Picking out your cell phone is like being torn between best friends—there’s the rock groupie who attends every concert, the overachiever prepping for grad school, and the one plugged into Facebook at all times. Cell phones have personalities which match different features and perks, but the trick to picking the right phone is figuring out what fits your needs and lifestyle. These are my top 5 picks for back-to-school shopping 2009, and with cell phones this great, you’ll want to tote your little buddy in your backpack everywhere you go.

For the text-messaging junkie texting during lecture

The LG enV Touch perfects text-messaging convenience and style with a spacious, easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard, a dedicated text-messaging button, a Favorites keyboard button for favorite contacts, and two brilliant touch-screen displays. High-end features like the added 3-inch touch-screen on the front upgrades the enV Touch with a sleeker design than its Voyager and enV3 predecessors. You definitely won’t be disappointed with the integration of touch-screen interface and flip-open full keyboard that will hold your attention way longer than that last text message conversation.

For the aspiring Mr./Mrs. Trump with a Business degree

The RIM Blackberry Curve 8900 Smartphone is a necessity for the grad school wannabe who needs fancy multi-tasking capabilities so they can edit their resume and schedule their week all while recording notes for class. With its full, improved HTML web browser, Wi-Fi network with UMA support , built-in GPS, the thinnest full QWERTY Blackberry keyboard yet, more downloadable productivity tools and applications, and a thinner, light-weight design, the newest Blackberry definitely delivers. The new UMA support allows for free calling within the Wi-Fi network. This phone’s balance of work and play will help you transition seamlessly from student to mobile professional.

For the music junkie at every campus concert

Sony Ericsson W760a is the multimedia lover’s dream with some of the best music and gaming features of any phone on the market.
Highlights include TrackID to record and identify unknown songs, Shake control to change tunes, gaming functions that include tilt control motion sensor, Media Go entertainment organizer that drags and drops media between PC and phone, Walkman quality tuner and sound, SensMe playlists created according to your mood, and picture blogging capabilities direct from your phone.
Add in the MegaBass stereos right on the face of the phone, and you have a virtual concert tucked away in your backpack.

For the one with the latest, high-tech gadgets in his dorm

Sony Ericcson Cyber-Shot C905 blows other camera phones out of the water with an extraordinary 8.1 megapixel Cyber-Shot camera poised on the other side of the phone. It has shares lots of smart features with the Sony Cyber-Shot camera including four different resolution settings, face detection, Smart Contrast, Photo Fix, and GPS tagging, plus a 160 MB internal memory and a memory stick slot to add up to 16 GB to your picture capacity. With a camera this killer on your phone, you might find yourself spending more time taking snapshots then making calls.

For the Trust Fund baby/Ivy League School student

The Samsung Memoir is ridiculously expensive, tricked out with top-of-the-line features, and the most uber-luxurious toy a student could ever need. If you’re looking to splurge, this would be it. The near $600 price tag comes with a high-res 8 MP camera with 16x zoom and Xenon flash, perfected TouchWiz interface with customizable drag-and-drop widgets and easy navigation, strong multimedia capabilities, HTML browser, and a virtual touch-screen QWERTY keyboard.
It’s main focus is the feature-rich camera and its solid construction. If you are willing to spend on it, you might find yourself eating Mac&Cheese for a few months, but you’ll be styling with a really sweet phone.

Cool Phone Disclaimer:

If you are signing up for a standard two year contract with a wireless carrier, your credit score may be checked and bad credit could stand in the way of you and your perfect mobile companion. A poor credit score might not stop you from texting, but it may mean you have to pay full price for your phone instead of a promotional price. Also, the carrier may require you to sign you up for a prepaid calling plan if they find too much bad static on your credit report and score. Here is yet another significant reason to keep your credit health in check: it might just cost you a really cool cell phone.

Good karma is in you and your wallet’s future with three standout credit card programs that turn your spending power into the power to give back. Whether it’s a green cause, a cause of your very own, or the fight against breast cancer, check out these credit cards and maybe you too can send good karma out into the world through your everyday spending.

While other credit cards continue to churn out cash back bonuses, travel miles, or reward points, these three cards caught my eye and my heart by offering consumers a chance to do good for a world beyond the shopping mall.

Good for the environment, good for your wallet

Help protect Mother Earth by shredding the not-so-eco-friendly credit cards you usually us to charge for purchases and start shopping with a biodegradable credit card from Discover. Jumping into the green movement with the first environmentally-conscious card of its kind, Discover provides consumers a bio-degradable card design that can be used with any Discover credit card. 99% of the special PVC material in the card’s plastic will breakdown in five years in landfill conditions, and if the trend catches on, will start to prevent the millions of discarded credit cards Americans go through a year from leaving a toxic effect on the environment. Do your part to save our environment and start charging for a greener tomorrow today.

Turning credit charges into fundraising

Raise money for your neighborhood Little League Team, your local Red Cross, or maybe your very own non-profit with the Capital One Card Lab Connect program. By using the program to support the cause you believe, your Capital One credit card becomes a convenient way to donate to the nonprofit or public organization of your choice anytime you shop. It works like this: nonprofits register for Card Lab Connect online, design credit cards unique to their organization, and then encourage their supporters to apply for their Capital One credit card; as a supporter of their organization, you simply sign up and open the nonprofit’s specific Capital One credit card, and 1% of all your net purchases, plus an additional $25 with the first purchase, will go directly to support your nonprofit. Capital One’s Card Lab Connect is the first to cater to nonprofit and public organizations of all sizes, from your living room book club to national nonprofit giants.

Bank of America has consumers seeing Pink in every purchase

Whether it’s using your credit or debit card, making purchases on Pink makes money to support Komen for the Cure. With every new pink ribbon-themed credit card, check card, or checking account opened, Bank of America will make a donation towards the fight against breast cancer. Bank of America has already pledged to donate more than $2 million to Komen for the Cure by the year 2011, and you can add-in your two cents by spending to promote breast cancer awareness and prevention. Think Pink and make every dollar you spend help bring us one step closer to saving countless of lives.

These three programs are the tip of the ever-growing iceberg in how credit card companies are finding value in helping cardholders do something more meaningful with their consumer power. Companies are beginning to see that going the extra mile to do a good deed is good for business, good for environment, and good for consumers. For consumers, those of us who did not think we have the time or resources to regularly support something we believe in now have an easy, no-hassle way of fitting charitable donations into our everyday lives. Cheers to putting a little bit of heart and a whole lot of warm, fuzzy feelings back into our plastic world.

If you are trying to get your credit score fixed as quickly as possible, there are a few techniques that you can use that will dramatically impact it in very little time. These methods will work best for those that have a low score, but many will also impact a medium to high score as well. Before you get started it is a good idea to set up a credit score monitoring service so that you can watch your progress.

Step One – Get rid of any collections you may have accumulated.

This is generally the biggest problem with low credit scores. You’ll need to determine whether or not the collections account is accurate and then take steps to fix it. If it is inaccurate, you can file a dispute with the three main credit reporting agencies to have it removed. If it is a valid collection, you’ll need to send the company a letter requesting a Pay for Delete.

You need to take this initial step for one very important reason. A collections agency doesn’t have to remove the record from your report. They can mark it as paid, but it will still be sitting there, dragging your score down. You need to work out a definite plan with them to get it removed before you pay them. Once you have their agreement that they will remove the record from your report in exchange for payment, then you can send them a check. Click here to read more

The other day I was talking to a friend in the loan/credit department of the credit union that so graciously pays my salary and the topic of conversation turned to a member who had applied for our best fixed-rate credit card. He had a strong enough credit score and made plenty of money but he was denied. Why? Lack of overall credit history. And here I thought all you needed was a good score to get a credit card. So I added that to my running list of credit score myths, which includes the following five…

1. There is only one credit score out there

Wrongamundo.There are three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, each with multiple scoring models, including FICO and others. Also, all three bureaus may not receive exactly the same data in you credit report-the number of accounts you have open, the current balance of those accounts, whether or not you’ve defaulted on any of the terms and conditions of those accounts, and so on. So in all actuality there are lots of different scores out there, although all of them will be highly correlated.

2. Checking your score will make it lower

Negative, ghost-rider. You can check your credit score all you want; it won’t do a darn thing to it. And you know those pre-approval notices you get for credit cards and auto loans every now and again? Those won’t affect your score either, despite the fact that the lender is obviously pinging your score to se if you qualify. If that type of action did affect scores we’d have a whole lot of angry callers at the credit union.

3. Your income can change your score

Bzzzz, sorry, but thanks for playing. You could go from making 10 bucks an hour to a bazillion dollars a year (a number so high it doesn’t even exist) and it won’t affect your score. Of course, having a bunch of money will likely make it easier to qualify for certain loans and pay them on time, hence allowing you to build credit you might not have otherwise received, but on a very basic level your income does nothing to your credit score.

4. Shopping for a loan will hurt your score

If this were a math problem, you’d get partial credit. It’s not a good idea to shop around for several different types of loans at a time because that says to the credit bureaus, “Mr. Smith (that’s you) is frantically looking for money wherever he can get it, something must be wrong!” But let’s say you are looking for a home loan and you apply at four different banks within a 14-day period. That would only be considered a single inquiry on your credit report and your score will not be affected. Beware of applying for too many credit cards at one time, however, as those do not fit into the 14-day rule and will all be counted as separate inquiries.

5. Closing some accounts will improve your score

For the love of no and all that is wrongy (I’m totally reaching on that one), please don’t go closing out accounts because you think it will help your score. It might end up doing just the opposite for two main reasons:

One, your total credit limit vs. your total debt. For example, if you have three credit cards with $5,000 limits each and you carry a total balance of $4,000 on two of them, you’re using approximately 27% of your total credit. Close the card with no balance and you’re down to a limit of $10,000 with the same $4,000 outstanding, meaning you’re now using 40% of your available credit. That may lower your score.

The other possible problem would occur if that card you closed was the oldest form of credit you had, because then your credit history would appear shorter and that too could negatively affect your score.

So hopefully this list has cleared up a few of the misconceptions you may have had about credit scores. I too used to think several of them true just because someone, somewhere, had been given the wrong information and was passing it along. Glad I’m now able to pass on the right information to you instead.

As I said in my introductory post, the trick to getting the most from your bank or credit union is to take advantage of the financial system. But sometimes it feels like it’s the financial system that’s taking advantage of us; mainly in the way of ever-increasing fees.

You’ve got your fees for overdraft protection, fees for using an ATM that doesn’t have your bank’s name on it, fees for going under your minimum balance or over your allotted number of withdrawals each month… the list is seemingly endless. And especially in this time of financial woe, when people are defaulting on loans left and right, you can be sure most banks are looking to squeeze whatever they can out of you.

So here are a few simple ways to avoid paying fees:

1. First off, you need to grab a “fee disclosure” from your bank or CU, which they should have at any branch. This will list out absolutely every fee they can stick you with. Once you know what to watch out for you will be much better equipped to sidestep those fees. This will also help you pick the right checking, savings, or credit card account based on your spending and savings habits; no need to get hit with low balance fees or to choose an account that doesn’t give you enough withdrawals each month.
2. Join up with a financial institution that has ATMs near your house or office and don’t be afraid to take your money elsewhere if you move. If you don’t use your own bank’s ATMs, fees are typically around $2 at the ATM and then your bank will stick you with another charge of around $2. That’s $4 to take your own money out! Obviously the major banks have a good amount of machines in bigger cities, but ATMs are one place you might not have seen the little credit unions coming—most CUs are part of a network of ATMs that will not charge you a fee. The CU CO-OP Network, for example, gives you access to over 25,000 ATMs in the US, including other credit union’s ATMs and those you’ll find at all 7-Eleven and Costco stores. Either way, if you do have to use a machine that charges you a fee, take out a little more cash than you might need at that moment, because paying $4 for $100 rather than for $40 will at least keep you from having to go back to that ATM as much in the future. Getting cash back at the supermarket is always an option too.
3. Avoid overdrafting your account or, worse, getting slammed by a non-sufficient funds fee (NSF). This one just takes paying attention on your part (or not spending money you don’t have, but no one needs to tell you that). A great new feature of most banks’ online banking system is that you can sign up for account alerts, which will be delivered to you via e-mail or even text message. You can set the alerts up to warn you when you balance gets to a certain minimum level, saving yourself a lot of hassle and a lot of money in fees.
4. Get to know the people at your branch. Seriously. Because if you do get hit with a big fee, like an overdraft fee or a late payment on a credit card, often if you talk to a real, live person (and you don’t have a history of account abuse) you’ll be able to get your fee waived or at least reduced. In this age of doing everything online there is still something to be said for the personal touch.

Trust me, this fee trend in banking isn’t going anywhere and it’s not even exclusive to the financial industry. It’s happening among a lot of service-based organizations that have hit hard times. Just look at the airline industry. Now you have to pay a fee to have a decent snack!

We get asked this question quite often. Technically, it can change any point your credit report changes. Any of the following can trigger a credit score change:

1. Missing a Payment
2. Applying for a New Loan or Credit Card
3. Changing Your Available Credit
4. Defaulting on a Loan or Charging Off
5. Bankruptcy
6. The List Goes On……

But some people have asked why their score has not changed in months. Well, my score hasn’t changed since we launched the service in Feb, 2008 until just this week. As background:

* I have a mortgage
* I don’t carry any balance on my credit cards
* I’ve had a good payment history for over 15 years
* I don’t apply for credit often

A few days ago, I decided to apply for one of the Gas credit cards I wrote about. I then updated my credit score the next day. My score dropped 6 points from the inquiry. I’m sure it will change again when the credit card provider reports my credit line and utilization to the bureaus. I suspect it will jump back up since I won’t carry a balance and it will increase my total available credit.

I’m writing this to let users know that your score shouldn’t be constantly changing if you are stable with your finances and credit. I’ve had the same score for over 3 months so don’t be concerned if your score isn’t jumping around. Part of the service is built to instill a sense of comfort and familiarity with your score.

I presented at Finovate on April 29th. After the presentation, we had lots of great feedback about Credit Karma. Aside from the truly free credit score, attendees really liked how we made our offers transparent.

In case you haven’t seen one of our offers, we share several metrics based on how members view the various offers (for better or worse).

User Voting - The percent of users who voted that this is a good offer.

Exclusivity -Based on how many members are eligible for the offer. Higher exclusivity means fewer people are eligible.

Take Rate - Ranked against all offers, this measures the relative percentile of members who apply for an offer.

The common thread of all the metrics is that we hope the Credit Karma community will help others decide the good / bad offers. We don’t want to suggest what you should like, we want users like you to suggest what is interesting and what is not.

We are big fans of transparency. More sites are moving in this direction and we want to be supporters of the movement. We plan on adding more features along these lines. For now please continue to vote and add comments so we can all share our experiences and knowledge.

Let us know if you like the concept.