Many of us have received and probably spent our stimulus checks long ago but some are still waiting. There was a mix-up with about 260,000 married couple's checks. Apparently, some names and social security numbers were not matching up on the 2007-tax returns. The reason for this is that some newlyweds forgot to register their new names with the Social Security Administration.

When the glitch was discovered, the IRS began making efforts to make amends. Rest assured recently married couples! The IRS will be mailing letters explaining what happened (in mid-October), and you should expect your check two weeks after receipt of the letter. And this might be just the time you could use it!

The federal bailout plan signed by President Bush today is a huge, complex law. That's an understatement. But one of the parts that affects you and is easy to understand is that FDIC insurance for now covers bank accounts up to $250,000 - as opposed to the old number that's been around forever of $100,000.

Here is an excerpt from a CNN article:

The bill temporarily raises the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000 from $100,000. The bill allows the FDIC to borrow from the Treasury to cover any losses that might occur as a result of the higher insurance limit.

Federal bank regulators, who first floated the idea to Congress late Tuesday, said that bumping up the insurance limits would help improve liquidity at banks across the country. It may also provide a much-needed dose of confidence for consumers who may be worried about the health of their bank.

The bill will also temporarily increase the level of federal insurance for credit union savings to $250,000.

This a temporary measure intended in part to help consumer confidence in the banking system during the financial hard times.

With the crisis in the nation's financial industry, lenders are getting much more stingy with extending credit to applicants. One thing you'll probably see: a higher credit score is now needed to qualify for the best deals, interests rates, etc. The consensus among lenders, credit card companies and others seems to now be:

Credit score of:
720-850       Very good
620-720       Good
620 or less   Bad (subprime)

These numbers are about 20-40 points higher than they used to be. In other words, in the past if you had a credit score of 620, you were considered "good." Now, that would put you in the "subprime" category, which means a lot of lenders would either turn you down or give you less favorable terms for your credit.

Here's a game - what do these topics have in common?

Car payments; mortgages; student loans; putting food on the table; gas prices; bank failures; government buy-out plans.

If you guessed, "things that make me nervous," you are not only correct, but you also have plenty of company. Recently, it seems like chats at the water-cooler quickly turn into common stories on how the current economy affects everyone. Gone are the days of talking about the latest television shows featuring glamorous lives we'd like to emulate. Life, it seems, is pretty far from an episode of "The Hills." These days, conversations focus more on keeping our money safe.

So, with things as they are, you should be thinking, if my bank fails, what happens to my money? As a general rule, if you have a checking, savings or NOW account at an FDIC-insured bank, your money is covered for up to $100,000. The value might increase if you have multiple-deposit accounts, or joint accounts. Many credit unions - insured by NCUSIF - cover accounts up to $100,000.

Non-deposit accounts, such as stocks, mutual funds and life-insurance policies are not covered by insurance.

You can check to see how much your bank accounts are insured with this calculator. It will not calculate for credit union insurance.

It's fall, which means many homeowners are scrambling to make improvements to their abodes before winter hits. Many of you know the stress and the pressure that comes with home-remodeling. Every year home repair fraud is a top consumer complaint that the AGO receives.

Questions are key in the process of choosing a home repair contractor -- How do I know if I am overpaying? Is the contractor trustworthy? Is he/she licensed? Is the contractor completing the project my specifications?

Education is also necessary to avoid a shady contractor.

With so much of your hard-earned money invested in your home, you do not want to risk losing it by not seeing the signs of a scam.

In addition, there are tips given on the AGO site.

State agencies around the country keep track of unclaimed property belonging to residents of their states - and they try to reach out and notify people of the possessions they're due. In Missouri, that's handled by the State Treasurer. There is no charge for consumers to recover their property.

There are also companies out there that advertise aggressively that they can find your money for you - and of course they charge you a fee. Sometimes they exaggerate the amount of money awaiting you. Some of these companies are legitimate and must be registered with the State Treasurer. Others are outright scams.

Your best bet is to check the online database or call the State Treasurer's office in Missouri. Consumers can also search nationally at missingmoney.com, a Web site run by the official government agencies in about 40 states.

Although we've been able to freeze our credit for almost a year, Missouri now has a law that makes it official. Until now, credit bureaus had voluntarily allowed us to do this. With the new law, they are required to provide this service.

Here is some background on the security freeze and why it's the most powerful tool for preventing identity theft. It costs $5 per credit bureau to freeze your credit.

The Federal Reserve Bank has some nice online resources that could help anyone facing foreclosure. Advice about talking to your lender, links to registered debt counselors, managing your credit, etc.

You may have seen signs in a store that say you have to spend at least a certain amount of money (say $10 or $15) to use your credit card. There's no law against that, but it does violate Visa and Mastercard rules. They forbid stores from doing that.

Visa and Mastercard also forbid stores from charging a higher price to customers who use credit cards instead of cash. So how can gas stations get away with charging more for credit than cash? It's a technicality: Visa and Mastercard both allow a discount for cash. (See the Mastercard link above.) In other words, you can lower your price for cash transactions, you just can't raise it for credit transactions. Clever, eh?

Another interesting tidbit: Despite the prevalence of identity theft, these credit card companies also forbid stores from requiring a customer to show photo I.D. (see page 29 of this link for Visa, section 5-7 of this link for Mastercard)

So for those of you who write "ask for ID" on the back of your card, this technically should not protect you. If a thief gets your card and uses it, that "ask for ID" won't do any good because the store can't insist on it. Also, as we've written before, Visa and Mastercard both say a card is not valid if the back is not signed.

If you're wondering about American Express, it basically says merchants need to treat it the same way as other cards. So if a store accepts Visa and Mastercard, they can't require minimum purchases or fees for using AMEX, because that would discourage customers from using that card.

Have you noticed fewer pre-approved credit card offers arriving in the mail? You're not imagining it. A nationwide study says these offers are down almost 20% in the last year because of the trouble with the banking economy. Banks are raising their lending standards, so credit is less available than it used to be.

And according to this study, the population seeing the biggest decrease in credit offers are those with low income and / or bad credit.

By the way, if you haven't opted out of these offers altogether, we recommend you do. Here's the link. Do it to reduce the nuisance, but also to reduce risk of identity theft.

BTW, you'll notice a couple of interesting points in the press release:

1. Even with the decrease, the industry still sent out a billion credit offers in the 2nd quarter of 2008.
2. Direct mail is the #1 way credit card companies attract new customers. So you wonder why they send out so many? Because it works.

Con artists running phishing scams will use just about any ploy to get people to give up their personal information over the Internet or the phone. Often times they take advantage of a story in the news, like the IRS rebate checks.

It stands to reason that we might see these scams disguised as voter registration drives. In Missouri, you have until October 7th to register to vote, and consumers should not give their personal information to anyone who calls or e-mails offering to get them registered. This could lead to identity theft.

Also, the Missouri voter registration form only requires the last four digits of your Social Security number. So our advice is to go to your county clerk's office and register on site.

It's important to note that when you're giving money to a charity or non-profit group, you can't necessarily deduct that contribution from your income taxes. The biggest category of tax deductible charities are ones designated 501(c)(3) by the IRS. There are some deductible charities that don't fall into that category, and your tax professional can help you make that determination.

You can use the Better Business Bureau's site, give.org, to look up a charity and determine if it's 501(c)(3). Enter the charity's name in the search box, hit Search, then scroll down to the section that says Tax Status.

You can also look at a charity's finances using our Check a Charity site - this tells you how much of your donation goes to the actual programs versus administrative costs like salaries, fundraising, office costs, etc.

Finally, be sure to check out our best advice on how to give wisely to a charity.

In Missouri we've had the ability to freeze our credit for almost a year now, but all three credit bureaus required it be done by certified mail - not phone or Internet. Now that's changing. TransUnion, Experian and Equifax are now offering this service online. Furthermore, for the time being TransUnion is offering the service for free. Freezing your credit is an excellent way to prevent identity theft.

The price was $10, but Missouri law as of August 28th will cap that fee at $5.

You can read about changes made to Missouri law here.

This blog post has links to the security freeze pages at all three credit bureaus.

PS: TransUnion also deserved credit last fall for being the first to offer the security freeze nationwide, even though some states like Missouri didn't require them to offer it.

We have blogged here and here about how consumers are winning battles against wireless companies and their fees for early termination of contracts. Now a California judge has added what looks like a massive defeat to Sprint, which has a couple of weeks to respond.

Here is a blog post on a cool way to get out of those fees for early cancellation.

You might be surprised at the answer. In most cases, it's going to take you a long time to see any savings.

Here is a calculator that can help you decide if buying a vehicle with better gas mileage would actually save you money. I tried it with my car. I went from a car that gets 22 mpg to one (I just made this up) that gets 32 mpg. It said it would take me more than 6 years to recoup my additional investment!

And mine was a modest investment. I figured I'd buy something used that would only cost me $4,000 after trade in.