EOnline.com

In our popular Celebrity Financial Mistakes feature, we pointed out Burt Reynolds’s inglorious fiscal past, declaring bankruptcy once before:

After a red-hot career in the 1970s, Burt Reynolds bought himself a helicopter, multiple vacation homes, and a sprawling Florida ranch, but his divorce from actress Loni Anderson left him broke (though he got to keep the ranch).

Unfortunately for him, that ranch appears to be his money curse — because it’s now in foreclosure.

To make matters worse, Reynolds claims he didn’t even realize he hadn’t made a mortgage payment since September 2010, saying in a statement: “I am as surprised as everyone. I thought my career and my life could not be going better. To all of the people who have had such faith in me and stuck by me through thick and thin, thank you. I know it is not the end of the world.”

Considering that he last filed bankruptcy just 13 years ago, it seems Reynolds could use a little assistance in the money-management department — preferably from someone who’s willing to tell him that securing his financial future needs to be more than Gunsmoke and mirrors.

PerfectWeddingMag.com

If you’ve followed the conventional wisdom of making a budget to live within your means, you may think you can just kick back and reap the benefits, right? Not exactly.

There are a number of life changes that will require you to tweak or even completely redo your budget. Here are a few of the most important changes you can make to ensure your budget can adapt to major life events.

• You get a raise. You may be tempted to spend a chunk of that money on a bigger apartment or a fancy new car, but resist. If you allow your expenses to expand every time your income increases, you’re not any more secure financially than you were before the raise. Keep your monthly expenses the same, though, and your savings accounts will reap the benefits.
• You lose your job. When your paycheck evaporates, it’s time to tap into your nest egg. However, maintaining your previous lifestyle without an income is a fast way to deplete your emergency fund. What you need now is a [blank]-hit-the-fan budget. Strip down your spending to stay current on the essentials for survival (housing, utilities, food) and any debt obligations (student loans, minimum credit-card payments, and other loans) to keep your credit in good standing.
• You get married. When you legally become a two-income household, the IRS starts looking at your earnings in a new light. Sit down with your new spouse to make sure you’re paying the correct amount in taxes every payday to avoid an unhappy wedding gift from the taxman next April 15.
• You have a baby. Not a newsflash: Kids are hardly cheap. The Department of Agriculture calculates it costs $226,920 to raise a baby to adulthood. However, the early years need not be the most expensive. An infant doesn’t need dozens of toys, books, or expensive outfits (especially considering she will outgrow all of the above at record speed), and as long as it’s safe, he won’t care how much you spent on his nursery furniture. Resist the urge to splurge gratuitously on your new arrival. And here are some important other financial milestones to hit before Junior arrives.

StarPulse.com

R. Kelly is in trouble again, although at least this time it’s not a big-time felony mess.

The Associated Press reports that he hasn’t made a mortgage payment on his Chicago mansion since June 2010, leading JP Morgan Chase to initiate foreclosure proceedings against the R&B singer:

Crain’s reports the Olympia Field home’s appraised value fell 26 percent in a year, to $3.8 million in 2010. The original 1999 loan was for $3.5 million.

The principal due is more than $2.9 million.

The R&B singer’s spokesman, Allan Mayer, declined to comment about the foreclosure. But he tells The Associated Press that Kelly isn’t in financial trouble.

If his spokesman is right and R. Kelly is not in dire financial straits, that makes this foreclosure all the more disappointing.

The home’s appraised value is higher than the balance on his loan, which puts him in a better position than the millions of Americans who are underwater on their mortgages. But based on this information, it just seems like R. Kelly got tired of paying what he owed on a property that is declining in value, and that makes it an ethics issue for him to walk away.

However, he may get what’s coming to him: Illinois is a recourse state, meaning the lender can come after him to pay for the balance of what he owes. I hope he’s saving the profits from his ongoing “Love Letter” tour, because he’s going to need them.

CamilaPaulucci.Wordpress.com

A new survey just published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 50 percent of U.S. respondents faced with a hypothetical emergency couldn’t come up with $2,000 within 30 days.

That’s not encouraging, America.

While funding an emergency account can seem like a low priority compared with paying monthly expenses, having access to cash sure beats having to put medical bills, car repairs, and other sudden, life-happens charges on a credit card. Then you’re not just contending with the emergency, but struggling to pay the balance and interest in the future as well.

Just something to keep in mind the next time you waver between saving and spending. Click here for our list of five situations where even a small emergency fund could save your hide.

BusinessWeek.com

When you’re a little short and need to come up with some cash within 24 hours, what are your options? We look at the five most common scenarios and analyze which ones are better than others.

1. Sell your stuff. Start here if you have anything worth selling. Do you have old DVDs you never watch anymore? A snowboard you haven’t used in a few seasons? Paintings or photographs you could unload? Get cracking on Craigslist to generate some fast cash in a jiffy.
2. Get a payday loan. Perhaps surprisingly, a payday loan is one of the cheapest options available. A $100 short-term loan typically costs $15 and gives you two weeks to pay it back, plus it’s excluded from your credit report.
3. Visit a pawn shop. You won’t get much for your valuables but it’s another fast option. One tester for HowStuffWorks.com was offered $10 for a solid gold wedding ring, and given 30 days to pay the loan back (plus fees and interest) or else the pawn dealer could sell the ring at a markup. The risk you take is that someone will buy your valuables before you have the money to buy them back.
4. Obtain a cash advance on your credit card. Using your credit card as an ATM is one of the most expensive ways of getting cash. Advances come with an upfront fee of up to 4 percent, plus they carry  higher interest rates than other purchases. Also, there’s no grace period: Interest is assessed as soon as the money’s in your hands on not just the cash withdrawn but on the rest of the balance you carry on that card. All in all, not a great deal.
5. Write a bad check. The worst option of all: In addition to a guaranteed ding of up to $60 per check (from both your bank and the merchant who’s cashing it), you could be reported to ChexSystems, which could mean you’ll lose your checking account and be denied a new one in the future.

Jim Franco/RealSimple.com

Welcome to this week’s edition of our Tuesday Top 5, Econ4U’s weekly tips post to help you manage your money in five easy steps.

In a down economy and with so many people looking for work, job seekers should take every precaution to avoid giving employers a reason not to hire them. Make sure your application stands out in a good way by being aware of these pitfalls.

1. You don’t have a degree. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has some bad news for people who skipped out on college. According to data from July, the unemployment rate for people with only a high-school degree is 9.9 percent — nearly double that of those with bachelor’s degrees, of whom only 5 percent are unemployed. But it’s never too late to go back to school, so consider how a degree might boost your job search.
2. Your résumé is too long. You’re 25 years old and your résumé strains to fit onto two pages? Revisit every bullet point to see if it’s relevant to the position you want. If you’re including your volunteer activities and that summer you spent as a summer-camp instructor when you’re applying for a job at a law firm, it’s time to trim the fat.
3. You’re out of state. You’ve heard of buying local, but what about hiring local? Unless you boast a highly specialized set of skills or are seeking a top-of-the-food-chain position, your chances of being recruited by an out-of-state company are pretty slim. The applicant pool is so large, many companies are excluding job seekers who would require time and possibly expense reimbursement before they could come in for an interview. If you’re trying to move, consider setting up a local P.O. box that forwards to your home mail or use the address of a friend on your résumé so you don’t shortchange your application.
4. You’re unemployed. It may seem grossly unfair with 9.5 percent of the population out of work, but many employers are putting up “unemployed need not apply” signs. Some hirers report the belief that if you don’t have a job, you must have lost your last one due to performance issues — whether that’s true or not. So if you find yourself laid off, do whatever it takes to keep the income flowing so that joblessness won’t hurt you when the next opportunity comes knocking.
5. Your credit score is low. In many industries where you handle money — any job from cashier to accountant — you will be asked to submit to a credit check. And if the company doesn’t like what it sees, you won’t get the job, simple as that. The practice is perfectly legal, so when you give a potential employer permission to pull your credit history, make sure it’s in ship-shape.

If you’re unemployed at the moment, we don’t have to tell you that the situation out there is pretty grim. But you’re not alone: The Senate passed a bill last week extending unemployment benefits for people who find themselves jobless for up to 99 weeks. However, with an unemployment rate hovering around 9.5 percent, there simply are not as many jobs as people looking for work.

Whether you’re among the jobless ranks or simply want to take precautions, here are a few tips for ways to stay afloat in troubled waters.

1. Keep your credit score high. Now is not the time to limit your lending options with a bad credit score. Make every effort to pay your bills on time, and if you can’t, try to work with lenders to negotiate payment plans before the account goes to collections.
2. Sell your clutter. Sentimentality can be a financial thorn in your side if you hold on to your valuables longer than necessary. If you haven’t touched that bass guitar since college or your wedding dress is just going to yellow in the back of your closet, sell your stuff on Craigslist for instant cash.
3. Use free services to fine tune your job search. Even if you graduated from college years ago, check with your school’s career-counseling office to see if they offer free resume tweaking for alumni. And tap into the university job network, which will put you in touch with fellow alums.
4. Go back to school. If you’ve ever had an interest in continuing your education, now’s the time to pursue that advanced degree. Interest rates are at historic lows, and the new degree could give you an edge in the job market after you graduate. Just make sure you’re not taking on more debt for a degree that won’t ultimately increase your earning potential.
5. Keep in touch with your ex-employer. If you were laid off, there’s a chance that your old company could use your services on a contract basis. It may not offer benefits, but it’s still a paycheck. Even if they don’t have work for you, it’s always a good idea to keep up contact for future references.

The article follows the Pemberton family in St. Petersburg, Fla., who have stopped paying their mortgage so they can put their money to more fun use, such as trips to a casino and joyrides in an airboat:

“Instead of the house dragging us down, it’s become a life raft,” said Mr. Pemberton, who stopped paying the mortgage on their house here last summer. “It’s really been a blessing.”

Because of the glut of homes in default in Florida, foreclosure proceedings last an average of 518 days. The Pembertons have yet to be evicted — meaning they will continue to live there rent-free until the bank collects its due.

The people interviewed for the article make the case that the banks should pay the price for the naïve decision to grant them mortgages in the first place, but the justification seems to originate from an ethics-free zone.

And it’s a short-sighted game, to say the least. Once the bank gets around to completing its paperwork, not only will these borrowers lose their homes, but their FICO scores will plummet by up to 280 points. And the foreclosure will stay on their credit reports for 7 years —almost as long as a bankruptcy.

Considering what their credit history means for their future job, housing, and credit prospects, these homeowners need to reconsider whether scamming the bank is worth it in the long run.

There are hundreds of reasons that smart people put off creating an emergency fund: confidence that a job is secure, being in good health, maybe just feeling lucky. But can you guarantee that none of the following situations will ever apply to you? Probably not, so listen up and decide whether it’s worth the risk to go without.

1. Car trouble. If you backed into a fire hydrant or your timing belt snapped tomorrow, would you have the cash ready to fix your ride? Even if you lease a car (rarely a good idea to begin with), if you are over your allotted mileage when you trade your car in, you’ll need to pony up to cover the difference.
2. House maintenance. Summer is coming, and what you don’t want is to come up short when the central air dies in the middle of July. Even if you rent, having money to spare will help when it’s time to rent that U-Haul and move to another place. (At least, it’s a rare landlord who will return a deposit before the very end of the agreed-upon term.)
3. Job loss. The economy may be showing signs of recovery, but the job market is still shaky. Having a few months’ worth of expenses in the bank protects you from borrowing heavily on high-interest credit cards if you should lose your main (or only) source of income.
4. Medical care. Let’s say you have the good fortune to be in excellent health and have a health-insurance plan: You still need money on hand when medical issues arise. Ambulance rides aren’t always reimbursable, for example. And if you or your partner were to have a healthy baby while covered by a health plan, you could still get hit with out-of-pocket hospital delivery bills of more than $3,000. No insurance? Plan to pay at least triple that.
5. Peace of mind. Having a fat piggybank does wonders for letting you sleep at night. You can rest assured you’re prepared for whatever life might throw at you.

Convinced yet? Here are some ideas on how to get your fund started.

According to the ASPCA, here are some of the expenses you can look forward to during the first year of pet ownership:

And that doesn’t include regular expenses like food (average of $120 for medium-size dogs, $115 for cats), vaccinations ($235 for dogs, $160 for cats), and treats and toys ($55 for dogs, $25 for cats) — those rawhide bones and catnip mice really add up. If you can’t make it home to let your dog out at lunch, you may be paying $50 per week to hire a dog walker. And keep in mind that exotic animals like ferrets and parrots will probably incur higher vet bills, particularly for emergency care.

In all, proper care for a pet can easily top $1,000 per year. To a true animal lover, those costs may seem like a bargain compared with what you get in return. But particularly for families where cash is tight, waiting to get a pet until your financial situation improves may be the best thing you can do.

Not sure if you can swing it? Fill out this pet-ownership worksheet by ValueYourMoney.org.