Personal Finance and Investing

The IRS regulation requires banks and credit card processors to report gross receipts on form 1099K. This form is sent to the merchant as well as the Internal Revenue Service. Unfortunately for merchants, penalties can be assessed if the legal name of their business does not precisely match up with the information on file with the bank or processor. Therefore, it is essential for merchants to verify that their TIN number, which may either be an Employee Identification Number for Social Security Number, matches up with what the IRS recognizes as their business name.

Perhaps you acquired your pets before your financial circumstances changed. Perhaps you’re self-employed and having a low month. We’ve been on our journey to get debt-free for two and a half years now, following the “baby steps” from Dave Ramsey.  The Ramsey program says you only carry $1,000 for emergencies.  Which is fine, until your cat gets sick.
That’s exactly what happened. My cat Andrew got sick a few months ago. Naturally, on a holiday.

The cat was obviously in danger, and had vomited on every surface in my house, was rapidly loosing weight and acting strangely. There was n

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According to the rules set forth by the major credit card brands and the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, all merchants that store, process or transmit cardholder data must be PCI compliant. On June 30, 2012, the process for validating compliance via a Self-Assessment becomes significantly more rigorous for MasterCard’s Level 2 merchants: Self-Assessments must be completed by employees that have attended PCI SSC Internal Security Assessor training and have passed the associated accreditation program annually.

“MasterCard’s guidelines were first published in 2009, but many merchants have yet to send employees to ISA training. Read more…

PFM, OFM and Online Banking— managing your finds online is all the rage these days, and if you want to get a handle on the big picture that is your money, you really should consider adding these to your personal finance repertoire. I’ve been using the Mint.com OFM now for about two years, and I’m a big fan.

Here’s how to navigate the world of online financial tools to find the one that is right for you.

Know the terms:

PFM: Personal Financial Management

OFM: Online Financial Management

Aggregator: pulls information from many sources to display them all in one place. (A non-

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