Skeptics Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [personal-finance]

Personal finance is the financial management which an individual or a family unit is required to do to obtain, budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events.

Wikipedia defines Personal Finance as:

the financial management which an individual or a family unit is required to do to obtain, budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events.

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Are criminals wandering around with contactless POS sale terminals helping themselves to small amounts from people's RFID credit/debit cards?

There is quite a lot of good coverage on Skeptics already of the security of RFID and contactless credit/debit cards, but it mainly focusses on card cloning and identity protection/privacy/tracking issues. However another issue which you see a…
timday
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Is $77/week the weekly budget for a minimum wage worker?

This is based on this question on Politics.SE. There's currently a "Live the Wage Challenge" which a former governor and several congresspeople are publicly doing (abcnews, politico). The challenge claims on their official site that out of the…
Bobson
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Is penis size correlated with size or expense of vehicle purchased?

There is a common joke/insinuation that those with a small penis are likely to buy either larger or more expensive vehicles to 'compensate' for their small penis. Have any studies demonstrated such a correlation actually occurring?
dsollen
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Does money correlate with happiness at a certain level?

I read various claims, but this HowStuffWorks article seems the most representative (bolding is all mine): The one place that money and happiness are significantly linked is when a person is unable to afford to meet their basic needs. There is…
Jesvin Jose
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Is the Chinese “Sesame Credit” system a government propaganda tool?

The Sesame Credit system recently announced in China is making the rounds on social media, being touted as a tool of gamified government thought control. For example, this privateinternetaccess.com's article begins with the bold statement: China…
Anko - inactive in protest
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Has the snowball approach to debt repayment been shown to have any advantages?

The snowball approach to debt repayment involves paying down the smallest debt first, followed by the next smallest, and so forth. If one were instead able to and follow through with paying down debt in order of highest to lowest interest rate,…
spoderman
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Does being rich increase unethical behavior?

I saw this video on upworthy.com which is based on the study Higher social class predicts unethical behavior from Berkeley university. It basically argues, that being rich makes people behave more unethically. The study is a review article of seven…
LeoR
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Do over 80% of day traders lose money?

I've heard multiple times that the vast majority of day traders, sometimes given as "over 99%", lose money. What's a realistic number? For specificity, use a one year time-frame. For example, here are references to two such claims: Do Individual Day…
ike
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Did Paul Orberson make $1,000,000/month for 44 months?

I was pitched a multi-level marketing scheme a couple years ago and have been fascinated ever since (as in, the mathematics and how to protect others, not as in a participant). This particular one is called Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM). In…
Hendy
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Did 8 out of 10 millionaires make their fortune in real-estate?

According to a Martin Thomson article at zeromillion.com: 8/10 millionaires surveyed found their wealth in Real Estate. I can't find a reliable source for that statistic.
Dale
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Payday loan interest rates - not representative?

On adverts for payday loan deals (UK), the representative APR is always displayed in small print, by law. I always feel as though these loans, with their x-thousand % interest rates are ripping off those most in need. However, I have stumbled across…
AnthonyBlake
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Did Elon Musk pay more in taxes than every politician in the world combined?

A tweet claims Elon Musk paid more in tax than every politician on earth combined: Which, if correct, is extraordinary. So, did he?
stevec
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How does this Craigslist scam work?

(Apologies if this is off-topic; per Are questions about pyramid schemes and other scams off-topic?, it seems that some questions about financial scams are on-topic for this site, but this may be too far afield.) I've recently become aware of a…
mweiss
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Is cost the #1 reason why Americans fail to take their medications as prescribed?

https://www.goodrx.com/how-goodrx-works (mirror) claims that: The #1 reason Americans don't take their medications as prescribed: cost. Is that true?
Franck Dernoncourt
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Did Money Magazine say 78% of people have major negative financial event per decade?

Dave Ramsey says that: Money magazine states that 78% of us will have a major negative financial event in any given 10-year period The only other source that I can find for this online seems to have the same wording which makes me think that it's…
David
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