pileofcrapola

Hand warmers are great for those cold winter days when you just have to be outside. Slip them into your gloves or pockets to keep your hands nice and toasty. You can make your own DIY version with stuff you probably have in the kitchen right now.

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If you're a renter, renters insurance is a must. It doesn't cost much and it makes sure your property is covered in case something unfortunate happens, like a fire or robbery. The Simple Dollar's Andrew Hansen breaks down how to choose the best policy, and which provider comes out on top.

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Don't click play on this video yet or you'll ruin the surprise! First, try this quick test to find out if you're an expert at deception or not.

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You have to face facts. Carpets are kind of nasty. They accumulate dust and debris, hold smells, and just get generally dingy with use. You can have them cleaned (or rent a cleaner), but that's not something most of us do often. In between cleanings, try refreshing your carpets with this DIY mix.

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Most of us probably have an old set of corded phones sitting in a box on a shelf somewhere. Even if you don't, you can find them super cheap. This fun little project, which is great for doing with kids, turns a pair of those corded phones into a DIY intercom.

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A good multitool packs a number of tools into a small device that's easy to carry with you. This DIY multi-key takes that idea and expands it to carry your keys, as well.

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Dear Lifehacker,
Like most people, I get hungry sometimes between breakfast and lunch, or between lunch and quitting time. I don't want to starve myself, but I also don't want to just hit the vending machine and eat candy and chips. What can I nibble on that isn't unhealthy but doesn't require a kitchen to cook?

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Verizon FiOS is pretty awesome. But if you've never had it before, you might be surprised by a few things come installation day, especially if you live in an apartment or expect to be up and running in no time.

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UPDATED: Missing police reservist's truck seen in Manassas Inside NoVA Authorities now say they believe a missing police reservist from the Waynesboro area met with foul play and they are "gravely concerned" for his safety. Kevin Wayne Quick, 45, left his mother's home in Afton near Charlottesville on Jan. 31 to head to a ...

- A Utah lawmaker has proposed a bill that would prevent transgender students from using bathroom facilities of their choice, joining a debate playing out in a handful of other states sparked by a California law that broke new ground on transgender rights.

Giant Food is giving away free birthday cake at all 170 locations on Thursday, Feb. 6 in celebration of its 78th anniversary. Birthday celebrations and cake cutting will take place from 3 to 8 p.m.

We all deal with anxiety in some form or another, whether it's when you're pulled over by the cops or about to give a speech in front of a crowd. But for some, anxiety is a much stronger, more fearsome force—one that never goes away. But what is anxiety exactly, and what's going on in your mind (and your body) when anxiety strikes? How do you cope when it takes hold?

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Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!

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I did it. I went to a cocktail party where I didn't know anyone, and successfully chit-chatted for two hours. (Not to myself. I actually spoke with other people.) I have never been good at the kind of networking where you're supposed to walk into a room full of strangers and walk out with "connections."

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With Thanksgiving around the corner, you better know how to set the table if you're hosting. Whether you want formal or not, these infographics have got you covered.

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These days, you can track just about anything with the right device: how you move, sleep, drive, and even how you eat, giving us the opportunity to quantify...anything. But how much data do we really need, and at what point does this information cause more harm than benefit? I decided to track everything in my life and here's what I discovered.

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Small talk is pretty tough, both in practice and in principle. No one likes pointless conversation, but meeting new people is worthwhile, and networking is a valuable activity. So what do you do when you hate making small talk? According to Hannah Morgan, don't bother—ask questions instead. It's the fastest way to a real conversation.

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Listen, if you’re going to go around pretending you work for Walmart when really you’re just set on flashing your naughty bits at unsuspecting customers, you better believe you’ve got some pain heading your way. Because no one wants to see that, sir.

The Smoking Gun says a man acting like a Walmart worker walked up to a female shopper in a California Walmart Supercenter, and because he was helpful enough to point out where things were in the store, she figured he was an employee. Oh, but no.

“The Suspect then asked the Victim to look at something and exposed his genitals to the Victim,” investigators note in the report.

Her response was what any clearheaded shopper might do: She “immediately reacted by striking the Suspect in his exposed genitals,” police wrote.

While we don’t know if it was a kick, a hit or some other way of inflicting pain on that most sensitive of nethers, it seems her reaction did the trick — he immediately fled the scene and cops are on the lookout.

Walmart Flasher Flees After Female Victim Strikes Him In “Exposed Genitals” [The Smoking Gun]

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony today from Target’s chief financial officer about the massive data breach that hit the company during the holiday shopping season last year.

Target CFO John Mulligan mainly confirmed news we’ve already heard about the breach, including the scope, method, and timeline of the hack. He said he was unable to divulge detailed information because of the continuing forensic and criminal investigation into the attack.

Every member of the Judiciary Committee who spoke agreed: data breaches aren’t going away any time soon. Stolen credit card numbers are a lucrative business for the criminals who can sell and use them. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have warned of more major hacks on the near horizon.

So other than abandoning the 21st century and going exclusively back to cash, what is a nation full of consumers to do?

If there is a silver lining to the massive cloud of the recent data breaches, perhaps it is that US lawmakers and retailers are discussing making an overdue nationwide card security upgrade a reality at long last.

Mulligan yesterday published an opinion piece for The Hill calling for “smart” chip card adoption in the US, a point that he then reiterated extensively in his testimony today.

Where standard credit and debit cards keep all of their information encoded solely in the magnetic strip along the back, smartcards also have tiny chips embedded in them that encrypt the card’s information. The chips cut back on card fraud because their existence makes cards significantly harder to clone: even if you get all of the information from a card’s magnetic strip, as through a skimmer, without the chip actually being present the card data is useless in a physical transaction.

Technically called EMV cards, chip-enabled smartcards have been in use in much of the rest of the developed world for years. The UK converted over to the chip-and-PIN system nearly a decade ago, where all credit cards are chip-enabled and transactions also require the purchaser to enter a PIN to continue.

“The rest of the world does it” is clearly never enough reason for the United States to do anything. If it were, we’d measure our temperatures in Celsius and our weights in kilograms. Still, vague motions toward bringing the US to chip-enabled cards have been floating around for ages.

American banks have tested the system for international travelers since 2011, and back in 2003, Target tried to bring chip technology to their own Target-branded REDcard. The retailer ended the experiment three years later due to high costs made not worthwhile because chip-reading technology was not being adopted at any other large retailer.

However, it looks like this time, chip-and-signature or chip-and-PIN cards might finally be making actual inroads in the United States. During the hearing, several senators called attention to the need for higher security in credit cards. Representatives from Neiman Marcus, Symantec, and Consumers Union also testified at the hearing, and all agreed that the increased security would help businesses and consumers alike.

Visa and MasterCard have planned milestones for EMV adoption in the United States in 2015 and 2017. Both companies have a series of liability shifts planned. The liability shifts push compliance by shifting the burden for the costs of fraudulent card use. After a liability shift at point-of-sale terminals, if your card info gets swiped from a non-EMV compliant cash register, the retailer will have to bear the loss–not the card issuer. That’s a strong incentive for retailers to upgrade their terminals.

Why has it taken so long to get the ball rolling on the move? For the same reason most systemic changes take so much time: they’re expensive to do, and they require a huge number of participants across industries–retailers, card issuers, the financial sector, information security–to work collaboratively, on the same timetable with the same goals.

Smart cards wouldn’t let retailers or consumers universally off the hook for constant vigilance; fraud can and does still happen. Point of sale terminals for chip-and-PIN cards in the UK have been tampered with, and large-scale fraud has happened. Additionally, the EMV system doesn’t help prevent fraudulent use of credit card data in online transactions; it only helps with physically stolen or cloned cards.

Still, as Mulligan noted, although fraud still happens, chip-enabled cards can make the rates drop significantly:

In the United Kingdom, where smart card technology is widely used, financial losses associated with lost or stolen cards are at their lowest levels since 1999 and have fallen by 67 percent since 2004, according to industry estimates. In Canada, where Target and others have adopted smart cards, losses from card skimming were reduced by 72 percent from 2008 to 2012, according to industry estimates.

During the hearing, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) noted that although the United States has roughly one quarter of all the world’s credit card transactions, we have half of the global incidences of credit card fraud.

Such a mismatch speaks to a definite need for more secure systems, and soon. Franken and other senators asked several pointed questions about October, 2015 as a timeframe for upgrading, wondering if the process could perhaps be expedited in any way.

For the millions of customers who have had their information compromised in 2013, and the millions more who probably still will in 2014, a 2015 upgrade can’t come soon enough.

Criminals continue to carry off the world’s tastiest, most comforting foods from grocery stores and distribution centers. The theft of eight boxes of frozen lobsters from a Safeway in Maryland is one of the smallest larcenies in the Global Comfort Food Crime Wave, but still adds up to thousands of dollars’ worth of seafood.

No, the suspects didn’t cram the crustaceans down their pants: this was a high-volume operation. Police say that one of the men loaded boxes of lobster in a cart, and the other came to fetch the cart and pushed it out the door.

The pair are also suspected of similar frozen seafood thefts from three other stores in Maryland. Police didn’t say how much the seafood taken in those thefts was worth.

Remember: if someone offers you seafood that “fell off a truck,” stay away. Actually, you shouldn’t be buying seafood from unfamiliar trucks in the first place.

Pair wanted for stealing seafood from grocery stores [ABC]

“I’m 60, and it’s the first time I don’t have to be anywhere.” So sayeth a mailman who decided that he’d retire in style and ditch his usual USPS duds in favor of a tuxedo on his last rounds. He’d been waiting for the big day for a long time, even setting up a countdown clock that’s been ticking off the days for the last six years.

“Today it showed zero — and a few hours,” the Sacramento man tells KXTV.com, adding that he started his career late at 35.

His customers are sad to see him go, saying things like “It’s such a sad day,” and “He’s such a friendly person — he takes the time to see what’s happening in real life.”

As for the choice of a spiffy tux for his last day, the mailman says he just wanted to celebrate the occasion.

“I wanted to go out in style because as much as I love all those guys and everybody out on those rounds, this is a big day,” he explained. “I’m ready for retirement.”

“I’m just a regular mailman,” he adds, perhaps in response to the camera crew following him on his rounds. “The only difference is today, I’m wearing a tux.”

Sacramento mailman retires in style [KXTV.com]

Gone are the days of going down to the local convenience store to buy a piece of hard candy with your well-earned dime. Now, kids could purchase 500 pieces of hard candy, because they are rolling in the dough when it comes to allowance.

A new report found that the number of parents offering more than $10 or $20 a week for allowance is on the rise, Reuters reports.

Meanwhile, the number of parents offering below $10 a week for allowance fell to 68.4% from 77.3% in 2011. On the flip side, 4% of families are giving their children between $41 to $50 per week. For a few lucky kids, there are the more than 1% of families that give between $91 to $100 per week. What, the what?

Stuart Ritter, a senior financial planner with T. Rowe Price — who conducted the Parents, Kids & Money Survey (PDF) —  said there are a few reasons higher allowances are cropping up: a better economy and sharing financial decisions with kids, such as paying for their own clothes.

Additionally, older children are also to blame for allowance inflation, Ritter says. The more typical $5 won’t get much for a 14-year-old these days.

Shelling out big bucks for your child’s allowance might not be doing much good when it comes to teaching your kid financial responsibility, Lewis Mandell, the former management dean at SUNY, says.

When reviewing financial literacy tests, Mandell found that kids with unconditional allowances tended to do the worst. He suggests parents tie chores and allowance together to show that money is valued and earned.

Parents should also stick to their guns when little Johnny comes home crying that little Bob gets enough allowance to buy the entire class happy meals.

Remember, you’re not a terrible parent if you only give your kid $10 a week in allowance, Mandell says.

Anyway, I’m going to go see if my 9-year-old cousin wants to buy me lunch.

Take Our Poll

$50 a week? Allowances keep climbing [Chicago Tribune]

Last summer, the Dept. of Education began the process of reviewing a new rule aimed at those educational institutions that failed to demonstrate their students could find gainful employment in the fields in which they had been trained. The for-profit college industry has managed to weaken the rule, but today more than 51 different groups — including advocates for consumers, veterans, and students — asked the President to help prevent this rule from becoming toothless.

The letter [PDF], signed by our own Consumers Union, cites the President’s own words from last August, in which he talked about big-ticket for-profit schools that get billions in federal money through student loans but have remarkably high dropout and unemployment/underemployment rates for their graduates.

“Students aren’t getting what they need to be prepared for a particular field,” explained the President at the time. “They get out of these for-profit schools loaded down with enormous debt. They can’t find a job. They default. The taxpayer ends up holding the bag. Their credit is ruined, and the for-profit institution is making out like a bandit. That’s a problem.”

In the months since Education began the process of refining the rule, which required all schools that get federal funding demonstrate they “prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation,” the for-profit college industry has managed to effect numerous changes that would weaken the rule.

“The changes would have made the regulation so weak on predatory colleges and so hard on low-cost, high-performing colleges that not a single negotiator voiced support for the Department’s last proposal,” reads the letter, which calls on the President to propose a stronger version of the rule in time for it to be finalized by the Nov. 1 deadline.

The letter addresses several failings of the current draft of the rule and minimum standards for what these groups believe the rule should include.

DROPOUT RATES AND OR LOAN REPAYMENT RATES
The current draft of the legislation only considers the employment and debt levels of graduates of a school. It does not take into account dropout rates or the debt levels of those students who do not finish their education during a given number of years.

“This is like measuring the success of a baseball team by counting only the games it won and ignoring the ones it lost,” the Center for Responsible Lending, one of the signers of the letter, explained back in September.

The new letter points out that, by the standards of the current draft of the rule, “programs where 99% of the students drop out with heavy debt” would still be allowed to continue receiving federal funding, as these dropouts and their debt are not taken into consideration.

In advance of these rules, and to paint a rosier public image of their graduates, some schools have been accused of “rewarding” students who do well and will graduate on time with retroactive scholarships. This effectively lowers their debt on graduation. While there’s no problem with providing incentive to good students, the concern is that the schools are attempting to manipulate their stats by saying to regulators, “Look, our graduates are not leaving school with mountains of debt.”

The current rule also only takes into account loan default rates, but the letter says this doesn’t consider the large number of student loan borrowers who are not in default but occasionally miss payments or need to make partial payments to avoid default.

PROGRAMS THAT AREN’T PREPARED TO TRAIN
It’s one thing if a former student can’t get a job in his or her field of training because their teachers weren’t very good; it’s another if that school takes thousands of dollars and its graduates are not allowed to even attempt to get a legitimate job in that field.

The letter gives the example of a dental assisting training program that receives federal funding but whose students didn’t receive the proper coursework (or the school lacks the proper accreditation) for its graduates to then take the required licensing exams.

“Subsidizing such programs misleads students, who trust the federal government to fund only worthwhile programs and is clearly inconsistent with the statutory requirement that all career education programs receiving federal funding ‘prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation,’” reads the letter.

BORROWER RELIEF
The current does allow for partial loan relief — relief that does not come out of taxpayers’ pockets — for students who borrowed to pay for schools that are deemed to be unfit for federal funds.

However, the letter’s authors state that these students should receive full loan relief — again, with all the money coming from the schools’ coffers — for loans taken out to pay for such unqualified programs.

“Providing full relief to all such students is not only fair, it also provides a more effective incentive for schools to improve their programs so they never have to provide such relief.

DEBT-TO EARNINGS RATIO
Part of how the draft rule determines a school’s worthiness to receive federal funds is the debt-to-earnings standards for its graduates. So if a school’s graduates consistently have a level of debt that is disproportionate to their income, the school risks losing its ability to get federal funding.

However the letter claims that the latest version of the rule is so weak that “literally thousands of programs with median and mean debt levels that exceed their graduates’ entire discretionary incomes would not fail the standards.”

JOB-PLACEMENT TRANSPARENCY
While the above topics represent the core of the authors’ concerns about the draft rule, the letter also discusses issues with misleading and inconsistent job-placement statistics used by colleges in their marketing.

“[T]he Department’s proposals do nothing to increase the accuracy or comparability of the job placement rates that schools advertise to students,” reads the letter. These claims — like “70% of our students find jobs in their field” — have been the subject of numerous lawsuits filed by former students and attorneys general around the country who claim that the stats used in some marketing materials are either misleading or flat-out false.

The state of California is currently suing Corinthian Colleges Inc. (operators of schools like Everest, Heald and WyoTech colleges) over these sorts of job-placement allegations.

Even when a school is not lying to applicants and students about placement rates, it’s hard to know what calculations are being used to arrive at these numbers. The letter points out that the only thing that seems to be a standard among the rates used by schools is that they exclude deceased students.

The following groups signed the letter addressed to President Obama:
AFL-CIO
The American Association of State Colleges
and Universities (AASCU)
American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Americans for Financial Reform
Association of the United States Navy (AUSN)
Center for Law and Social Policy
Center for Public Interest Law
Center for Responsible Lending
Children’s Advocacy Institute
Consumer Action
Consumers Union
Consumer Federation of California
Council for Opportunity in Education
Crittenton Women’s Union
East Bay Community Law Center
Generation Progress
Initiative to Protect Student Veterans
The Education Trust
The Institute for College Access & Success
Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Mississippi Center for Justice
National Association for Black Veterans, Inc. (NABVETS)
National Association for College Admission
Counseling National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients)
National Consumers League
National Education Association
The National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS)
National Women Veterans Association of America
New Economy Project (formerly NEDAP)
NYPIRG
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Public Advocates Inc.
Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts (PHENOM)
Public Citizen
Rebuild the Dream
Service Employees International Union
Student Veterans of America
United States Student Association
U.S. PIRG
Veteran Student Loan Relief Fund
Veterans Education Success
Veterans for Common Sense
VetJobs
VetsFirst, a program of United Spinal Association
League of United Latin American Citizens
Vietnam Veterans of America
MALDEF
Young Invincibles

Everyone loves an unexpected windfall, and no one more so, perhaps, than a collector of Motown paraphernalia. After buying some records at the estate sale of a musician who’d recently passed away, a Motowon Museum employee found he’d scored a bonus item included inside one of them: Marvin Gaye’s 1964 passport.

The man explained his lucky tale in last night’s episode of Antiques Roadshow, explaining that he’d originally dropped by the family home to pick up items to be donated to the museum. He later came back to the estate sale that weekend and grabbed a few albums for $0.50 or so each, with a few 45s going for only a quarter.

“When I got home, I was going through them and out of an album fell this passport,” the man recalled. “And so it literally fell into my hands.”

That lucky find is a valuable one indeed, as the appraiser says: “For insurance, I wouldn’t put less than $20,000 on the passport if you were to insure it.”

“Are you kidding me? I never would have thought,” the man replies. “I mean, I’m just shocked. I mean… wow. Oh gosh, thank you.”

Thank you, indeed. It’s not everyone who gets to hold the personal possession of a revered musician in his hands whenever he wants to [cut to scene of me shaking every record at every curb/garage/rummage sale in the near future].

1964 Marvin Gaye Passport [PBS.org]

If you were still paying attention after the first quarter of Sunday’s Super Bowl, and not in the kitchen preparing or gorging on snacks, you might have seen one of the few mildly amusing ads to air during the game. It featured a RadioShack being dismantled by various ’80s icons and emerging from the ashes as a relevant store that doesn’t just sell batteries and cables you can get much cheaper online. Well, according to a new report, the first part of that ad will soon be coming true for hundreds of Shack locations, except it won’t be Cliff Clavin and Hulk Hogan clearing the shelves.

The Wall Street Journal’s sources say that the Texas-based electronics retailer is planning to shutter 500 of its 4,500 stores in the months to come. No specific locations or even regions have been identified.

The company had previously said that it may close some locations, but with the idea that these stores would re-open in higher-traffic areas, thus leaving the total number of stores the same. However, the Journal story indicates that the closures would likely be more permanent.

Facing some $625 million in debt, RadioShack recently secured $835 million in loans that would get it out of the red and give it some money to revamp its brand and its stores.

RadioShack has made multiple efforts to shake its dated image, including a failed effort to get shoppers to refer to it as The Shack. The latest stab at changing its image involved dumping many of the older-generation products it had sold for decades to the DIY tech crowd.

As this recent viral sensation demonstrated, so much of what RadioShack used to sell has been replaced by multifunction smartphones.

Additionally, some of the retailer’s locations were briefly involved with Amazon, which used the RS stores as a place for customers. The company ditched that partnership back in Sept. 2013, saying it was no longer in line with RadioShack’s plans for the future.

While we appreciate — and maybe even had a giggle — at RadioShack’s self-effacing Super Bowl ad, we wonder if the retailer can compete against both online and larger big box retailers, all of whom carry the exact same products, at the same or lower prices.

There are some serious topics you can joke about: Life’s unavoidable death sentence? Hilarious. The frailty of man in the face a cold and unforgiving universe? Knee-slapping good fun. But naming a drink after the very serious, unfunny subject of date rape? Nope. Tell that to a bar in Spokane, Wa., where a new “Date Grape Kool-Aid” drink is now on the menu.

If this was just a publicity stunt to promote a new bar, well then consider yourself publicized, bar owners. But since the drink list was posted last Friday, critics have been calling the drink out for making light of what is a very serious problem, reports WXYL, with one group starting a Facebook page to boycott the bar.

Women who have been victims of rape and others against the questionable name have called for the bar to change the name, but the owner says the name is here to stay.

Not only that, but the bar reportedly bragged about selling 10 gallons of the drink on the same night protesters showed up to rally against the drink and ask for an apology.

The bar’s Facebook page posted an explanation that those who are upset, pointing to an Urban Dictionary definition of “Date Grape” as its inspiration, writing with the link, “For The Protesters, you simply had it all wrong.. now if you want to go into the technical debate about what a grape or wine is.. then your stretching way to far.. for the record here is a Urban Dictionairy:”:

Date Grape
When you and your loved one get drunk off of wine and end up hooking up.
Molly and I got drunk at Wine Bar last night. We went home and Date Graped eachother.

One Facebook commenter notes: “You actually used Urban Dictionary as a reputable source? That’s cute. Can we also start quoting five year olds as factual evidence?”

While the bar maintains that the rest of us just aren’t getting the joke, Kraft, which makes Kool-Aid, is not pleased about its product being used in such a drink.

“We at Kraft are appalled. Kool-Aid does not support or condone this drink, and it finds its name to be highly insensitive to a serious issue. This blatant misuse of the Kool-Aid trademark is offensive to so many, including us, and we are making it our top priority to address the situation ASAP,” said Kraft in a statement.

“Date Grape Kool-Aid” sparks outrage [WXYL.com]

A case of marketing brilliance or unfair stereotyping? That’s the question we have after the Food and Drug Administration announced the first anti-smoking campaign aimed at teens. The ads don’t highlight the serious health risks of smoking, such as emphysema or lung cancer, instead they depict yellow teeth and wrinkles.

On Tuesday the FDA announced a $115 million multimedia education campaign called “The Real Deal” that will show youth, ages 12 to 17, the true costs and health consequences of smoking by focusing on what really matters to them – their outward appearance, the Associated Press reports.

The advertisements will run in more than 200 markets throughout the United States beginning Feb. 11. The campaign, which is expected to last one year, will include ads on networks with high teen viewership, such as MTV, and in magazines, like Teen Vogue, as well as, on social media.

Officials with the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products say most teens understand the serious health risks associated with tobacco use – it’s still the leading preventable cause of death – but they don’t believe the long-term consequences will apply to them.

So showing a model with a few wrinkles around her lips, but an otherwise flawless appearance is going to stop teens from smoking?

The FDA appears to think so, calling the campaign a “compelling, provocative and somewhat graphic way” of reaching teens.

In one television advertisement a teen tries to purchase cigarettes at a convenience store. When he’s told the pack costs more than he has, he uses a pair of pliers to pull out a tooth in order to pay.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign the FDA will follow 8,000 people, ages 11 to 16, for two years to assess their tobacco related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. The FDA aims to reduce the number of youth smokers by at least 300,000 in three years.

“The Real Deal” is part of the FDA’s plan to spend about $600 million over five years on campaigns aimed at reducing death and disease caused by tobacco. The bill for the campaigns are being footed by Tobacco companies through fees charged by the FDA.

Earlier this year, the Department of Justice reached a deal with tobacco companies on a campaign of “corrective statements”, in which the companies own up to hiding the dangers of smoking from consumers.

FDA launching anti-smoking campaign aimed at youth [Philly.com]

Want carrots on your Subway sandwich? How about parmesan oregano bread, sliced avocados, or blue cheese sauce? Not all Subway topping offerings are mandatory, and some offerings vary by region or even from franchisee to franchisee. Over at Brand Eating, here’s a guide to breads and toppings that you just might find at your local Subway. Or might not. [Brand Eating]

Time and time again, we hear that money is the biggest problem for married couples, and yes, the main cause of divorce. It’s a problem that starts before most couples tie the knot.

More than two-thirds of engaged couples had negative attitudes about discussing money with their soon-to-be spouse, with five percent saying even having the conversation would cause them to call off the wedding, according to a recent poll by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). And fewer than one-third thought a money conversation would be easy and productive.

Not the right attitude for financial success in a marriage, indeed.

Before you let money issues tank your wedded bliss, learn how to not suck at merging your money when you marry.

Start the conversation

Sure, it’s hard to tell the person you plan to spend your life with that you’ve got $20,000 in credit card debt, but it’s even harder to tell that kind of news to your new spouse after the wedding.

However ugly your finances, you need to get it out before the wedding bells ring.

Seriously — how can you plan for a life together if one partner isn’t being honest? And you certainly don’t want to be denied a mortgage after finding the perfect white-picket fence home because you didn’t tell your spouse about your crappy credit score.

Have a sit-down where you both share the good, the bad and the ugly. Bring credit card statements and other bills, investment account statements, pay stubs and even a copy of your credit report. (You can get that for free once a year from each of the three credit bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com, and if you find trouble with yours, start fixing it.)

Where does the money go?

You should both write a list of all your household expenses. This should include fixed expenses such as rent and car payments.

Next, write a list of your joint discretionary expenses — money you don’t have to spend but you choose to — such as eating out or a trip to the movies.

Finally, you should each write a separate list of your personal discretionary expenses — the stuff on which you spend money for your benefit alone — such as haircuts, clothes shopping trips and the like.

Who pays for what?
Many couples come into a marriage with two very different incomes. Some couples choose to divide the household expenses evenly, but you might consider splitting those expenses based on what each partner earns.

For example, say Joe earns 40% of the total household income and Mary earns 60%, perhaps she would be responsible for 60% of the rent.

Then look at your personal expenses and decide which will be paid for individually and which should be part of your joint budget.

And be fair. If you think your facials should come out of the joint budget, don’t get mad when your partner wants to use joint cash for the neighborhood poker game.

To avoid those kinds of fights, in your budget, create columns for “yours,” “mine” and “ours,” and come to an agreement on how much money you can each spend without “permission” from the other.

Who manages the money?

Decide how you’re going to pay the bills.

Some couples find success by opening a joint account into which each partner deposits their contribution to the monthly bills, while others like to keep their money completely separate.

Still others dump every penny into the community pot.

There is no right answer — you have to talk to your partner to decide what’s right for you as a couple.

With either strategy, make sure you’re clear on who is responsible for physically paying the bills so you can avoid late fees and other awfulness.

Also think about paying bills online through your bank’s web site so you can both access and monitor all the goings-on of your money.

Make long-term plans

There are three main items you need to master in your money marriage: paying off debt, starting an emergency fund and creating long-term savings plans. (Don’t forget that you may be getting a bunch of cash from wedding presents that could be used to fund any of these goals.)

1. Pay down debt: Create a plan to pay off your debts, and decide who is responsible for them. If only one spouse has owes money, decide if that spouse alone will be paying it off or if it’s a team effort. Follow some of these tips to start digging out.

2. Emergency fund: Money pros say you should have between three and six months of expenses in a liquid savings account. This is money that you shouldn’t touch unless there’s a dire financial emergency. Decide to set money aside each month — just like a regular bill — until you hit your target amount. There are several online tools available, like this BankRate.com calculator that can help you do the math.

3. Make plans for long-term savings, such as for retirement. Calculate 401(k) and IRA contributions as part of your budget, and make sure you’re both saving at least enough to take advantage of the company’s match. Also discuss other long-term goals, such as buying a house, and create a savings plan to accumulate what you’ll need for your down payment.

Other things that marriage changes

Yes, marriage may change lots of things, but we’re talking about the money-related stuff. Don’t forget to:
Change your beneficiaries on retirement accounts and insurance policies, assuming you want your spouse, and not your sibling or mom and dad, to get your stuff when you’re gone.

You’ll soon be filing your tax returns jointly, which means you may want to make some changes to your payroll withholding. Use this calculator from the IRS for some help.

Make sure to update your estate planning documents to reflect your marriage.

If you plan to change your name, make sure to do it on all your documents, credit cards, investment accounts and yes, your bank accounts, too.

Keep up the conversation

Even when you’ve taken all the steps in this post, your job isn’t done. You need to keep talking to your spouse about your finances. Pledge to have a monthly meeting to discuss the bills, and then every six months, meet to go over account statements for debt and savings so you can see your progress and make any changes you need to stay on track.

Also consider this: If you decide that one person will be in charge of the bills and the investing, be sure the other spouse knows what you have and what you owe. Should the bill payer drop dead, the other spouse will need to take over. Make it easy for non-managing spouse by starting a “When I’m Dead” file.

Have a topic you’d like to see covered in How To Not Suck? Or maybe you’re an expert who would like to share your insight with Consumerist readers? Send us a note at notsuck@consumerist.com.

You can read Karin Price Mueller’s stories for The Star-Ledger at NJ.com, follow her on Facebook, and on Twitter @kpmueller.

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Historically, our staff Certified Tax Cat has handled readers’ questions about taxes, but he took feline early retirement and hug up his oversized eyeglasses. Filling in for him is Laura’s dad, a retired accountant and real live independent tax preparer. Exclusively on Consumerist, Tax Dad answers your questions.

Our question today comes from a reader named Laura who does not work here:

I won $2400 in the Florida state lottery this year, and I also have $2400 in losing scratch offs that I want to use to help possibly offset the taxes. Can I use Turbotax, or do I need to head to H&R Block?

Congratulations on your win. The good news is that there is no Florida state tax on your winnings, since Florida has no personal income tax. And “no comment” on H&R Block.

Of course, the IRS does consider your $2,400 to be taxable income, and you will or should receive a tax statement on that. As far as deducting your gambling losses up to $2,400, the qualifier would depend on whether you can itemize your deductions on Schedule A. If so, the gambling losses would qualify as a miscellaneous deduction.

What is Schedule A? You often hear people refer to things as “tax-deductible.” This means that you can enter it on your tax form, and it will reduce the amount of your income that you have to pay taxes on by the same amount. Common expenses that people deduct include mortgage interest, student loan interest, and charitable donations.

Whether you need to document all of these items (called “deductions” in tax land) separately depends on the total of items that you would deduct. To make life simpler, the IRS has a standard deduction that applies to most people of modest means with relatively simple taxes. For tax year 2013, the standard deduction for an individual is $6,100. If you’re married or have dependents, that amount goes up.

If you have other qualifying deductions, such as mortgage interest, property taxes, or donations, the gambling losses could put you over the standard limit. The section of the your tax return that you use to list all of these deductions is called Schedule A.

And yes, TurboTax would help you with this. Access TurboTax through the IRS FreeFIle website and you can use the program and file for no cost if you earn less than $58,000. Downloadable forms that you can fill out on your computer are available for people who earn $58,000 or more, but you have to know how to file a tax return in order to use those forms.

A NOTE ABOUT E-FILING

Those of you over 30 may recall the “Good ol’ Days” of filing income tax returns, which involved sitting at the kitchen table on April 15, armed with a sharp pencil, good eraser, all the prior year’s “Important Tax Documents Enclosed” and hammering out a reasonable tax return in time to beat the midnight mailing deadline. Then came the rush to the nearest Post Office to stand in line for a pre-midnight postmark. Lower income filers had it much easier, copying their W-2 onto a short form 1040A and mailing it in. For a while, one could even call the IRS and file by phone.

All this is ending now with modern technology. IRS and many taxing states are heading toward having everyone file their returns electronically, resulting in fewer errors, faster refunds, and more consistency. With few exceptions, paid preparers must file all returns electronically, and the IRS encourages most individuals to do the same.

For the do-it-yourself filer, there are now a number of tax programs out there to choose from, ranging in price from $20 to $100, sometimes with additional fees for state returns and for electronic filing.

The IRS, however, to encourage electronic filing, now makes many of these programs available thru its E-File website, for those with income of less than $58,000. They also make available fillable forms online for people with higher incomes than that.

Many of these programs are very user-friendly: simply fill your information in the correct blanks and your federal and state taxes are electronically filed, and you can print copies for your records. You will be notified immediately of errors like wrong social security numbers, and math errors are mostly eliminated. Most state sites (those with state taxes) also allow free filing through them.

Proceed with caution, though. If you enter one of these programs through their own website instead of starting with the IRS, there may be charges involved. Some let you complete your returns for free, but charge a fee for electronic filing. Some will complete your Federal return and file it for free, but charge you for filing your state return. To avoid this, start on your state taxation department’s site: for example, here’s where you would start here in New York.

You can shop around, but also some of them do not reveal fees until after you have completed the process.

Disclaimer: The nature of free advice is that you often pretty much get what you pay for. Questions answered in the “Ask Tax Dad” column should not serve as a substitute for consulting a tax preparer, accountant, tax attorney, or certified tax cat of your very own. Tax Dad regrets that he cannot offer advice privately over e-mail.

Have a question for Tax Dad about your federal or state tax returns? Send it to us at tips@consumerist.com with “ASK TAX DAD” in the subject line. We’ll run the answers as soon as we can get him to stop Photoshopping pictures of wild grouse.