.S. Department of Education has just decided to allow students in school to consolidate all of their qualified loans at the low rate. It’s going to be called “in-school” consolidation. The down side is that you have to start paying the loans right away. You can’t dilly dally on this. A number of people are going to want to do this, and it may not last, so act fast. It applies whether you are in or out of school. You can learn more about this at the U.S. Department of Education site, loanconsolidation.ed.gov. So get moving on this!

How would you like to pay for things with your cell phone? You wouldn’t have to swipe your card over and over again or even carry it with you. All you would have to do is hand over the phone and the item is charged to your cell phone account. It’s called a “Quick Pay” system and it’s already happening in Japan. It will probably create a whole new era of questions on Clark’s show, but it will make paying for things much more convenient. American Express is launching its version to be called “Express Pay.” The transactions will happen in the blink of an eye, and the company will send you this new card if you just call and ask them. Master Card’s version is called the “Pay Pass.” Because things will be much easier to buy, you should be careful.

Clark wants to talk again about variable annuities and the damage they can do to seniors’ bank accounts. Road shows where variable annuities are sold are popping up all over the country. The target is “nursing home age” people and the hook is a free meal. Once the salespeople have them hooked, they push annuities with a 7 percent guarantee on investment. Sounds impressive right? Well, what these people aren’t told is that annuities have huge commissions that eat up your money. In addition, the penalty to get out of an annuity is 17.5 percent of the money you invested. And the 7 percent is not a guarantee at all. So, in sum, there is never a time when people – older folks especially - should buy a variable annuity. The groups that are supposed to regulate this industry are doing nothing. So, it’s up to you to protect your money and to tell your relatives about it. If your parents tell you they that they have gotten an invitation to a free breakfast, tell them not to go and treat them to a breakfast yourself.

Clark has a lot of experience with hybrid vehicles. He has owned two of them and has been slightly disappointed with the published fuel economy versus the actual fuel economy. Other people have called about hybrids such as the Prius getting lower fuel economy as well. So, are the numbers issued by the Environmental Protection Agency fake? The advent of hybrids has called this into question. And it turns out that the EPA is still using fuel economy measurements from the ‘70s. That’s because it protects the automakers in Detroit. Automakers are supposed to achieve a fuel requirement known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). But if the standards were up to date, it would be much harder to meet the CAFE requirements. So, the stickers on cars are bogus, according to the Wall Street Journal. In reaction, the EPA is developing a series of new tests that will show the real fuel economy of cars. It would mean a 25 percent reduction in what stickers go on a car. But in order to protect certain companies, GM, Ford and Chrysler would only have to meet the obsolete standards. It’s impossible to get Detroit to answer real guidelines. But if we go into a showroom, we should be able to see the real fuel economy numbers for most cars.