Smart Money Daily

Celebrity Foreclosures - How Can it Happen?

Two big celebrities faced foreclosure this week, as both Ed McMahon and Evander Holyfield joined the more than one million Americans being sucked under by the dive in real estate values.

Since we idolize and fanaticize about the live’s of the rich & famous, is there a financial reality lesson here?

Ed McMahon

Ed McMahon: Well, if you spend more money than you make, you know what happens. And it can happen. You know, a couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that. And, you know, things happen. You want everything to be perfect, but that combination of the economy, I have a little injury, I have a situation. And it all came together.

Pam McMahon: I think over the years, you know, it’s just a kind of a combination of maybe Ed working so hard and not kind of looking at proper management, which happens a lot. … Because you’re a celebrity, people think you have a lot more than you have. And you always want to take great care of all of your friends and your family and everybody, and you do. And you don’t, and I think, you know, we didn’t keep our eye on the ball. We made mistakes.

King: And are they foreclosing?

Pam McMahon: Yes, they are. …

From Larry King.

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What’s In Your Wallet? Probably Cocaine!

You know how you always feel a little uneasy going through airport security, even though you know you didn’t do anything and there isn’t really any possible why that you could be guilty of any of the myriad of crimes they are attempting to detect?

Well, not so fast…your wallet may just contain enough coke to get those specially trained dogs to turn their noses in your direction and give their handlers the magic wink that lands you in the slammer!

Up To 80% of All US Bills Contain Trace Amounts of Cocaine

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Foreclosure Auctions: How to Buy a Foreclosed Home Part Three

Buying foreclosed real estate at auction is becoming more lucrative in recent months, but there are many things about the process that buyers should understand before they walk into the fire. It’s not quite as simple as just going into an auction and bid on a home. There is a laundry list of things that you must do in order to set yourself up for the auction process.

Finding out the when and where
The first step is obviously to find out when and where the foreclosure auctions of your interest are going to be. There are a few different ways to do this. The most traditional way is to check the newspaper each Sunday, as banks usually take out advertisements to let people know about auctions. Today’s internet age has changed the way banks operate, though. More times than not, they will advertise on the internet. One good website to check in order to find these auctions is E-Foreclosure Search

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Six True Stories of people Who Found Cash and Turned it In. Would You Do the Same?

Being smart with your money isn’t only about investing and budgeting. It’s also about getting to know your attitudes, beliefs and values around money. Not to judge them as right or wrong, so much as just to become familiar with where our choices are coming from. Most of us have considered the question “If you found a big bag of cash on the road, and no one was around to see, what would you do?” Here are 6 true stories of people who faced a situation like that, and the choices they made. What would you have done?

Found Cash Case 1: Woman finds $65,000 in cash sitting in the road.

In early October, Debbie Cole, 53, was walking to the break room at Pinellas County Florida’s Solid Waste Operations, when she happened to glance at the truck scale area where trucks weigh their garbage, and saw a clear plastic bag with a red stripe at the top, that had been run over several times. When she picked it up, she saw several stacks of cash, bundled and with labels such as “$10,000″. After being dazed a few seconds, she called her supervisor, who called her supervisor, who called the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies picked up the bag. The grand total was $65,000. They were able to trace it back to Loomis, the armored car and money handling company. The money had fallen from an armored car that had passed through about 30 minutes before Cole found the bag.

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Hiding Money and Valuables at Home: Tips and Tricks

I remember my grandmother used to keep three $100 bills in an envelope, and she’d put three marks on the outside, and keep it in a drawer. I never was convinced that was the best way to hide money in your house. But what are the best strategies for hiding valuables in your house, to keep them burglar-safe?

Over at Personal Finance Advice.com , there was an article some months back about the best place to hide money, based on a conversation with a burglar. The article had a few tips I wouldn’t have thought of:

1. Burglars want to get out ASAP, but they’ll generally keep looking till they find something, so the most ingenious hiding place could also result in more of your house being torn up. The burglar suggested hiding your real valuables and cash in a good place, but leaving somewhere more obvious, like in a drawer, $100- $300, so that the burglar gets enough to convince them that’s probably about all there is, and it’s enough to leave feeling like they’ve had not too bad of a haul.

2. Leave in an obvious drawer a fake list of Safety Deposit Box items that includes things like cash, jewelry, deeds, etc. make it appear there isn’t much left that could be in the house.

3. Don’t hide cash inside things that are themselves valuable. The burglar once robbed a house, and found no cash but did take an old stereo. The stereo didn’t work- and a look inside showed why not- it had a big wad of cash stuffed inside it.
Another blog with some tips about where to hide cash at home is Thesimpledollar.com.

They offer some good suggestions, including:

1. In an envelope taped to the bottom of a kitchen shelf
2. In a watertight plastic bottle or jar in the tank on the back of your toilet
3.  In an envelope at the bottom of your child’s toybox
4. In a plastic baggie in the freezer
5. Inside of an old sock in the bottom of your sock drawer
6. In an empty aspirin bottle in the bathroom (bundled up with a rubber band around it)
7. In the pocket of a particular shirt in your closet
8. In a “random” folder in your filing cabinet
9. In an envelope taped to the bottom of your cat’s litter box
10. In an envelope taped to the back of a wall decoration

The burglar from the first blog might well disagree with at least one of the recommendations above: inside a DVD case. Burglars might grab that case, especially if it’s a movie they like.

If you do decide to keep some cash hidden at home, two common tendencies are 1. to keep using it, and not getting around to replace it for a while, and 2. to completely forget about it. So you might want to have a note on the fridge that says $1000 cash is hidden in toilet. Or maybe take a trick from my grandmother and have the note say III toilet.

Happy hiding.