Last month I heard that the state of Missouri paid someone $6.1 million because that person was entitled to unclaimed property. Are you freaking kidding me?! I lived in Missouri for 22 years. I want a piece of this Missouri free money unclaimed property action! I did a little research and found this website where you can choose any state you've lived in and it provides the website where you can check if there is any unclaimed property waiting for you. Check if You Have Unclaimed Property Since I currently live in Texas I started my search there. Unfortunately I came up empty. That's ok

Today is Whatever Wednesday, where I decide what to write about based on what people say on Twitter and Facebook. I got a bunch of great suggestions as usual, but I really have to focus on one topic today because I think it's so important, and I'm a little pissed off about it. It came to me in a direct message from Phil Villarreal Yep, I'm talking about Personal Finance TV Personality Suze Orman's prepaid debit card - The Approved Card. Specifically I'm going to address two different topics. First, the card itself. Second, the fact that Suze Orman is putting her name all over it and defendi

Information contributed by Genworth Financial If you're thinking about buying a house, it's important to understand all the costs that are associated with paying for a home. In addition to paying the mortgage, you'll also have to pay property taxes, buy homeowner's insurance, and if you don't have a 20% down payment, you'll need private mortgage insurance, or PMI. What is PMI? When you buy a house, you either need to put 20% down (meaning you pay for 20% of the value of the home up front) or pay for private mortgage insurance. This insurance allows you to get into a home without the 20% d

I was so freaking close to getting one of my music videos on national television, along with a one-on-one interview for both me and Tag. Get ready for a story people... On Sunday, Tag and I were cleaning my apartment when I checked my phone and saw this tweet. If you don't want to click the link, it says: @kevin_is_money I am a producer with a national syndicated show in NYC. I wanted to speak to you ASAP about a show we are doing for 1/10. When I saw it, I was immediately struck by a combination of skepticism and optimism. This could be fake, or it might be real. I checked my email ne

The results are in, and after one year of racing The Hoff to $1 million dollars, I won I'm still losing by over $22,000. You might remember that my goal for 2011 was to get within $20k of The Hoff. That obviously didn't happen, but I did gain $5,499 on him. That's not a bad start. I also have a lot of things going for me this year that could have me catch up a lot more. Unfortunately, there is a huge unknown this year so I don't even have the slighted clue how to predict the race. The Hoff is getting married. From the beginning, we have decided that this is a race of household income.

How much is too much? If we're talking about St. Louis style pizza, then you can never have enough. But as much as I'd love to talk about that, I'm going to address a different topic. I read a post on Rambling Fever Money and it addresses one writer's view on the government's role in welfare and welfare recipients' rights. I will let you read the article in its entirety and then I'll give you my take on it. This was supposedly in the Waco Herald Tribune on Nov 18th, 2010 but I couldn't find a link to the original article. If anyone has a link to the original source, please let me know

I am Fat Kevin. Okay, maybe fat isn't the right word. I'm just not in shape like I used to be. My clothes still fit and everything, but I just need to, you know, tighten up a bit. I used to take off my shirt and look in the mirror before hopping in the shower with a thought such as "Now THAT is a fine looking man right there!" Today, it's more of a "That guy looks like he might have been an athlete back in the day." I'm 26, not 56. I can't be out of shape yet. And even though Tag is super sexy, she wants to tighten up a little too. So just like 114% of all Americans, we have de

I've been investing in the stock market for over four years now, and at times it's been downright ugly. The only investing strategy that makes sense to me is buy and hold. Short term investing, even for just one year, seems like a complete crap shoot to me. And since I'm not someone who likes to just wildly throw around predictions without data to support it, I've decided to track stock market gains in 2012 with a variety of different types of stock investments. At the end of 2012, we will be able to see if picking stocks really requires any skill. Every month in 2012, I am going

The first lesson in investing is “only invest in things you know”.  Sometimes it is tempting not to follow this advice as the grass always seems greener on the other side.  This mistake usually doesn't work in your favor, as you can see by my worst 2011 investment, which did not meet the criteria of “invest only in things you know”. For my 2012 picks I’ve taken a different approach.  Why not invest in companies that are involved in my life events? If I’m buying a new car, that usually means that I have done some research about the car industry as a whole, the produc

A gift card is an easy way to get someone a Christmas present. You don't know the person well enough to know exactly what they would want, but you think you know them well enough to at least pick a store they would like. Well, if you're as dumb as me then you can even get that wrong. How was I supposed to know Claire's jewelry is only for 10-year olds!? If you have a gift card right now that you wish was cash, there are a few things you can do to fix the situation. Buy Gift Cards with your Gift Cards I learned this trick from cashing in credit card rewards. I really wanted Amazon.com g